I don't understand why we would bar certain people BEFORE they ever offend. Especially when that means pre-emptively barring 1/4 to 1/3 of a large nation's population, depending on exactly how one defines a Trump follower.
I don't believe people here are so fragile they can't withstand the presence of people who haven't actually offended yet, and who may never do so.
And the whole concept of a club for left-minded people--heck, of a club at all!
We've come a long, long way from Christian unrest.
Just looked back at my post @Pomona and as well as the riffing and ribbing there was a serious comment about Starbucks's poor record on employee rights and paying taxes.
Please take the serious point and I'll try to be less frivolous in future.
I think openly stating/ advocating allegiance to a racist/ fascist project and supporting them in a public post isn't before offending or prior to offending.
It is offending actually taking place.
Advocating for nakedly racist projects to win and be supported is posting racism and thus I think breaking C1. I'd like us to be clear on that.
As Pomona says a lot of racist people would deny it and others are what we in Scots would call 'sleekit'* they do a lot of dogwhistling and brinkmanship and a lot of labour intensive whack-a-mole type hosting has to go on to stop them doing it.
One 'sleekism' if I might coin a phrase is bigging up fascists/ fascist groups/ parties/ leaders - it becomes a way of doing and promoting racism etc. without - they hope- triggering C1.
I'm saying that it would be a good thing to block that loophole.
@TurquoiseTastic draws attention to something really important in describing their experiences of the newspaper- this has a technical term ' it's the shifting of the 'Overton window'.
It's how someone on the right suddenly finds themselves puzzlingly on the left and people who were on the liberal left suddenly find we're supposedly fire-breathing radicals without our political positions shifting much and then we pick up the newspaper, turn on the telly and suddenly kinds of racism and persecution are ordinary and accepted mainstream discourse and doing well in the polls and our neighbours most basic human rights are up for 'debate'.
That's what happens when fascist racist projects are allowed to steal the clothes of mainstream political parties and it's why we should resist normalising those projects here.
Otherwise we will be at risk of ending up thinking our neighbours being forcibly deported for racist reasons and our democracies destroyed is just unexceptionable normal 'centre right' talk. But I think we should avoid normalising fascism- not because the targets of fascism are 'fragile', though they may lack relative power and be opportunistically targeted by bullying scapegoaters for that, but because it's the right thing to do to resist the mainstreaming and normalisation of these political forces.
If someone pops up posting publically that they support an openly fascist/ racist group/ leader I suggest believing them the first time and closing the loophole where we dont count supporting extreme racist/fascist groups as a racist post.
As Pomona says, it's about being actively anti racist and maintaining the scarce spaces where that isn't normalised and the people targeted, can if they so wish, get a breather from it.
*sleekit - of persons or their words or actions: smooth in manner, plausible, ingratiating, unctuous; insinuating, sly, cunning, specious, not altogether to be trusted
I think it's unusual for someone to come in, and with their first few posts say "hey! I'm a Trump supporter!" or some such. Usually they have posted other things first before they get down to that bedrock. By then it's a C1 violation anyway. Plank someone for what they actually say.
Apparently, as per posts by the mods @Doublethink and @North East Quine on the Trump Hell thread, the mods would like people to post opinions about the topics discussed in this thread(aka Recent Plankings). And according to @Nick Tamen, this request has been made on all the political and national threads.
However, I can only see this request made on the Trump thread; didn't see anything on the Canadian politics, Australian politics, "Who's Next" or Hegseth threads in Purgatory, nor on the UK/ADHD thread in Epiphanies.
So, just a heads-up for the mods that if they want to attract people to this thread for opinion sampling, it might need wider publicity.
As for the requested opinions, I would agree with what I take @NicoleMR to be saying: people should be planked for expressing opinions that violate Ship policy, not simply for announced membership in or support for a group.
I think the question is whether the Ship's stated policy precludes debate, and if so why and what that means. That is why I said what I said.
If it precludes debate, it is because of the current degenerate state of what passes for right-wing political discourse, and I see no reason to apologise for not affording it the dignity of space.
@Heavenlyannie as a working-class person I find it incredibly patronising and offensive to suggest that supporting Reform is a working-class thing - most of their MPs/councillors are not working-class at all and most of their money comes from the extremely wealthy. Reform is fundamentally a racist organisation that seeks to terrorise the most marginalised people in the UK - I understand not wanting to think the worst of family and friends that support them, but that doesn't make Reform less racist. I personally think that Reform should be categorised as a terrorist organisation, and certainly support for them should be proscribed on the Ship. I think that if you (general you) are on the left your priority should be defending those less able to defend themselves - this means the victims of Reform, not their supporters. I have no sympathy for grown adults who support racist organisations.
I know of what I speak. I have a sibling who is a fascist, racist, homophobic, sexist man and has been since his teens on the council estate in the 1970s. I experienced that on a daily basis as a teen whilst my best friend was an Indian Muslim. He is well beyond Reform in his sympathies. Yet I also have a brother who is probably Reform (he was also a Brexiter) who is none of these things, he’s not even xenophobic and he adores his Lithuanian son in law and the non-white members of my family.
I was brought up on Marsh Farm, a deprived area which had race riots in the 1990s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_Farm The only famous alumni from my high school is Andrew Tate. Less than a third of the Luton population is white British https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luton_Borough_Council but Reform won a council seat last week and they will win more.
Thank you for a sensible response.
I'm not sure why Heavenlyannie's experiences are deemed to be sensible and other people's experiences are not. Could you please explain your reasoning?
@Heavenlyannie as a working-class person I find it incredibly patronising and offensive to suggest that supporting Reform is a working-class thing - most of their MPs/councillors are not working-class at all and most of their money comes from the extremely wealthy. Reform is fundamentally a racist organisation that seeks to terrorise the most marginalised people in the UK - I understand not wanting to think the worst of family and friends that support them, but that doesn't make Reform less racist. I personally think that Reform should be categorised as a terrorist organisation, and certainly support for them should be proscribed on the Ship. I think that if you (general you) are on the left your priority should be defending those less able to defend themselves - this means the victims of Reform, not their supporters. I have no sympathy for grown adults who support racist organisations.
