Inside Higher Ed | Mill, Mao and Socrates Inside Higher Ed The alt-right is characterized as a movement of white resentment. It is usually seen by liberals as drawing from the ranks of the white working class, left behind by an increasingly globalized economy. And yet within the highest echelons of academe ... |
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Mill, Mao and Socrates - Inside Higher Ed
Image: r/altright banned.
Earlier today Reddit banned r/altright, the primary community on the site for the so-called alt-right. And for a variety of reasons, thats about all we know.
The subreddit had always courted controversy and pushed the bounds of Reddits relatively lax policies on speech. Users from r/altright often made inflammatory remarks about a variety of marginalized groups and many espoused views in the white supremacist/national socialist spectrum. Two of the subreddits moderators also appear to have been terminated, though its unclear if thats related to the subreddits ban.
Because moderators had artificially inflated r/altrights subscriber count, theres no telling how large the community was. Like other banned abusive subreddits (r/fatpeoplehate and r/pizzagate to name a few), r/alright have made a new home for themselves on Reddit knockoff Voat. That community presently displays 314 subscribers.
Gizmodo reached out to one of Reddits powermods who told us via email that he heard they were encouraging users to go to some kind of bounty site, where users collaborate to attempt to gather personal information on targets. If true, that description matches Chuck Johnsons WeSearchr, which was recently banned from Twitter. This moderator also suggested the ban might have been planned well in advance, pointing us to a comment left by CEO Steve Huffman on his most recent announcements postthough it could of course be coincidental.
Similar far-right communitiesr/the_donald in particularseemed concerned theyd be next on the chopping block. Considering the subreddits penchant for targeted harassment and vote manipulation, they ought to be.
Theories regarding the ban are swirling within a thread in r/subredditdrama. Though nothing concrete has been uncovered just yet, the tenor of posts seems to be that removing r/altright was a good decision for the overall health and sanity of the sites users.
Weve reached out to Reddit and former mods of r/altright for details and will update if we hear back.
Update 2/1/17 10:46pm EST: Im honestly not sure of the details yet. We anticipated Reddit would terminate the sub soon because they typically dont allow these types of right-wing groups to get much bigger than 20,000 subscribers, and /r/AltRight was rapidly nearing that point, Throwahoymatie, a former mod of r/altright told Gizmodo over Reddit Private Message.
We have no way of confirming that the subreddit was that popular. Likewise, the first wave of purges instituted against harassing subreddits under the leadership of Ellen Paowhen r/fatpeoplehate was bannedincluded several communities considerably smaller than 20,000 subscribers. Likewise, r/the_donald, r/hillaryforprison, and r/kotakuinaction all have well over that number. Throwahoymatie claims the new Voat hub for the alt-right is, counter-intuitively, v/Identitarian, which currently has 893 subscribers.
A former subscriber of r/altright, JohnnyTruthSeed, similarly told Gizmodo the communitys growth was a key reason for its banning, adding that the administrators of Reddit are cucks [and] we were exposing the truth about Zionism. Go figure.
Reddit have not yet responded to our questions, but tomorrow is another day.
Update 2/2/17 12:10pm EST: Reddit sent us a vague boilerplate statement regarding their reasons for banning r/altright. A spokesperson told Gizmodo that posting of personal information can get users banned from Reddit and we ask our communities not to post content that harasses or invites harassment. We have banned r/altright due to repeated violations of the terms of our content policy.
It was well-known among Reddit users that r/altright had been engaged in harassment since its creation, so this statement does little to clear up why the ban took place now, or if any specific incident was considered beyond the pale.
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Reddit Says Goodnight to 'Alt-Right' Community [Updates] - Gizmodo - Gizmodo
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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau broke a major election campaign promise out of fear of the alt-right.In the 2015 federal election campaign, Trudeau pledged it would be the last time the country used the traditional first-past-the-post, winner take all electoral system. Trudeau promised electoral reform, with some variant of proportional representation where parties are represented by the exact percentage of the vote they receive.
As CBC reports, according to comments Friday from an unnamed senior cabinet minister close to the prime minister, Trudeau increasingly came to believe that proportional representation would allow for the emergence of right-wing extremists and white supremacists.
The government announced the end of electoral reform on Wednesday but not with a news release or statement. It rewrote the mandate for the minister of democratic institutions with a line indicating that changing the electoral system will not be in your mandate.
The veiled revelation as soon as reporters discovered it sent shock waves through the Parliamentary press gallery as Trudeau had regularly reiterated his commitment to change the electoral system in his first 15 months as prime minister.
The anonymous source claims that Trudeau reversed his position at a recent cabinet retreat in Calgary because the more he thought about proportional representation, the more he thought it was exactly the wrong system for a big, regionally and culturally diverse country.
The official opposition Conservatives, never huge advocates of Trudeaus electoral reform, were only critical of Trudeaus flip-flop on the issue. Interim Conservative Leader Rona Ambrose told reporters that Canadians should think twice about believing what Justin Trudeau says.
