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Censory Overload - The Guardian Goes Full Backspace


aviet

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I keep one foot in the Marxist-orientated (London) Guardian website, as in between all the non-arguments, there are some things worth knowing that I otherwise wouldn't see. And it is reassuring to know, from weighing opinion in the comments sections, that things such as white privilege, 3rd wave feminism, Islamophobia and other grievance culture spurs are widely rejected.

Since Brexit, the appearance of Trump and other similar themes in Europe, there has been a further move away from coherent philosophy, arguments - rational or irrational and decorum; and towards violently melting down, running around spitting bile, fainting and hallucination. A new bubble of madness was inflated last week when a high court ruled that Parliament must green-lighted Brexit. This spurred a number of critical stories in newspapers, saying in affect: "How dare three judges block Brexit". On seeing the articles, no angle from which they might be criticised registered with me, but The Guardian and the regressives have begun howling like they have never howled before. They are saying this is the end of democracy, the rule of law is about to be overturned and we are about to descend into fascism with Rupert Murdoch setting the drum-beat as the torries dance us malevolently into the end times.

I had observed, in the above-mentioned time period, that The Guardian had become more trigger-happy with censorship. My account was put on pre-moderation (general policy is to allow comments, which are moderated after a few minutes) for posting a comment citing (with source) that there is a greater correlation between single-motherhood and crime than poverty and crime. Today my account was banned and they deleted about 1/3 of the comments on a volatile post by one of their favourite sons, Trotskyite - Paul Mason. And the comments were not abusive, they mainly consisted of criticism like:

"I used to think Paul was a bit weird when he was on the Beeb - but I now realise he's totally lost it. How much do you get paid to write this stuff?"

"Paul Mason couldn't breathe his way out of an iron lung, never mind string together such a disparate group of people."

But also moderate criticism of his points.

Comments were prematurely shut down after two hours.

They used to let this stuff go through, but it seems that has come to an end. The comments are officially a safe-space.

Does anyone else have insights into increase in censorship on regressive sites? I heard that a number of them had recently removed comments sections, but I don't know which sites were being referred to.

Full backspace:

Screenshot_at_2016_11_07_19_08_40.png

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Recently, there was a huge uproar in Poland as Facebook wiped thousands of right wing leaning accounts and pages, including a huge fan page with over 250k followers of the upcoming "freedom march" on Nov 11. 

After protests the fan page of the freedom march has been restored, but most accounts remain blocked.

This is how the march looked last year: 


Our left regard everyone marching and waving a national flag as 'facists'. Facebook managment in Poland is infested with regressive activists, including the CEO. 

Ironically, after the ban, interest for the march has spiked and it seems there will be a record number of people this year. 
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Yes, there has been a considerable move towards censorship and attempts to try and preserve the narrowband media. I just hadn't connected the dots.

Some events:

- NPR block comments; some other sites to drop: https://www.wired.com/2015/10/brief-history-of-the-demise-of-the-comments-timeline/
- Mark Zuckerberg censonrship meeting

- Milo Twitter ban
- Obama campaign against whistle-blowers

- Alleged: Breitbart assassination day before he would "expose Obama"
- Alleged: Michael Hasting assassination
 

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If you want a good laugh, search on The Guardian's website for the few articles about refugees which still allow comments.  Check out the ratio of deleted comments to approved comments.  It really is beautiful to see a propaganda mouthpiece's audience turn on it in real time.

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