I know of what I speak. I have a sibling who is a fascist, racist, homophobic, sexist man and has been since his teens on the council estate in the 1970s. I experienced that on a daily basis as a teen whilst my best friend was an Indian Muslim. He is well beyond Reform in his sympathies. Yet I also have a brother who is probably Reform (he was also a Brexiter) who is none of these things, he’s not even xenophobic and he adores his Lithuanian son in law and the non-white members of my family.
I was brought up on Marsh Farm, a deprived area which had race riots in the 1990s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_Farm The only famous alumni from my high school is Andrew Tate. Less than a third of the Luton population is white British https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luton_Borough_Council but Reform won a council seat last week and they will win more.
I'm not sure what this is trying to say. Obviously your experiences are your experiences, but that doesn't make them indicative of being working-class in general. I am not doubting your working-class credentials in any way, nor am I doubting your own beliefs. But there are still lots of anti-Reform working-class people - the issue is conflating Reform support and being working-class. Just because it's the case where you grew up doesn't make it representative of working-class people in general.
I do have to wonder why someone who isn't racist or xenophobic would vote for a racist and xenophobic party. I'm not saying that you're wrong wrt their beliefs, but I think it is reasonable to say that in general support for Reform is driven by racism.
Just looked back at my post @Pomona and as well as the riffing and ribbing there was a serious comment about Starbucks's poor record on employee rights and paying taxes.
Please take the serious point and I'll try to be less frivolous in future.
Concerns about employee rights and paying taxes would apply to a huge number of companies. Do you think that everyone that patronises such companies - even if they have limited options where they live - are equivalent to endorsing neo-Nazis?
The reason why certain violent groups have been proscribed - at least traditionally - has been because support for them has raised their visibility and encouraged people to join them. Companies that take advantage of poor worker protections and tax loopholes don't need that public visibility to do such things, because those loopholes already exist for them. Your point makes no sense given the reasons for actually proscribing groups.
I don't understand why we would bar certain people BEFORE they ever offend. Especially when that means pre-emptively barring 1/4 to 1/3 of a large nation's population, depending on exactly how one defines a Trump follower.
I don't believe people here are so fragile they can't withstand the presence of people who haven't actually offended yet, and who may never do so.
And the whole concept of a club for left-minded people--heck, of a club at all!
We've come a long, long way from Christian unrest.
Given the fact that in the US (as an example) racism is more common amongst white Evangelicals than amongst white non-religious people, surely coming down hard on racist groups is more of an example of Christian unrest than allowing such groups to be accepted?
So do I understand correctly that we do not desire that the Ship unintentionally platform racist xenophobic or other exclusionary groups or ideas by allowing ourselves to treat these ideas as legitimate through discussion or debate?
I agree that there are some things that are beyond the pale. I just want to be clear in my own mind that I have interpreted the conversation correctly.
We are asking all of you, if you think that current policy of hosting c1 where we think we see patterns of jerkish posting or egregious single posts is sufficient OR if you think there are certain political parties or political groupings (that is it legal to express support for) that are so bigoted that a shipmate declaring support for them is by doing that breaking C1. For example self-identifying Nazis, KKK, supporters of Ayatollah Khomeni or others.
Apparently, as per posts by the mods @Doublethink and @North East Quine on the Trump Hell thread, the mods would like people to post opinions about the topics discussed in this thread(aka Recent Plankings). And according to @Nick Tamen, this request has been made on all the political and national threads.
However, I can only see this request made on the Trump thread; didn't see anything on the Canadian politics, Australian politics, "Who's Next" or Hegseth threads in Purgatory, nor on the UK/ADHD thread in Epiphanies.
I was just repeating my recollection of what @Doublethink said here:
The question is really what, if any, modern political affilations are inherently so prejudiced - people professing those affiliations should not be given access to the site.
. . . I am seeking to understand what the ship community thinks about this.
I see now Doublethink’s qualifier of “main” political and national threads.
I think what is being done is sufficient. I think any more is overkill and getting into thought-police territory.
And again, FWIW, I think it's vanishingly rare for someone to come in and, straight off the bat say "Hi, I'm a member of the KKK", or suchlike. They would post enough first that their leanings would be apparent.
My issue with banning people as soon as (for example) they declare support for Donald Trump is this: Trumpism and movements like it feed off a sense of grievance and victimhood. If we ban people immediately we are feeding that sense of victimhood and entrenching them in it.
Racism and all the rest are already against our existing rules.
I think what is being done is sufficient. I think any more is overkill and getting into thought-police territory.
And again, FWIW, I think it's vanishingly rare for someone to come in and, straight off the bat say "Hi, I'm a member of the KKK", or suchlike. They would post enough first that their leanings would be apparent.
Just looked back at my post @Pomona and as well as the riffing and ribbing there was a serious comment about Starbucks's poor record on employee rights and paying taxes.
Please take the serious point and I'll try to be less frivolous in future.
Concerns about employee rights and paying taxes would apply to a huge number of companies. Do you think that everyone that patronises such companies - even if they have limited options where they live - are equivalent to endorsing neo-Nazis?
The reason why certain violent groups have been proscribed - at least traditionally - has been because support for them has raised their visibility and encouraged people to join them. Companies that take advantage of poor worker protections and tax loopholes don't need that public visibility to do such things, because those loopholes already exist for them. Your point makes no sense given the reasons for actually proscribing groups.
I didn't say these things were equivalent to endorsing neo-Nazis.
This is the second time today you've either ignored or misrepresented something I've written.
I've said I'll try not to be so frivolous in future.
Apparently, as per posts by the mods @Doublethink and @North East Quine on the Trump Hell thread, the mods would like people to post opinions about the topics discussed in this thread(aka Recent Plankings). And according to @Nick Tamen, this request has been made on all the political and national threads.
However, I can only see this request made on the Trump thread; didn't see anything on the Canadian politics, Australian politics, "Who's Next" or Hegseth threads in Purgatory, nor on the UK/ADHD thread in Epiphanies.
I was just repeating my recollection of what @Doublethink said here:
The question is really what, if any, modern political affilations are inherently so prejudiced - people professing those affiliations should not be given access to the site.
. . . I am seeking to understand what the ship community thinks about this.
I see now Doublethink’s qualifier of “main” political and national threads.
