Reddit Ireland turns off at midnight to stop racist trolls | Hacker News Reader

Reddit Ireland turns off at midnight to stop racist trolls

bbc.co.uk

18 pointsAndrewDucker30 comments

I used to post on the r/europe subreddit frequently and it's something I noticed too. On occasion when I was up late at night the quality went down considerably and it turned extremely toxic compared to discussions around the rest of the day.

A lot of racism and in a very obvious way coming from foreign commentators who were only remotely familiar with European politics. The French far-right candidate in the last election even had a dedicated sub with not a single comment in French, ironically enough.

I thought r/europe has been like that for quite a while now.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ireland/comments/gyyv6y/temporary_c...

This might be a better link.

Not at the moment, it's not!: https://imgur.com/a/68M8iyN

Oh...well, it was working when I posted it, I'm not a member of the community and I could see it at one point but it does seem to be blocked now. I regret not copying and pasting the post now, I didn't think it would vanish.

Sorry, the link did explain at the time I posted it.

What is even being discussed here? A subreddit?

Yeah, this article is almost completely devoid of information.

The article isn't clear about it, but I believe it's: https://www.reddit.com/r/ireland/

It's disgusting that the "article" doesn't even mention what this is all about. It's not like there are suddenly bad people swarming an innocent sub and "troll" it. There was an event happening in Ireland that is being censored on there and around the globe. Everyone who tries to bring it to light is being labeled a "racist troll" and punished by the machine.

And it's even more disappointing that it works - with multiple people here wondering "why would people do that", without even looking for the real answer.

I take it you are afraid of mentioning whatever it is for fear of being labelled likewise? There have been many events, so it's hard to know which real answer you're alluding to.

yes

Which means it could be racist trolling that you don't actually understand to be racist trolling.

I've seen many green/new accounts. That's one way to comment about it.

True! It wasn't like that in the beginning though - this story has been purged everywhere.

And this reporting in particular is saddening. Journalism is supposed to be about facts and not feelings. This article does hardly contain any relevant facts and only tells you how to feel - and it's being eaten up.

It's a fact that people have feelings.

Journalism reports on feelings all the time.

A DDG search for "classic journalism feelings" easily found https://www.cjr.org/analysis/journalism_and_the_power_of_emo... - "Journalism and the power of emotions"

> “Invisible Child” is an example of the power of storytelling. It’s also an example of what motivates many journalists, what we believe is possible through our narratives: to extend empathy for the individual to the group, to correct injustice and inspire change, or at least awareness. ...

> From stories about living conditions in New York’s slum tenements of the 1880s to the plight of children in contemporary homeless shelters, empathy is an integral part of journalism.

This is not a big opinion piece or a report on a grand problem of society. It's about a singular event that happened on Sunday. In fact the BBC did never report on that actual event itself (if their site search works correct at least). But they did write about people trying to bring it to light and labeled them racist trolls. That is not reporting and it's not even "just" omission. It's straight up manipulation. They're doing the exact opposite of what they're supposed to. And they're being paid by the very people they lie to and harming them in the process by massively shifting the perceived reality.

There's more than one news source.

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/ireland-reddit-page-sh... says:

> "It comes as far-right groups have started an orchestrated attempt to hijack online discussions about an attack in Carrigaline with racist commentary."

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Carrigaline&t=ffsb&df=w&iar=news&i... shows almost only Irish reporting of that stabbing.

Eg, https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/family-of... :

> The family of a teenager who was assaulted and stabbed in Cork at the weekend have distanced themselves from an online fundraising campaign which has been shut down after it was linked to vile racist rhetoric.

> ... Despite pleas for it not to be shared, several online social media accounts - many anonymous and troll accounts - as well as some far-right accounts based overseas, urged their followers to use the assault and the video clip to “control the narrative”.

> The incident and clip triggered a wave of racist commentary despite confirmation from friends of the injured boy that the attack had nothing to do with race.

Even in the lines you quoted there were several lies. But you know that topic is verboten for people like me. I'll leave it at that.

And some people honestly believed a underground child sex ring was located under a pizzeria with no basement.

And that Obama was born in Kenya.

At what point do you decide that there is conspiracy preventing publication, vs. that your hidden sources of information are lying to you?

Ireland? Why the heck would people troll that forum. Madness.

Hypothetically speaking, if a country can afford a standing army and pay the thousands of privates for doing pushups and running around in circles with backpacks and guns.

Then its not crazy to assume they can afford bunch of people trolling internet forums in an attempt to destabilize (even slightly so) the internal politics of neighboring countries.

Russian government is at weaker bargaining position when dealing with EU, then when dealing with single small country. So their vested interest is to push other countries to leave the EU.

Let’s call it what it is: censorship. They’re obscuring censorship under the moral imperative of silencing the racism boogeyman.

Obvious trolling and/or racist comments get moderated on HN too, what's the difference?

Nothing, they'll call that censorship too.

True. You'd think I would have learned by now. You can't have a logical discussion about illogical views.

They don’t get removed though. You can still read them.

If you have the option set sure, but they still get flagged and removed from the thread. I just don't see how moderating comments would be considered 'censorship'. Just go post that crap on your own subreddit. If someone is purposefully highjacking a thread to derail it with off-topic comments then they would be the one attempting to suppress someones else's opinion. If the party in question is already acting in bad faith, I don't see how an argument could be made in their favor.

"Boogeyman" is a term used for things that don't exist.

What if people all over the world could teleport to your living room and write rude things on the walls if they felt like it? Preventing them would be censorship too. Nobody is consistently against censorship in the broad sense you use the term. You'd have to be against all boundaries, and all territory. Nobody is like that, if only because they believe in their own.

should locking up a corner store past 9pm in a rough neighbourhood be considered violence / burglary censorship?

Reddit has become insufferable in the last few years. It used to be a great news and community aggregator, but since they switched to a social media platform the quality of content changed. It's easy to brush this off as the 'hivemind' effect, but it's a nasty combination of corporations and governments pushing agendas, identity politics, an eternal September, and even admins and moderators pushing their personal politics. There's not a single moderately popular subreddit that has no politics being shoved in your face.

Unlike the downfall of Digg/ stumbleupon, there's no alternative.

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