This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
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Shaming.
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Notes -
The War on Kiwi Farms: The Kiwis Fight Back
I'm sure everyone here knows of the controversial site Kiwi Farms, which has been endlessly accused of facilitating online harassment, and endlessly deplatformed. The site's defense has always been that it doesn't do that, the content is completely legal in the United States, and it's just a neutral observer, and with very limited exceptions (namely protecting Chris Chan until 2021, and interfering with zoosadists), I've found that to largely be the case. But I always wondered if this attitude left them vulnerable to just being attacked endlessly like this. Like, if bad actors know that this site won't actually fight back in any way, wouldn't you expect that they would just relentlessly attack it, since they're more-or-less free to do it?
Well, recently, they've actually started doing it. They're using the tactics that have been most effective in deplatforming them, and turning it on others. Namely, filing abuse complaints with upstreams and accusing sites of violating their AUP (which stands for Acceptable Use Policy). Their first target, thematically enough for an anti-trans site, is DIY HRT, as in HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy) that isn't dispensed directly from a licensed pharmacy, often homemade and imported in to the country from shady international sources.
DIY HRT sites exist in a very legal gray area, because they more-or-less undeniably facilitate the sale of unlicensed pharmaceuticals. There have been credible reports of the drugs being manufactured in really unsafe and unclean conditions, leading to issues like clearly visible human hair in a vial that's meant to be injected into your bloodstream. Furthermore, the demographic they serve raises child welfare concerns - children are the demographic most likely to be unable to access legal HRT and/or want to keep their HRT on the down low from others - and some of the marketing/labeling on the items is quite blatant (in one case, text reads "Keep away from parents" and the image is of a childlike figure). Naturally, these are the reasons Kiwi Farms uses to file abuse complaints with upstreams. And they're doing it quite openly - there's a public thread on the site where they coordinate and give information on filing abuse complaints. So has it worked?
Looking at the DIY HRT wiki, they list several DIY HRT sites that have been taken down by complaints, so certainly looks like it has. It's gotten to the point that I had to look through an archive of the DIY HRT wiki, because I couldn't connect to the live site. The irony is that, just like Kiwi Farms themselves, the sites haven't actually been taken down for good - they just hop to another web host, domain registrar, email provider, and they're back in business. And the biggest irony of all is that the DIY HRT camp don't have any recourse for this. On their subreddit, one person asks "What is stopping doing the same to KF?" and the answer is "It has been done to KF already." What are they going to do exactly, attempt to take down a site that has spent years hardening itself against being taken down? One is reminded of the Chinese parable where the penalty for being late is death. They can't be more mean to Kiwi Farms, because trans activists have already spent years being as maximally mean as possible to Kiwi Farms, kicking them out of almost every single web host and domain registrar in the world, and all that has resulted in is a horde of people pissed off that their site is being taken down by trans activism, now radicalized against the trans movement. They've been put in a situation where they can either lose, or lose but also take down others with them, and in that respect I don't blame them for finally, finally, starting to fight back.
My favorite part of the KF saga is how poorly it is going for the deplatformers. They can't even get rid of one guy who doesn't have a lot of money and has been banned from virtually everything that matters. And that's despite fawning mainstream coverage and years of unprecedented behind-the-scenes efforts, all the way up to getting Tier 1 ISPs involved.
Almost could make one a bit more optimistic about the future of the Internet.
My favourite part is that every few days, a tranny on twitter will say something about how "we got rid of Kiwi Farms" only to be corrected that no, they didn't, it's still there, still documenting insanity, and more hardened than ever.
Sigh. It seems it was inevitable that I'd have to get around to doing the unpleasant part of being a mod at some point, namely enforcing the rules and using my discretion in ambiguous situations. But I did sign up for it.
Please consider this a request, and a mild warning, not to speak this way.
So far, your comment has received 3 reports for being antagonistic, which it clearly seems to be to me. To an extent, antagonism is a forgivable sin, and I certainly plead guilty to being less than maximally polite on occasion.
However, what does draw my attention is that this, to me, represents an example of "waging the Culture War". There's no strict line in the sand here, the people discussing CW in the CW thread are almost always at least modest opinionated on the matter, and advocacy for one's beliefs is in no way disbarred.