I do have to wonder why someone who isn't racist or xenophobic would vote for a racist and xenophobic party. I'm not saying that you're wrong wrt their beliefs, but I think it is reasonable to say that in general support for Reform is driven by racism.
There's a glib response about making the trains run on time in there somewhere.
Is it always true that people who want to limit immigration are driven by racism?
I don't think it is. I think there are consistent raise-the-drawbridge-the-country-is-full type opinions that aren't racist at all. I think one could have a discussion about whether the "I like my culture and I don't want it to be diluted too much" opinons are always racist. I think there's a difference between "this is good: I want to keep this" and "I don't want "them" coming over here with their X, Y, and Z".
There is a danger, I think, that when the only people who are expressing opinions vaguely similar to yours are the racists, then you get drawn further in to racism.
A lot of the time, the answer to a question depends on the way you frame the question. Ask random Americans about immigration, and you tend to get fairly strong support for the proposition that people should immigrate via legal pathways, and fairly strong opposition to the idea that illegal border crossings should be tolerated. Many of the people expressing such opinions have wildly unrealistic ideas about what the legal immigration process actually looks like.
I'm not sure what this is trying to say. Obviously your experiences are your experiences, but that doesn't make them indicative of being working-class in general. I am not doubting your working-class credentials in any way, nor am I doubting your own beliefs. But there are still lots of anti-Reform working-class people - the issue is conflating Reform support and being working-class. Just because it's the case where you grew up doesn't make it representative of working-class people in general.
I do have to wonder why someone who isn't racist or xenophobic would vote for a racist and xenophobic party. I'm not saying that you're wrong wrt their beliefs, but I think it is reasonable to say that in general support for Reform is driven by racism.
I did not say anywhere that working class people can’t be anti-Reform; I am anti-Reform. I am saying that many working class people vote Reform. The reasons are mixed, some are racist but many feel left behind and forgotten. This has historic roots; in the 1990s my father and 3 of my brothers were made redundant during factory closures, for instance. This includes the two brothers I mentioned earlier. Memories are long lasting and governments resented.
Whilst Reform’s backers and leaders are rich, their MPs often represent poor areas; Farage’s constituency includes Jaywick, the most deprived place in England https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgjd1q9yp04o
Luton also has an history of deprivation and is famously working class, with all those oh so funny jokes about Luton Airport and chavs. It is a great example of a working class town which is down at heel, feels sneered at by others and risks turning to Reform.
I think we should judge people by what they post, and not do some kind of pre-judgement of what their beliefs are.
We are asking all of you, if you think that current policy of hosting c1 where we think we see patterns of jerkish posting or egregious single posts is sufficient OR if you think there are certain political parties or political groupings (that is it legal to express support for) that are so bigoted that a shipmate declaring support for them is by doing that breaking C1. For example self-identifying Nazis, KKK, supporters of Ayatollah Khomeni or others.
As I understand it these are not the salient examples at all. Banning KKK would be uncontroversial. The question is - should we ban self-identifying Reform voters, MAGA supporters, One Nation advocates?
Announcing membership of/support for a racist/ fascist group which commits or wants to commit racist crimes/ murders/ enact racist sackings, defundings and deportations is to me, plainly expressing an open and legible public racist stance.
No crystal ball or cries of 'thought crime' required - that stuff is open racism.
It's saying someone supports extreme racist persecution or at the very least is fine with it.
The racism in it might once have been plausibly deniable but simply isnt any more in today's circumstances, as we can see what Trump and his regime actually do.
'I'm fine with waiting for them to further attack other people' - after already making clear they're heartily in favour of such attacks and want more of them, just strikes me as the kind of thinking that got us here in the first place. Fascism was allowed to become mainstream in news and politics and tolerated in communities instead of shutting it down at first sight. As @Firenze said there are all the ways that "allow people to countenance them and still think of themselves as decent, reasonable citizens".
It's neither decent nor reasonable to their targets to platform open fascists- and yes they do do things like announce support for Trump within a few posts. It's because of recent examples like that that I'm having this discussion because I'm wondering what kind of definition of racism we have when we think people saying how they support the fascists, that we're wrong for not supporting them and isnt it grand they're doing great? shouldn't be told to sling their hooks or go be racist somewhere else.
My issue with banning people as soon as (for example) they declare support for Donald Trump is this: Trumpism and movements like it feed off a sense of grievance and victimhood. If we ban people immediately we are feeding that sense of victimhood and entrenching them in it.
Racism and all the rest are already against our existing rules.
I agree and this fits in with what I just said about people who feel left behind and sneered at voting Reform.
I'd say because there is an overwhelming consensus in wider society that Nazis and the Klan are beyond the pale. There is no such overwhelming consensus with regard to Reform or MAGA, although their opponents might wish there were.
Within the Ship, though, there might be such an overwhelming consensus. Wider society might not want to ban Reform, but perhaps we, the Ship, do. Or maybe we don't? That is what this discussion is about, surely?
OK so banning KKK and Nazi supporters is uncontroversial - before they post anything explicitly racist - why ?
Conversely, a potential clear threshold, is if it is a party you can legally vote for - then we can accept you have that affiliation. There remain potential issues with that, but it is at least clear. However, that means accepting - in theory - we allow neo-facists on the platform.
OK so banning KKK and Nazi supporters is uncontroversial - before they post anything explicitly racist - why ?
Conversely, a potential clear threshold, is if it is a party you can legally vote for - then we can accept you have that affiliation. There remain potential issues with that, but it is at least clear. However, that means accepting - in theory - we allow neo-facists on the platform.
I don't think this would be acceptable to anyone. If "BNP_boi" and five of his mates signed up saying how much they admired Nick Griffin, and that they were looking forward to sharing their honestly-held and not at all racist views on ethnicity please, I would expect them to be shown the plank in short order. That has been the case throughout the history of the Ship. The question is - who else falls into this category?
Or how do you recognise facist movement - outside the context of 1930s Germany. I am not going to claim the linked article is unbiased - I am not sure an unbiased evaluation against a set of criteria exists or is even possible in the current public discourse..
Again posting support/ approval for the success of an explicit extreme racist persecutory organisation or its leader as a stand in for the whole, *is* as far as I'm concerned racist posting.
No 'before' - they already said the racism is good, they support it.