In the House,Trudeausaid reform might produce an augmentation of extremist voices in the House. Critics of proportional representation often cite the pre-Nazi Weimar Republic as an example of how the system bolsters party extremism.
Most of the Liberal cabinet was opposed to changing the way Canadians elect their Members of Parliament, with many critics wondering why they apparently did not bother to voice their dissent until now.
Although any changes would have been subject to a national referendum on the issue, Trudeau is said to have rejected that course as well because it could divide the country.
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Trudeau Fears 'Alt-Right' Will Benefit From Electoral Reform - Daily Caller
White nationalist political views are harder to find on Reddit this week, after the site that bills itself as the "front page of the Internet" banned two subforums for violating terms of service.
The banned forums, called subreddits, are r/altright and r/alternativeright. They went dark on Wednesday morning and now redirect to a landing page that reads: "This subreddit was banned due to a violation of our content policy, specifically, the proliferation of personal and confidential information."
That explanation likely refers to the practice of "doxing:" publishing details like home phone numbers and addresses of people whom the online community wants to shame. The doxing episode that may have precipitated the ban was the release of personal information identifying the protester who punched a white supremacist during a demonstration at President Trump's inauguration last month, The Verge reports.
Reddit did not offer more details on the specific reasons that led it to ban the subreddits, but a spokesperson explained in a statement that "we are very clear in our site terms of service that posting of personal information can get users banned from Reddit.
"We have banned r/altright due to repeated violations of the terms of our content policy," it concluded.
The site has struggled in recent months to deal with what it refers to as its "most toxic" members. Reddit CEO Steve Huffman generated controversy in November when he admitted to secretly editing posts that criticized him for banning a subreddit devoted to the Pizzagate conspiracy theory. Huffman apologized, and also said that Reddit would step up efforts to ban individual users who violated its policies.
This article originally appeared on PCMag.com.
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Reddit bans 'alt-right' discussion forums - Fox News
Meanwhile, UW continues to grapple with questions of what free speech really means.
Two weeks after Milo Yiannopoulos appearance at University of Washingtonoutside of whicha 32-year-old man was shot by a fan of the the Breitbart News editorUW Police Department is still investigating what happened that evening at Red Square.
On Thursday, UWPD reported that its investigation led to search warrants to identify and preserve evidence for the case. As the shootera former UW studentwas let go without being charged, the department reported that detectives are in touch with attorneys representing people who identified themselves as involved in the incident.
Due to its sensitive nature, the Court sealed the search warrants to preserve the integrity of the investigation. At this time, detectives are still identifying witnesses that may have information that is pertinent to the investigation, a statement from the department says.
But the shooting is not the only thing that seems unclear these days, as members of the UW community have been debating a hot issue following the Milo event.
Where is the line dividing free speech from hate speech?
Shon Meckfessel maintains the speech should never have taken place. Thats a stance many on campus are taking.
Milos speech is threatening and excites violence without a question, said Meckfessel, who wrote a PhD dissertation about rhetorics at UW and is now an English faculty member at Highline College. When you have acts of violence before his campus talks or as a result of his presentations, its unambiguous that his words are threatening and incite violence. That, by legal definition is the end of free speech. Theres no longer protected speech when that happens.
The debate over Yiannopoulos long preceded his arrival on campus.
A Change.org petition to ban renown bigot and misogynist Yiannopoulos appearance at UW received 4,640 signatures while 733 people backed a counter-petition asking UW president Ana Mari Cauce to allow the event in the name of free speech.
Cauce opposed Yiannopoulos rhetoric and said that his discourse stood against the universitys values and social commitment in a statement updated Jan. 6.
He generates heat, not light, and his manner of engagement is anything but civil, respectful or conducive to true dialogue across differences, of which we need more, not less Please be assured, the fact that he is speaking at our University does not mean that he in any way represents our University or our values, the statement says.
Earlier this week, she maintained that stance when confronted by a group of protesters.
I take responsibility. Theres no question, Cauce told the crowd, before saying that Yiannopoulos should have been allowed to protest. As Cauce wrote in her statement:
The right to free speech and expression is broad and allows for speech that is offensive and that most of us would consider disrespectful, and even sexist or racist. As a public university committed to the free exchange of ideas and free expression, we are obligated to uphold this right.
Kai Frenay, secretary of the UW College Republicansthe group that issued the official invitation to the controversial Breitbart mansaw bringing Yiannopoulos to UW campus as an opportunity to challenge students beliefs and learn from different perspectives.
When the campus tries to silence or shame you for those perspectives, it sort of negates the whole point, Frenay told UW Daily Nov. 3. There are a lot of things Milo says that I dont agree with. To block him though means blocking freedom of speech.
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Cops Still Mum On Shooting Outside Alt-Right Speech - Seattle Weekly