Extremist content on Reddit, Discord worrying trend for young adults in India | Hacker News Reader

Extremist content on Reddit, Discord worrying trend for young adults in India

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62 pointsbrimnes83 comments

I think the far more worrying trend is trying to silence anyone with different political ideologies.

Like their handpicked example of a user discussing "'destroý' Islam". Note, they added the quotes around destroy. But the actual content is reasonably thoughtful discussion of appointed supreme court judges and only claims "to end radical islam".

It’s interesting because “destroy whiteness” was and is a popular talking point in certain circles or the left. Obviously they don’t literally mean destroy white people but as always the benefit of the doubt is extended to them but “destroy Islam” immediately is interpreted as inherently violent or evil.

Take that, and apply it to "destroy jewishness"

Let's see where you end up.

IIUC, anti religion (ex Christianity) is pretty equally distributed on the left and right... Right?

The main consistent principle on the social-justice-left is rooting for the underdog. By that logic, a Hindu minority in Pakistan saying "destroy Islam" is good, but a Hindu majority in India saying the same thing is bad.

Of course the side effect of that belief is that people spend a lot of time trying to prove they're underdogs, e.g. look at kids on Tumblr listing all the ways they're oppressed because they have self diagnosed ADHD/aspergers, or trying really hard to claim ancestry of an oppressed group.

Well, more like "halfway-consistent" principle. When it's them who are holding power over some underdog group, they'll happily call that group a "basket of deplorables".

When I was a mod, my policy was to let the idiots speak and the downvotes answer. People should understand that the community is showing them the door, not the mods.

I drew the line at bad behaviour, which usually came in response to unpopular opinions. In other words, I left conservative comments and deleted angry personal attacks in response to them.

Some people did not get it. We had a biweekly "where are the mods" rant. They accused mods of siding with "the Nazis". By that they meant anyone who said anything a conservative person might agree with. Guilt by association.

This is how I learned the term concern trolling, which I understand as someone listening to your arguments in order to debate them. In other words, a debate. Some people were not having it.

We get hiveminds because that's what people ask for.

That might create the Nazi bar problem

https://nitter.net/IamRageSparkle/status/1280892535024619522

https://teddit.net/r/TalesFromYourServer/comments/hsiisw/kic...

The thing is those people weren't even close to Nazis. They just politely disagreed with the hivemind on finer points. All you had to do to fight them was to disagree and explain your position. You already had the crowd cheering for your side, so why should the mods give you even more of an advantage?

The risk of creating a hive mind seemed greater than the risk of being overrun by Nazis, since they got downvoted to oblivion anyway.

Social media usage in India nowadays includes calls for mass killings of Muslims[1] and there is widespread political momentum towards essentially establishing a Hindu nationalist society.

Over the last few decades India has seen significant violence against Muslims[2] so to label this sort of agitation as a "different political ideology" is, to put it mildly, bizarre.

Given the rifts that social media has managed to cause in multi-racial/ethnic/religious societies with any form of harmony going out of the window as extremism spreads uncontrolled through networks this kind of lack of response is a disaster. If you want a functioning multiracial society you should look towards Singapore rather than transplanting the typical Western discourse about 'silencing' on foreign countries.

And as to the example, if I were to suggest we "destroy Christianity" in the US by means of using the supreme court you would be unconcerned as long as I qualify that we're only going to eradicate "radical Christianity"?

[1]https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/12/24/india-hindu-event-...

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_against_Muslims_in_In...

Is it just me or does a subreddit with only 90k members seem too small to matter?

Especially amongst India. Their population is huge, you would need a much larger reach to influence culture.

Agreed. For comparison, the /r/aznidentity subreddit (Americans with Asian ancestry) has half as many members but has much more extremist content.

Insofar as Indians are using Reddit, they aren't in /r/india.

I'd like to understand why so many young people find extremist content so persuasive and engaging. I can't stand it, and I instantly close any website that allows for extreme content.