Posting from a country where a Holocaust denier is currently running for election and where in UK elections, the BNP were a legal party who got councillors elected the 'can legally vote for' threshold might be clear but is effectively useless, unless we want to host Nazis and Holocaust deniers which I would hope we don't.
OK so banning KKK and Nazi supporters is uncontroversial - before they post anything explicitly racist - why ?
Conversely, a potential clear threshold, is if it is a party you can legally vote for - then we can accept you have that affiliation. There remain potential issues with that, but it is at least clear. However, that means accepting - in theory - we allow neo-facists on the platform.
In theory we already do, so long as they don't tell us (directly or indirectly) that they're a fascist. What this comes down to is what sort of things does someone have to say for us to draw the conclusion that they're a fascist. I'm of the view that if you openly declare your support for fascist movements then, absent some really impressive rationalisation, you should not be welcome on the Ship. Movements don't stop being fascist merely because they have a large number of supporters.
If someone wants to construct an argument for immigration restrictions that isn't rooted in racism they can do that (or try, anyway), but expressing support for MAGA or Reform should be treated from now on as a C1 violation (I wouldn't make it retroactive).
Or how do you recognise facist movement - outside the context of 1930s Germany. I am not going to claim the linked article is unbiased - I am not sure an unbiased evaluation against a set of criteria exists or is even possible in the current public discourse..
I think it is pointless trying to define or determine such things. You could argue about it forever and many people do. It is much easier to decide: do we, as a group, like this? Do we want to tolerate it or not? If not, then it doesn't matter whether it is "really" fascist or extremist or not - the community has decided not to allow it and that is what we should enforce.
Again posting support/ approval for the success of an explicit extreme racist persecutory organisation or its leader as a stand in for the whole, *is* as far as I'm concerned racist posting.
No 'before' - they already said the racism is good, they support it.
Posting from a country where a Holocaust denier is currently running for election and where in UK elections, the BNP were a legal party who got councillors elected the 'can legally vote for' threshold might be clear but is effectively useless, unless we want to host Nazis and Holocaust deniers which I would hope we don't.
Okay. But what about a Tory voter who was supporting the party a few years back when they were trying to ship migrants off to Rwanda, but doesn't call himself a nazi and is willing to agree that the Holocaust happened? Which side of the acceptability line does he fall on?
I don't understand why we would bar certain people BEFORE they ever offend. Especially when that means pre-emptively barring 1/4 to 1/3 of a large nation's population, depending on exactly how one defines a Trump follower.
I don't believe people here are so fragile they can't withstand the presence of people who haven't actually offended yet, and who may never do so.
And the whole concept of a club for left-minded people--heck, of a club at all!
We've come a long, long way from Christian unrest.
Given the fact that in the US (as an example) racism is more common amongst white Evangelicals than amongst white non-religious people, surely coming down hard on racist groups is more of an example of Christian unrest than allowing such groups to be accepted?
Look. The minute we decide that simple membership of a group is grounds for planking regardless of behavior, we open the door to planking Evangelicals wholesale. Because, if your statement is true, they are a racist group. So why not get rid of them now?
That's just one example. I'm using it because it's right here in front of me. But there is no human group that cannot be plausibly, even truly, accused of group behavior that makes them worthy of planking.
In the past we've waited for bad behavior on the part of the individual. This respects human beings as individuals who make choices and have free will and moral responsibility. It also has the benefit of decreasing rather than increasing polarization on the Ship and in our cultures. We do ourselves and the world no favors by increasing polarization, especially if we do it because something "might" happen.
It's been suggested that by NOT pitching people overboard as soon as they mention belonging to a problematic group (and before they show any bad behavior), we are a) platforming fascism/Nazism/whatever-ism. This is false. The minute that shit comes out of someone's mouth, they get planked (okay, as soon as an Admin can get to the controls.). One bad post, which gets deleted immediately it's noticed, is not platforming.
The Ship has managed to stay afloat for 25+ years in a world full of fascism, Nazism, racism, misogyny, etc without becoming itself a hotbed of any of those evils. We've done it with the policies and tools we currently have. We should trust ourselves to keep doing it.
It does free people no good to adopt the methods of those who would take our freedom from us (fascists etc). We need to behave like the free adults we are.
I take the possibly naive view that we are better than the racists, fascists and the like and we must not fall into the trap of punishing people for what they appear to think and only sanction them for what they post. We mustn’t become, or let ourselves be seen to become “thought police”.
Suppose there was a shipmate who had spent all of their time in the more specifically religious boards. I mean Kergymania and Ecclesiantics and Mystery Worshipper. I'm pretty sure there are shipmates like that. And suppose this shipmate had gone on for ages, talking about nothing more controversial than High Church Tat, or whatever they talk about down there, I don't get to those boards very often. And then, after that, just happened to mention they had voted for Trump... what then? Planking? Doesn't sound very fair.
Yes, there does seem to be an assumption in this discussion that everyone on the board discusses politics, etc, but some of us avoid those boards. Having a political perspective is irrelevant to much posting on the forum.
I dont think Tories rise to the extreme level of Trump - ICE, sackings for race, DOGE, and attacks on law and order/ democracy and something very like or equivalent to a Führerprinzip. I mentioned this side of things in earlier posts on this thread about Trumpism, as part of what makes them both extreme racists, lawless with it, and pointless to discuss it with on Internet forums.
The Rwanda scheme died on its arse with 'four migrants...voluntarily relocated while it was in place'. ICE deportations run into hundreds of thousands already and people die in those camps.
Evangelicals dont have a Führerprinzip to a racist leader like that either. Many of them - certainly over here are extremely anti-racist. It's a vague description whereas support for Trump immediately ties someone to known numerous and severe crimes and at least being prepared to overlook them.
People who openly tell others they support violent fascists who commit severe abuses on this scale are not leaving people to guess at their opinions in any meaningful sense. They're tying their colours to that mast.
To speak in an area where I have better standing- if someone tells me they're an admirer of Andrew Tate, I 'd wonder if people going 'but that doesn't mean they're a misogynist or openly supporting misogyny - we cant tell anything about them' didn't think my head buttoned up the back.
'We're anti misogyny but we want Andrew Tate supporters to feel welcome to come here and we're just going to ignore this red flag of them saying they support him' would say to me misogyny wasnt taken seriously, that the comfort of misogynists was put above keeping misogyny and its harms out of a space.