I don't even particularly care that you call them trannies, I'm not one to police vocabulary where the word is entirely synonymous with more polite equivalents, even if it's pejorative. If someone insisted on calling Jews "Blood-drinking vampires", then I'd consider that to be an obvious infraction. Some of the other mods may well disagree, but I'm only me, and I have a degree of leeway here.
It might surprise you to learn that I happen to largely agree with you. I consider transgenderism, if not an outright mental illness in the strictest sense, to be highly comorbid with it. I wouldn't balk at calling many of them insane like you did. I have a soft spot for Kiwi Farms, Rdrama and the other untamed corners of the internet, and I'm glad they live to fight another day in an increasingly homogenous internet where the edges are sanded down and a relatively small but vocal minority tyrannizes the rest of us and slides the French Overton Window as fast as the rails allow.
That being said, I would prefer you be less antagonistic. You are allowed to be happy that attempts to deplatform a site that makes fun of transgender people backfire. You may enjoy schadenfreude. You may, assuming the rest of your comment doesn't continue to not contribute to the atmosphere/culture we seek to cultivate here, also call people trannies (or at least I won't mod you for that reason alone).
But the gestalt impression conveyed by your comment? Bad. Not conducive to the (ideal) spirit of even-tempered discussion of contentious topics. The problem with culture war fervor, schadenfreude, and pithy pejorative labels for the outgroup is that they tend to crowd out everything else, or at least foster a negative spiral if left unaddressed that leads to everyone else doing the same, and those looking for more polite and high quality debate crinkling their nose and leaving. We aren't rdrama, this is what we are trying to avoid here, and by including all three and not much else, this comment is not helping.
I'll leave it at that, it would take a trivial restatement of your comment to make it slip under the high threshold I hold for formal mod action, if not a reprimand. If you wish to consider this an attempt at censorship (and how can mod action not be?), then it's of tone and not content.
I think you're looking a little too hard into something that was only really supposed to be a light-hearted and conversational addition about how even the instigators' allies have no idea how badly it's actually going, personally.
But okay.
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Wow, I hope that when I finally snap and refer to some right-wing posters as nazis or w/e, I get such a measured and restrained response from the mods.
It's funny you should say that, Darwin (did I guess right?). A comment made by you ended up in the mod queue, and I elected to ignore it, and when I checked again, it was gone, indicating another mod has dismissed it. As I've elaborated upon above, I did find it antagonistic and uncharitable to your opponents, but within the limit of what I'm willing to tolerate without comment, at least once in a while.
You happen to have the dubious distinction of being so frequently downvoted that I and the other mods usually need to manually approve your comments, as I did for this one.
I am also aware, from reputation, if not personal interaction with you, that you have a tendency to toe the line and make comments that just barely avoid the point where we need to take mod action. That was the case from well before we move offsite. As our moderation guidelines make clear, we have the discretion of taking action even if no individual aspect of a comment is obviously bad, if the total is, especially when it's representative of a wider pattern.
Thus, you can interpret our/my seeming inaction as a form of action in itself. Try not to flame out or resort to name-calling, if you can avoid it, but until then I am more of a cautious observer. As usual, it is far superior to report antagonistic comments than to join the fun, though we definitely make allowances for provocation.
Yeah, confirmed that a few weeks back.
I'm more aware than anyone how frequently downvoted my comments are, and perhaps uniquely have the perspective to see that the number of downvotes is not very correlated with quality, effort, antagonism, or etc. I'm not surprised if there are correspondingly many reports.
I'm also aware of the 'reputation' (I find it intensely weird that strangers have strong opinions about me and try to stalk me across a decade of posts, I have no interest in being a 'personality' and just want to talk about ideas exclusively, but c'est la vie)
Whatever people believe, I don't try to toe any lines as any kind of game, that sounds incredibly boring. And I don't try to be any more antagonistic than the average poster here talking about wokies or BLM or trans or whatever; it always seems to me like this forum accepts pretty antagonistic stances as long as the targets are correct, and applies a lot more scrutiny if the table gets flipped. Which, again, I'm not even trying to make a game out of 'turnabout is fair play' or w/e, I'm a bad-at-reading-socialcues person trying to tone-match the attitude of the room and constantly surprised when people get mad about it.