This is well studied. The summary is that they target isolated or vulnerable people. It's the same with cults, diploma mills, and multi-level marketing schemes.

I’d be interest in those studies. I have experience with all three.

MLMs. My experience is that MLMs victimized people with high levels of trust and connection.

It often stars with a relative or church member. Or a workmate. The sort of people that are hard to say no to.

They use high pressure sales tactics, combine with exploiting social capital.

Diploma mill. People who don’t have experience with post secondary education, and high trust for authority.

I’m not aware of any network affects. It’s not like your sister in law is pressuring you to get a Ph. D from Baleful University.

I have seen legitimate schools marketed this way: “if you don’t get your kids into Yuppyville Elementary, they wont have a chance at Harvard.”

I’ve seen cults … too many.

Most mainstream religious organizations have people at the margins. People who are mentally ill. Have drug issues. Etc.

It’s hard to incorporate them into the mainstream of church life. But most churches feel they are obligated to reach out to people like that.

Para-church organizations are becoming more popular. Like knights of Columbus (they’re old). If someone wants to start up a para church org, there’s not much anyone can do to stop them. They piggy back on mainstream denominations.

Combining people with issues with unmanaged para-church orgs can be toxic, and lead to cults quickly.

I know most people on HN probably have a negative view of religion, and don’t make much of a distinction between “good religion” and “bad cult.”

But a good example is anti-vaccination ideas. Almost no major religious body rejects COVID vaccines. It’s the para church orgs doing that.

It’s the same environment that creates predatory groups like “I the leader, and like Abraham must have multiple wives … and I chose all of you as my wives.”

Maybe I'm too optimistic, but I feel like you're describing the intellectual vacuum that is Reddit. I've found conversation here to be much more nuanced, at least since the start of 2021.

I haven’t seen much difference in attitudes towards religion between Reddit and HN. Both very dismissive.

HN is more tech focused, so I get its not what folks are here to discuss (generally).

I've found people here to engage more and explore religion respectfully most of the time. Reddit however, I might be looking in the wrong place but respect is not something I find. Often people pick the most expressive terms they can to ensure everyone is aware of their lack of respect.

Because it's a lure of empowerment. My vote doesn't matter. Media is controlled by corporate interests. But I can bully/attack/kill some other group and make a real impact.

The above is obviously not at all my own opinion just trying to explain the rational. It used to be that you could "make a difference" at a local level. But local "sense of community" has been replaced by online communities.

This last 2 year window has been particularly frustrating for young people and blaming "others" is frequent in these situations. I think externalising things to an out-group is just human nature (which of course needs to be confronted and denied)

Normally, it would be a minority who were in the position of the extent of time we're spending online, in discussions. More people in the space, more opportunity for pervasive negative messages, and racist/extremist messages to do their insidious work.

Why to they find it engaging and persuasive? because its recruiting, and so they get responses which are positive feedback. And, it provides an "unimpeachable" blame for the problem state young minds find themselves in: its those other people. Not you: you're one of us.

Good times give you lone wolves. Extreme times drive people into the arms of extreme ideologies.

And it's just as much a problem of visibility and perception as it is one of reality.

As someone who was a teen on the internet in the 2000s, I think it at least partially has to do with lack of perspective or a reference point — extremism isn’t registering as extremism due to not having a measuring stick.

Additionally, anything that engages an individual’s emotions is likely to be attractive at that stage of life, thanks to teenagers on average having emotional centers that are overdeveloped relative to the rest of their brains.

A lot of this extends into a person’s early 20s as well, depending on how quickly they mature, their life experiences, etc. Personally speaking, in retrospect I didn’t have my head screwed on even remotely right until at least age 26 or so.

In short, unanswered questions.

I have a close friend who briefly flirted with (actual) extreme right wing beliefs, and has, thankfully, settled on a less warlike disposition. The question he asked, and which was never given a straight answer, was (in paraphrase), “why are others allowed to say, and even wish and will evil things upon my identity, but I am forbidden from even mild criticism of other identities, under pain of real material loss?” It is a real question, describing a real phenomenon, and since no one “respectable” could give him a straight answer, or even acknowledge the legitimacy of the question, he turned to people who did, even as they answered wrongly.