The other boards that dont host political debate dont allow for anything but very uncontroversial statements. So a host would have to say something if someone decided eg. The Scottish thread in All Saints was where to announce their support for Andrew Tate and how they love all his videos and that's what they did at the weekend and I'd expect at least some people to be very distressed by that and if they kept that up they would be banned.
I think though when supporters of extreme C1 violating movements announce their allegiance to those movements on the debate boards that it's entirely reasonable to say immediately ' that won't fly here' and 'You signed up to not posting racist etc. material and you've just posted supporting racism/ whateverism'
Because it is posting support for racism and they did sign up to not posting that. So I think it's entirely reasonable to tell them it breaks C1 and invalidates their sign up if they post in that vein.
If a poster came out with Andrew Tate style bilge or openly racist comments they'd be planked and good riddance to them.
But to plank someone or deny them access to the Ship because they support Reform or Trump or Pauline Hanson and One Nation or some other numpty populist group strikes me as a step too far.
People can change.
Planking someone purely because we don't agree with their political views would only fuel a martyr-complex. 'I've been blocked by those woke-lefties aboard the Ship, they must be really scared of what I have to say ...'
All it would do is reinforce their stance.
On a non-political issue now, and I hope people don't mind my using myself as an example - but a good few years ago I was regularly suspended for jerkish behaviour.
I'm still here and although I get the occasional Hostly admonition I try to avoid the kind of behaviour that used to lead to my suspension.
I'm not saying I'm perfect, far from it, but I've learned to abide more closely to the rules.
I agree with @KarlLB at the beginning of this thread, I think.
We've lost a good few conservative or socially-conservative posters over the years. None of them were closet fascists as far as I am aware. Anyone who has spouted fascistic views has rightly received short shrift.
There are enough of us around, whether liberal, socialist, centrist, middle-of-the-road-conservative around who can respond appropriately to racists and fascists until such time as a Host or Admin can deal with them.
What was it the Good Book says? 'By you own words you will be justified, by your own words you will be condemned.'
Judge people by what they do and say not what label they might happen to be wearing.
To speak in an area where I have better standing- if someone tells me they're an admirer of Andrew Tate, I 'd wonder if people going 'but that doesn't mean they're a misogynist or openly supporting misogyny - we cant tell anything about them' didn't think my head buttoned up the back.
'We're anti misogyny but we want Andrew Tate supporters to feel welcome to come here and we're just going to ignore this red flag of them saying they support him' would say to me misogyny wasnt taken seriously, that the comfort of misogynists was put above keeping misogyny and its harms out of a space.
Is this aimed at me? Because I am not a supporter of Andrew Tate and I feel quite insulted by the suggestion.
I lecture in youth studies and use my experience of growing up on the same estate as Andrew Tate as an example of how areas of deprivation can be exploited to manipulate extreme behaviour.
By giving people a platform to promulgate their racist views, it has managed to convince a huge slice of the progressive population that it is fundamentally racist. Its capacity to look and act like anything other than a host and vehicle for racism is fatally compromised.
You're also assuming that everyone who voted for Trump (or says anything positive about him, brrrrrr) is making a considered, informed judgement--that they've actually paid attention and signed up to all his policies. I am very sorry to say I have Trumpistas in the family (God help us) and the level of ignorance and attention to a single issue only is ridiculous. That doesn't excuse them, of course; but it puts them in a different category to the true believers, and suggests that they might possibly be saved (as it were). And if one of these casual Trump supporters should wander onto the Ship, I hope Shipmates would show them the error of their ways without simply booting them to the curb immediately.
I don't understand why we would bar certain people BEFORE they ever offend. Especially when that means pre-emptively barring 1/4 to 1/3 of a large nation's population, depending on exactly how one defines a Trump follower.
I don't believe people here are so fragile they can't withstand the presence of people who haven't actually offended yet, and who may never do so.
And the whole concept of a club for left-minded people--heck, of a club at all!
We've come a long, long way from Christian unrest.
My issue with banning people as soon as (for example) they declare support for Donald Trump is this: Trumpism and movements like it feed off a sense of grievance and victimhood. If we ban people immediately we are feeding that sense of victimhood and entrenching them in it.
Racism and all the rest are already against our existing rules.
You're also assuming that everyone who voted for Trump (or says anything positive about him, brrrrrr) is making a considered, informed judgement--that they've actually paid attention and signed up to all his policies. I am very sorry to say I have Trumpistas in the family (God help us) and the level of ignorance and attention to a single issue only is ridiculous. That doesn't excuse them, of course; but it puts them in a different category to the true believers, and suggests that they might possibly be saved (as it were). And if one of these casual Trump supporters should wander onto the Ship, I hope Shipmates would show them the error of their ways without simply booting them to the curb immediately.
I think those who have posted essentially, ban when show their C1 jerkism are right in principle. However it doesn’t handle the issue of pressure on Hosts.
When I agreed with Louise earlier I envisaged a specific strengthening of C1 which would exclude members of prohibited organisation. Like e.g the KKK. But I’ve followed the subsequent discussions and DT’s specific questions. And find myself in no man’s land!
Thinking outside the box, I’ve been wondering about Commandment 8, crusading. For example, we could suspend or ban a MAGA crusader if they divert threads in favour of MAGA. Or we could suspend or ban a Shipmate who invariably diverts gender questions into a gender-critical view. We don’t necessarily focus on their degree of persecution but on their ability to derail by crusading. That might be a lot easier to Host.
And I think those who have lodged objection in principle wishing to preserve “unrest” would have no objection to tougher attitudes towards derailers.
This doesn’t rule out the application of C1 for demonstrable jerkiness but it might provide a means of Hosting that would have a lot of support.
DT, I really don’t want to derail this thread! You may not welcome this “out of the box” thought and I don’t mind if you shut it down. I’m trying to be creative.
I think what is being done is sufficient. I think any more is overkill and getting into thought-police territory.
And again, FWIW, I think it's vanishingly rare for someone to come in and, straight off the bat say "Hi, I'm a member of the KKK", or suchlike. They would post enough first that their leanings would be apparent.
If a poster came out with Andrew Tate style bilge or openly racist comments they'd be planked and good riddance to them.