Anyway, if you do see reported posts form me that you find ' antagonistic and uncharitable to your opponents, but within the limit of what I'm willing to tolerate', I would love to get a similar 'request and mild warning' and detailed explanation like you did for Astra here. That would help me a lot to understand what people are reacting to and expecting, before it blows up into something more serious.
Darwin. You're back! Good to have you!
Thanks!
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I disagree that quality doesn't correspond with upvotes. Both from personal experience, and looking around at what gets upvoted in general.
The mods don't control the users, anyone can upvote and downvote as they please, and we're not like Reddit where you can get into trouble for upvoting Crimethink. But in terms of our own behavior, I do not see any significant or notable bias in what gets through or is condoned by the mods, and my existence as a humble user has been far longer than my odd week as a mod. We also make allowances for a good regular user who has an off-day, things that might get a new user banned for good might get merely a warning. Or at least a shorter ban.
If your opinions are unpopular, well, that sucks, but it's not a problem to be fixed, at least until the people reacting negatively also violate the rules in their responses.
I'll keep that in mind for minor violations, but as you must be well aware, the specific example of snapping and calling Right-leaning people Nazis (unless they are obviously and outspoken right-wing Wignats who advocate for discrimination against the usual targets of the original Nazis), is not acceptable behavior. For anything else, where you don't seem to be obviously trying to push buttons or stick to just the right side of the tracks, I'll try and point out what you can do better.
But of course, just because something is being reported doesn't mean the mods take action, and you are better off asking the people who disagree with you, I can't really speak for everyone who downvotes. And if the mods do take action, we usually make it a point in the first place to explain our reasoning. If Astragant had been reported but I considered his comment and pattern of behavior acceptable, I wouldn't have warned him in the first place, or explained anything outside my usual remit as a user.
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Wow.... I had no idea reading a massive longpost of a moderator going on and on in tortured detail about why he's handing out a warning would be so enjoyable. I can't believe I didn't vote for you. More of this please!
You guys got to vote?
Yes; a group of motte regulars elected a council to select a new batch of moderators, that's how he, netstack, and raggedy anthem got in. He was the last of the new mods to earn my vote, but after seeing the lengthy justification I am glad I voted for him.
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The moderator cries out in pain as he strikes you
(I find modding comments I personally agree with but consider against the rules or not conducive to the health of the forum painful, but I wouldn't have accepted the nomination if I didn't think I could put duty first)
Paradoxically, it's that this is a mild violation (I wouldn't call it simply borderline) that I felt compelled to justify my statement. If it was glaringly ban-worthy, I'd swing the hammer with only mild regret.
In fact, I am more annoyed by the fact that he's compelled me to act against a comment I endorse, much like a 50's Sheriff shaking his head as he drags a KKK member he's had drinks with off to a cell. But The Motte is, as far as I'm aware, one of a kind, and if that's necessary to keep it the kind of place that drew me here 5 years ago, then I will put my disquiet aside and do as I must.
I am proud that my tenure here earned the endorsement of the people who voted for me, and then the approval of the previous mods, and I don't want to tarnish their faith in me. As for those who didn't vote for me, I can only hope to gain their retroactive endorsement through my actions. This forum isn't a democracy, but if the mods don't act in a manner that the users approve of, well, we'll eventually end up as the sole suzerains of a drinking club and an entirely unjustified AWS bill.
I think that's where the entertainment value comes from. "I do not want to do this.... but I must!" Who knew there could be so much drama in a single mod action? The only thing that could make it better is if you broke out to do a Bollywood dance number to express the true depths of you pain (can AI do that yet?).
Ok, I'm probably enjoying it way a bit too much. Keep up the good work, man.
Yes.
It's certainly a better dancer than I am, I can only be coaxed into a shuffle with a few drinks on me.
And thank you, we've certainly had our differences in the past, so I'm glad that when I put on the badge and try to be an idealized version of myself, I haven't obviously fucked it up on the first go!
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