We got banned. I obviously have a vested interest here so I’m not going to attempt to be too impartial, but here’s a summary of what happened.
About a month ago Reddit removed 2000+ communities under the guise of clamping down on hate speech. The vast majority of them were bigoted shitholes and we were glad to see them gone. Overall, it probably did more good than harm - but we had been a thorn in Reddit’s side for a while and they couldn’t help but use the situation to both-sides us. Of all the communities they removed, Reddit mentioned r/The_Donald and r/ChapoTrapHouse specifically in their announcement.
Reddit has a long history of waiting until it is far too late (ie. people getting hurt by lunatics, generating bad press, and impacting their appeal to advertisers) to take action against harmful communities on their platform, and this was no exception. A few months prior to the ban wave, the vast majority of The_Donald’s userbase had already moved to a new independent platform, and by the time they removed the subreddit it was more or less a carcass of its former self. That didn’t stop them from doing a victory lap, claiming the goodwill, and patting themselves on the back for it though. Meanwhile, they nuked one of the most active, anti-sectarian leftist watering holes. One of the most militantly anti-bigoted, anti-capitalist communities on the platform.
Anyway, I don’t mean to prop us up as saints or anything. For the most part were generally shit-posters who recently (over the past few years) discovered there is more to politics than the established political parties and what they show on TV. None the less, we had a lot of organizers in our community and a lot of people with really intricate knowledge of anti-colonial history.
Most of us were lumpen dumbasses, but it was a place where we could fool around and rib each other while learning little bits here and there about about the world, about political economy, about organizing tactics. How we got here, what else is going on, and how we might pool our resources and make the world a slightly better place. A place where we could confirm that we aren’t actually going insane, or alone.
Collectively, I think we knew we had lost something special. Nothing else can explain the amount of work that has gone into restoring the community on independent infrastructure on such short notice, or the bond that has kept thousands of complete internet strangers in touch after having the carpet suddenly pulled out from under them.
Thank you for the response. It looks fun and exciting. I do remember seeing that on Reddit and was pretty pumped to see the_donald get the heave ho, too bad Chapo got lumped in. Fuck Reddit. I’m sick of Reddit, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. I’m glad to see these new instances and I already signed up over there when the hopes I wasn’t get roped into a hate group. Fool me twice, can’t be fooled again.
We got banned. I obviously have a vested interest here so I’m not going to attempt to be too impartial, but here’s a summary of what happened.
About a month ago Reddit removed 2000+ communities under the guise of clamping down on hate speech. The vast majority of them were bigoted shitholes and we were glad to see them gone. Overall, it probably did more good than harm - but we had been a thorn in Reddit’s side for a while and they couldn’t help but use the situation to both-sides us. Of all the communities they removed, Reddit mentioned r/The_Donald and r/ChapoTrapHouse specifically in their announcement.
Reddit has a long history of waiting until it is far too late (ie. people getting hurt by lunatics, generating bad press, and impacting their appeal to advertisers) to take action against harmful communities on their platform, and this was no exception. A few months prior to the ban wave, the vast majority of The_Donald’s userbase had already moved to a new independent platform, and by the time they removed the subreddit it was more or less a carcass of its former self. That didn’t stop them from doing a victory lap, claiming the goodwill, and patting themselves on the back for it though. Meanwhile, they nuked one of the most active, anti-sectarian leftist watering holes. One of the most militantly anti-bigoted, anti-capitalist communities on the platform.
Anyway, I don’t mean to prop us up as saints or anything. For the most part were generally shit-posters who recently (over the past few years) discovered there is more to politics than the established political parties and what they show on TV. None the less, we had a lot of organizers in our community and a lot of people with really intricate knowledge of anti-colonial history.
Most of us were lumpen dumbasses, but it was a place where we could fool around and rib each other while learning little bits here and there about about the world, about political economy, about organizing tactics. How we got here, what else is going on, and how we might pool our resources and make the world a slightly better place. A place where we could confirm that we aren’t actually going insane, or alone.
Collectively, I think we knew we had lost something special. Nothing else can explain the amount of work that has gone into restoring the community on independent infrastructure on such short notice, or the bond that has kept thousands of complete internet strangers in touch after having the carpet suddenly pulled out from under them.
I fear I am over-romanticizing ourselves.
Thank you for the response. It looks fun and exciting. I do remember seeing that on Reddit and was pretty pumped to see the_donald get the heave ho, too bad Chapo got lumped in. Fuck Reddit. I’m sick of Reddit, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. I’m glad to see these new instances and I already signed up over there when the hopes I wasn’t get roped into a hate group. Fool me twice, can’t be fooled again.
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