But to plank someone or deny them access to the Ship because they support Reform or Trump or Pauline Hanson and One Nation or some other numpty populist group strikes me as a step too far.
People can change.
Planking someone purely because we don't agree with their political views would only fuel a martyr-complex. 'I've been blocked by those woke-lefties aboard the Ship, they must be really scared of what I have to say ...'
All it would do is reinforce their stance.
On a non-political issue now, and I hope people don't mind my using myself as an example - but a good few years ago I was regularly suspended for jerkish behaviour.
I'm still here and although I get the occasional Hostly admonition I try to avoid the kind of behaviour that used to lead to my suspension.
I'm not saying I'm perfect, far from it, but I've learned to abide more closely to the rules.
I agree with @KarlLB at the beginning of this thread, I think.
We've lost a good few conservative or socially-conservative posters over the years. None of them were closet fascists as far as I am aware. Anyone who has spouted fascistic views has rightly received short shrift.
There are enough of us around, whether liberal, socialist, centrist, middle-of-the-road-conservative around who can respond appropriately to racists and fascists until such time as a Host or Admin can deal with them.
What was it the Good Book says? 'By you own words you will be justified, by your own words you will be condemned.'
Judge people by what they do and say not what label they might happen to be wearing.
This, all of this, agreed.
(If anything, I think we should be more open to discussing certain things which used to go in Dead Horses. I miss that terribly. That change has probably driven old Shipmates of a less liberal bent off the Ship. It’s almost driven me off a couple of times in recent years.)
People who've just read through a Hell thread all about Trump's behaviour including the racism who then engage to defend him are not ignorant of it and cant say they know nothing about what they've just read and are replying to.
I think it might be fair to ask completely new people if they know that they're breaking what they signed up to and to ask if they're willing to address that.
But they are breaking it.
But something that shouldn't be lost in the mix is people who aren't entirely new, have had warnings and then endorse explicitly racist political groups/ policies. That is just breaking C1 with no redeeming features.
Comments
I'm with @Lamb Chopped on this one.
Please take the serious point and I'll try to be less frivolous in future.
It is offending actually taking place.
Advocating for nakedly racist projects to win and be supported is posting racism and thus I think breaking C1. I'd like us to be clear on that.
As Pomona says a lot of racist people would deny it and others are what we in Scots would call 'sleekit'* they do a lot of dogwhistling and brinkmanship and a lot of labour intensive whack-a-mole type hosting has to go on to stop them doing it.
One 'sleekism' if I might coin a phrase is bigging up fascists/ fascist groups/ parties/ leaders - it becomes a way of doing and promoting racism etc. without - they hope- triggering C1.
I'm saying that it would be a good thing to block that loophole.
@TurquoiseTastic draws attention to something really important in describing their experiences of the newspaper- this has a technical term ' it's the shifting of the 'Overton window'.
https://vortex.uni.mau.se/2025/04/the-overton-window-how-ideas-shift-from-radical-to-mainstream/
It's how someone on the right suddenly finds themselves puzzlingly on the left and people who were on the liberal left suddenly find we're supposedly fire-breathing radicals without our political positions shifting much and then we pick up the newspaper, turn on the telly and suddenly kinds of racism and persecution are ordinary and accepted mainstream discourse and doing well in the polls and our neighbours most basic human rights are up for 'debate'.
That's what happens when fascist racist projects are allowed to steal the clothes of mainstream political parties and it's why we should resist normalising those projects here.
Otherwise we will be at risk of ending up thinking our neighbours being forcibly deported for racist reasons and our democracies destroyed is just unexceptionable normal 'centre right' talk. But I think we should avoid normalising fascism- not because the targets of fascism are 'fragile', though they may lack relative power and be opportunistically targeted by bullying scapegoaters for that, but because it's the right thing to do to resist the mainstreaming and normalisation of these political forces.
If someone pops up posting publically that they support an openly fascist/ racist group/ leader I suggest believing them the first time and closing the loophole where we dont count supporting extreme racist/fascist groups as a racist post.
As Pomona says, it's about being actively anti racist and maintaining the scarce spaces where that isn't normalised and the people targeted, can if they so wish, get a breather from it.
*sleekit - of persons or their words or actions: smooth in manner, plausible, ingratiating, unctuous; insinuating, sly, cunning, specious, not altogether to be trusted
However, I can only see this request made on the Trump thread; didn't see anything on the Canadian politics, Australian politics, "Who's Next" or Hegseth threads in Purgatory, nor on the UK/ADHD thread in Epiphanies.
So, just a heads-up for the mods that if they want to attract people to this thread for opinion sampling, it might need wider publicity.
As for the requested opinions, I would agree with what I take @NicoleMR to be saying: people should be planked for expressing opinions that violate Ship policy, not simply for announced membership in or support for a group.
If it precludes debate, it is because of the current degenerate state of what passes for right-wing political discourse, and I see no reason to apologise for not affording it the dignity of space.
I'm not sure why Heavenlyannie's experiences are deemed to be sensible and other people's experiences are not. Could you please explain your reasoning?
I'm not sure what this is trying to say. Obviously your experiences are your experiences, but that doesn't make them indicative of being working-class in general. I am not doubting your working-class credentials in any way, nor am I doubting your own beliefs. But there are still lots of anti-Reform working-class people - the issue is conflating Reform support and being working-class. Just because it's the case where you grew up doesn't make it representative of working-class people in general.
I do have to wonder why someone who isn't racist or xenophobic would vote for a racist and xenophobic party. I'm not saying that you're wrong wrt their beliefs, but I think it is reasonable to say that in general support for Reform is driven by racism.
Concerns about employee rights and paying taxes would apply to a huge number of companies. Do you think that everyone that patronises such companies - even if they have limited options where they live - are equivalent to endorsing neo-Nazis?
The reason why certain violent groups have been proscribed - at least traditionally - has been because support for them has raised their visibility and encouraged people to join them. Companies that take advantage of poor worker protections and tax loopholes don't need that public visibility to do such things, because those loopholes already exist for them. Your point makes no sense given the reasons for actually proscribing groups.
Given the fact that in the US (as an example) racism is more common amongst white Evangelicals than amongst white non-religious people, surely coming down hard on racist groups is more of an example of Christian unrest than allowing such groups to be accepted?
