Yesterday there was a controversial movie torrent that was getting 1000s of downloads and was on the “popular this week” page, and today it’s just gone. I went to the uploader’s account page and it’s not there either. Just like it never existed.

I’m SUPER curious of the story behind what happened. Did the uploader take it down? 1337? Why?

EDIT: The movie was Lady Ballers 2023 (wasn’t sure if I was allowed to say) I did a little more research, and I think the copy the uploader put out was YTS but I don’t think they were affiliated with them. Maybe YTS told them to take it down? The movie is on their (YTS/YIFY’s) website.

  • nttea
    101•6 months ago

    The uploader deleted it so their drones can make social media posts claiming it was censored to generate more buzz and make sure everyone knows it exists.

    • Hyperreality
      54•6 months ago

      Yep. Claim victimhood. Fascism 101.

      Fascists are boring. It’s the same strategy for almost a hundred years. Orwell on Hitler:

      It is a pathetic, dog-like face, the face of a man suffering under intolerable wrongs. In a rather more manly way it reproduces the expression of innumerable pictures of Christ crucified, and there is little doubt that that is how Hitler sees himself. The initial, personal cause of his grievance against the universe can only be guessed at; but at any rate the grievance is here. He is the martyr, the victim, Prometheus chained to the rock, the self-sacrificing hero who fights single-handed against impossible odds. If he were killing a mouse he would know how to make it seem like a dragon. One feels, as with Napoleon, that he is fighting against destiny, that he can’t win, and yet that he somehow deserves to. The attraction of such a pose is of course enormous; half the films that one sees turn upon some such theme.

      Today’s mice are an incredibly marginalised and incredibly small sexual minority. But fascists will pretend they’re not, that they’re part of the elite trying to cause degeneracy. Not billionaire rapists like Musk or Trump.

      Not as if fascists are going to actually fix the big shit, like the economy, the environment, or affordable housing. Not as if they’re going to stand up to the countries actually threatening western values, like Russia or China. No. Now they’ve decided it’s some nobody in the arse end of America, who feels happier wearing a dress.

      People who fall for that shit are morons. Not that most fascists actually believe their own bullshit. They just do it shock and disconcert people, and because they hate those they perceive weaker than them. Just like their Dear Leader considers them scum, has regularly said he is disgusted by them, because they’re so weak that they’ve chosen to lick his boots.

      • @splendoruranium@infosec.pubEnglish
        -3•6 months ago

        What you write on argumentative strategy absolutely pertains to the topic and I’d say it also holds true. I just don’t really see what it has to do with fascism. Aren’t you conflating a couple of things here?
        Even when “Fascism traditionally employs that rhetoric” holds true, there’s no way that “Someone employing that rhetoric must be a fascist” can ever follow from that. A fascist might be a very special kind of moron, but it’s dangerous to then start calling every moron “fascist”, because it lessens the impact of that term, devalues it, if that makes sense. It makes undermining actual fascism much harder.

        • Hyperreality
          8•6 months ago

          Their leader calls journalists vermin and they go on about the ‘Lugenpresse’, his followers shoot up synagogues, allied media spread Nazi/far right inspired anti-semitic canards like Cultural Marxism (‘Kulturbolshewismus’), they go on about how the ‘’‘left wing intellectual elite’‘’ are trying to undermine western values and cause a decline of morals and degeneracy (‘Entartung’), they’re afraid of difference, they hold the weak in contempt, they abhor nuance so use a limited newspeak vocabulary to limit critical reasoning, they’re obsessed with plots, and on social media many of his followers spread the Q-anon conspiracy which is a reworking of the antisemtic blood libel canard.

          Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, is a duck.

          Here’s a Sartre quote that’s also increasingly relevant (again):

          “Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”

          • @splendoruranium@infosec.pubEnglish
            -4•6 months ago

            Their leader calls journalists vermin and they go on about the ‘Lugenpresse’, his followers shoot up synagogues, allied media spread Nazi/far right inspired anti-semitic canards like Cultural Marxism (‘Kulturbolshewismus’), they go on about how the ‘’‘left wing intellectual elite’‘’ are trying to undermine western values and cause a decline of morals and degeneracy (‘Entartung’), they’re afraid of difference, they hold the weak in contempt, they abhor nuance so use a limited newspeak vocabulary to limit critical reasoning, they’re obsessed with plots, and on social media many of his followers spread the Q-anon conspiracy which is a reworking of the antisemtic blood libel canard.

            Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, is a duck.

            I presume we’re no longer talking about the movie’s marketing department…?

            Here’s a Sartre quote that’s also increasingly relevant (again):

            “Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”

            What I’m reading here are things in the lines of “Good faith anti-Semitism doesn’t exist” or “anti-Semitism is intrinsically confrontational and quarrelsome”. I don’t quite think that’s a tenable position as it would be trivial to disprove. Am I misreading this? What is your take?
            Are you sure the line is concerned with anti-Semitism in general and not only with a very specific kind of anti-Semite (e.g. mid-century, mid-Europe, Bierkellerputsch-y types)?

        • @Godric@lemmy.worldEnglish
          6•6 months ago

          No, deleting torrents is literally fascism, OK sweaty? Do you think Hitler had a positive seed ratio???