I agree that there are some things that are beyond the pale. I just want to be clear in my own mind that I have interpreted the conversation correctly.
AFF
I was just repeating my recollection of what @Doublethink said here:
I see now Doublethink’s qualifier of “main” political and national threads.
And again, FWIW, I think it's vanishingly rare for someone to come in and, straight off the bat say "Hi, I'm a member of the KKK", or suchlike. They would post enough first that their leanings would be apparent.
I didn't say these things were equivalent to endorsing neo-Nazis.
This is the second time today you've either ignored or misrepresented something I've written.
I've said I'll try not to be so frivolous in future.
Thanks.
There's a glib response about making the trains run on time in there somewhere.
Is it always true that people who want to limit immigration are driven by racism?
I don't think it is. I think there are consistent raise-the-drawbridge-the-country-is-full type opinions that aren't racist at all. I think one could have a discussion about whether the "I like my culture and I don't want it to be diluted too much" opinons are always racist. I think there's a difference between "this is good: I want to keep this" and "I don't want "them" coming over here with their X, Y, and Z".
There is a danger, I think, that when the only people who are expressing opinions vaguely similar to yours are the racists, then you get drawn further in to racism.
A lot of the time, the answer to a question depends on the way you frame the question. Ask random Americans about immigration, and you tend to get fairly strong support for the proposition that people should immigrate via legal pathways, and fairly strong opposition to the idea that illegal border crossings should be tolerated. Many of the people expressing such opinions have wildly unrealistic ideas about what the legal immigration process actually looks like.
I did not say anywhere that working class people can’t be anti-Reform; I am anti-Reform. I am saying that many working class people vote Reform. The reasons are mixed, some are racist but many feel left behind and forgotten. This has historic roots; in the 1990s my father and 3 of my brothers were made redundant during factory closures, for instance. This includes the two brothers I mentioned earlier. Memories are long lasting and governments resented.
Whilst Reform’s backers and leaders are rich, their MPs often represent poor areas; Farage’s constituency includes Jaywick, the most deprived place in England https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgjd1q9yp04o
Luton also has an history of deprivation and is famously working class, with all those oh so funny jokes about Luton Airport and chavs. It is a great example of a working class town which is down at heel, feels sneered at by others and risks turning to Reform.
I think we should judge people by what they post, and not do some kind of pre-judgement of what their beliefs are.
As I understand it these are not the salient examples at all. Banning KKK would be uncontroversial. The question is - should we ban self-identifying Reform voters, MAGA supporters, One Nation advocates?
No crystal ball or cries of 'thought crime' required - that stuff is open racism.
It's saying someone supports extreme racist persecution or at the very least is fine with it.
The racism in it might once have been plausibly deniable but simply isnt any more in today's circumstances, as we can see what Trump and his regime actually do.
'I'm fine with waiting for them to further attack other people' - after already making clear they're heartily in favour of such attacks and want more of them, just strikes me as the kind of thinking that got us here in the first place. Fascism was allowed to become mainstream in news and politics and tolerated in communities instead of shutting it down at first sight. As @Firenze said there are all the ways that "allow people to countenance them and still think of themselves as decent, reasonable citizens".
It's neither decent nor reasonable to their targets to platform open fascists- and yes they do do things like announce support for Trump within a few posts. It's because of recent examples like that that I'm having this discussion because I'm wondering what kind of definition of racism we have when we think people saying how they support the fascists, that we're wrong for not supporting them and isnt it grand they're doing great? shouldn't be told to sling their hooks or go be racist somewhere else.
Within the Ship, though, there might be such an overwhelming consensus. Wider society might not want to ban Reform, but perhaps we, the Ship, do. Or maybe we don't? That is what this discussion is about, surely?
Conversely, a potential clear threshold, is if it is a party you can legally vote for - then we can accept you have that affiliation. There remain potential issues with that, but it is at least clear. However, that means accepting - in theory - we allow neo-facists on the platform.
I don't think this would be acceptable to anyone. If "BNP_boi" and five of his mates signed up saying how much they admired Nick Griffin, and that they were looking forward to sharing their honestly-held and not at all racist views on ethnicity please, I would expect them to be shown the plank in short order. That has been the case throughout the history of the Ship. The question is - who else falls into this category?
No 'before' - they already said the racism is good, they support it.
Posting from a country where a Holocaust denier is currently running for election and where in UK elections, the BNP were a legal party who got councillors elected the 'can legally vote for' threshold might be clear but is effectively useless, unless we want to host Nazis and Holocaust deniers which I would hope we don't.
In theory we already do, so long as they don't tell us (directly or indirectly) that they're a fascist. What this comes down to is what sort of things does someone have to say for us to draw the conclusion that they're a fascist. I'm of the view that if you openly declare your support for fascist movements then, absent some really impressive rationalisation, you should not be welcome on the Ship. Movements don't stop being fascist merely because they have a large number of supporters.
If someone wants to construct an argument for immigration restrictions that isn't rooted in racism they can do that (or try, anyway), but expressing support for MAGA or Reform should be treated from now on as a C1 violation (I wouldn't make it retroactive).
I think it is pointless trying to define or determine such things. You could argue about it forever and many people do. It is much easier to decide: do we, as a group, like this? Do we want to tolerate it or not? If not, then it doesn't matter whether it is "really" fascist or extremist or not - the community has decided not to allow it and that is what we should enforce.
Okay. But what about a Tory voter who was supporting the party a few years back when they were trying to ship migrants off to Rwanda, but doesn't call himself a nazi and is willing to agree that the Holocaust happened? Which side of the acceptability line does he fall on?
Look. The minute we decide that simple membership of a group is grounds for planking regardless of behavior, we open the door to planking Evangelicals wholesale. Because, if your statement is true, they are a racist group. So why not get rid of them now?
That's just one example. I'm using it because it's right here in front of me. But there is no human group that cannot be plausibly, even truly, accused of group behavior that makes them worthy of planking.
In the past we've waited for bad behavior on the part of the individual. This respects human beings as individuals who make choices and have free will and moral responsibility. It also has the benefit of decreasing rather than increasing polarization on the Ship and in our cultures. We do ourselves and the world no favors by increasing polarization, especially if we do it because something "might" happen.
It's been suggested that by NOT pitching people overboard as soon as they mention belonging to a problematic group (and before they show any bad behavior), we are a) platforming fascism/Nazism/whatever-ism. This is false. The minute that shit comes out of someone's mouth, they get planked (okay, as soon as an Admin can get to the controls.). One bad post, which gets deleted immediately it's noticed, is not platforming.
The Ship has managed to stay afloat for 25+ years in a world full of fascism, Nazism, racism, misogyny, etc without becoming itself a hotbed of any of those evils. We've done it with the policies and tools we currently have. We should trust ourselves to keep doing it.
It does free people no good to adopt the methods of those who would take our freedom from us (fascists etc). We need to behave like the free adults we are.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Führerprinzip
The Rwanda scheme died on its arse with 'four migrants...voluntarily relocated while it was in place'. ICE deportations run into hundreds of thousands already and people die in those camps.
Evangelicals dont have a Führerprinzip to a racist leader like that either. Many of them - certainly over here are extremely anti-racist. It's a vague description whereas support for Trump immediately ties someone to known numerous and severe crimes and at least being prepared to overlook them.
People who openly tell others they support violent fascists who commit severe abuses on this scale are not leaving people to guess at their opinions in any meaningful sense. They're tying their colours to that mast.
To speak in an area where I have better standing- if someone tells me they're an admirer of Andrew Tate, I 'd wonder if people going 'but that doesn't mean they're a misogynist or openly supporting misogyny - we cant tell anything about them' didn't think my head buttoned up the back.
'We're anti misogyny but we want Andrew Tate supporters to feel welcome to come here and we're just going to ignore this red flag of them saying they support him' would say to me misogyny wasnt taken seriously, that the comfort of misogynists was put above keeping misogyny and its harms out of a space.
The other boards that dont host political debate dont allow for anything but very uncontroversial statements. So a host would have to say something if someone decided eg. The Scottish thread in All Saints was where to announce their support for Andrew Tate and how they love all his videos and that's what they did at the weekend and I'd expect at least some people to be very distressed by that and if they kept that up they would be banned.
I think though when supporters of extreme C1 violating movements announce their allegiance to those movements on the debate boards that it's entirely reasonable to say immediately ' that won't fly here' and 'You signed up to not posting racist etc. material and you've just posted supporting racism/ whateverism'
Because it is posting support for racism and they did sign up to not posting that. So I think it's entirely reasonable to tell them it breaks C1 and invalidates their sign up if they post in that vein.
I agree with @la vie en rouge, @Heavenlyannie and @Lamb Chopped.
If a poster came out with Andrew Tate style bilge or openly racist comments they'd be planked and good riddance to them.
But to plank someone or deny them access to the Ship because they support Reform or Trump or Pauline Hanson and One Nation or some other numpty populist group strikes me as a step too far.
People can change.
Planking someone purely because we don't agree with their political views would only fuel a martyr-complex. 'I've been blocked by those woke-lefties aboard the Ship, they must be really scared of what I have to say ...'
All it would do is reinforce their stance.
On a non-political issue now, and I hope people don't mind my using myself as an example - but a good few years ago I was regularly suspended for jerkish behaviour.
I'm still here and although I get the occasional Hostly admonition I try to avoid the kind of behaviour that used to lead to my suspension.
I'm not saying I'm perfect, far from it, but I've learned to abide more closely to the rules.
I agree with @KarlLB at the beginning of this thread, I think.
We've lost a good few conservative or socially-conservative posters over the years. None of them were closet fascists as far as I am aware. Anyone who has spouted fascistic views has rightly received short shrift.
There are enough of us around, whether liberal, socialist, centrist, middle-of-the-road-conservative around who can respond appropriately to racists and fascists until such time as a Host or Admin can deal with them.
What was it the Good Book says? 'By you own words you will be justified, by your own words you will be condemned.'
Judge people by what they do and say not what label they might happen to be wearing.
I lecture in youth studies and use my experience of growing up on the same estate as Andrew Tate as an example of how areas of deprivation can be exploited to manipulate extreme behaviour.
By giving people a platform to promulgate their racist views, it has managed to convince a huge slice of the progressive population that it is fundamentally racist. Its capacity to look and act like anything other than a host and vehicle for racism is fatally compromised.
Agreed with both of you.
This.
People sign up to no racist etc. behaviour
Behaviour is the specific word used in the rules.
Pledging allegiance and giving support to explicitly, famously, severely racist persecution movements and leaders is racist behaviour.
It's not something inscrutable or invisible.
If I post my support and admiration for Nick Griffin to the public that's racist behaviour.
The same with Trump.
If I just signed up that racist behaviour was jerkish and not allowed, I broke what I signed up for.
When people do that we host them.
When I agreed with Louise earlier I envisaged a specific strengthening of C1 which would exclude members of prohibited organisation. Like e.g the KKK. But I’ve followed the subsequent discussions and DT’s specific questions. And find myself in no man’s land!
Thinking outside the box, I’ve been wondering about Commandment 8, crusading. For example, we could suspend or ban a MAGA crusader if they divert threads in favour of MAGA. Or we could suspend or ban a Shipmate who invariably diverts gender questions into a gender-critical view. We don’t necessarily focus on their degree of persecution but on their ability to derail by crusading. That might be a lot easier to Host.
And I think those who have lodged objection in principle wishing to preserve “unrest” would have no objection to tougher attitudes towards derailers.
This doesn’t rule out the application of C1 for demonstrable jerkiness but it might provide a means of Hosting that would have a lot of support.
DT, I really don’t want to derail this thread! You may not welcome this “out of the box” thought and I don’t mind if you shut it down. I’m trying to be creative.
This, all of this, agreed.
(If anything, I think we should be more open to discussing certain things which used to go in Dead Horses. I miss that terribly. That change has probably driven old Shipmates of a less liberal bent off the Ship. It’s almost driven me off a couple of times in recent years.)
I think it might be fair to ask completely new people if they know that they're breaking what they signed up to and to ask if they're willing to address that.
But they are breaking it.
But something that shouldn't be lost in the mix is people who aren't entirely new, have had warnings and then endorse explicitly racist political groups/ policies. That is just breaking C1 with no redeeming features.