This answer has, by far, the most explanatory power of all the responses.

Nobody in an extremist group thinks that they are an extremist. To them, it is the obvious rational and right mindset.

You may be in groups (or hold opinions) that others out there consider extremist, but to you feel very natural in the circles you associate with.

This is it. Take abortion, one side thinks that it is extreme to kill what they perceive as children, and the other side thinks that it is extreme to limit women’s rights to what they perceive as a medical procedure.

When you get to the bottom of these things you find different axiomatic beliefs. Some of these axiomatic beliefs are not based in truth but that is not relevant to the people who hold them.

There’s also a kind of tidal motion insofar as some beliefs move from the fringes to the mainstream (e.g. lgbt rights) and other beliefs move from the mainstream to the fringes. There’s always going to be some people who disagree with that motion, indeed many elderly people hold “extreme” beliefs (overt racism, etc) they are just not politically active usually.

People who are angry will seek out reasons to be angry. It resonates with their neural network.

I think we often mistake the symptom for the disease.

I don't think calling Christians jeebus is anger. It's straight up hate and racism.

Extremism is relative. Lots of what we accept with COVID would be over the top extremists in 2019.

Charlemange (supposedly) had people killed for eating meat on holy days. We would be outraged by even a 5 dollar fine.

Openly seeing gay/transgender people would be considered extreme by normal society just 30 years ago.

Honestly, because of inequality. When it becomes too difficult for people to live the life that society tells them everyone should live, people begin to lose faith in the system and that's when extremism takes root.

People will latch on to whatever 'tribe' they feel they belong to and create a scapegoat for whatever they think is the problem. Think communists vs. capitalists, ethnic group A vs ethnic group B, religion A vs religion B, vaxxed vs anti, etc...

Revolutions happen after an economic shock, not when things are going well.

Beware of trying to explain everything with a single variable (in this case, inequality). For example, the 1968 unrest in France did not happen because of an economic shock. And some economic shocks did not produce meaningful mass movements.

Young people tend to be edgy in general and they lack the experience to recognize the slippery slope potential from edginess towards dystopia. Most of the time, the edginess stays on the Internet, though, and only a tiny percentage overflows to the streets. The human civilization is trending away from the "active rioter" towards the "keyboard warrior" mode of operation. Riots used to be much worse, even in the 1980s, than they are now. Possibly the Internet acts as a surrogate channel for all that hate?

What inequality does is, IMHO, help recruit older and more experienced people to a radical movement that would otherwise fizzle out without massive support. The Yellow Vests in France were a good example. Once the lower middle class lost the ability to support their lifestyle, they lashed out in a way more destructive way that random students could.

During the 1960's the gini coefficient in France was nearly 50. Now it's in the 20's.

Considering the French protests were started by leftists literally complaining about inequality, and that inequality was much higher then than today, I think my explanation holds up.

I think any explanation should also explain all the instances of countries where protests did not happen, even though inequality was high.

The best evidence for causality would be to demonstrate some kind of "dose and response effect", which isn't easy. The dreaded word "culture" tends to creep in, because some countries seem to have a lot more riot-y history than others. (France vs. UK vs. Spain).

You're right, social mobility and overall standard of living matters as well. Also, how strong the state itself is and how decisively they can put down insurrection...

Reddit will ban it as soon as they think it'll affect advertising in a negative way.

Reddit is the worst for censorship.

In this case I don't mind it. I've taken a brief look at their subreddit and it deserves no place somewhere so mainstream.

Its toxic and full of hate speach against Christians and Buddhists.

“Discord primarily acts as a hub for extreme right-wing socialising and community building.”

Primarily? No, not even close.

Probably the writer was trying to say that discord is a primary venue for those activities?

I've seen users, occasionally even whole servers, get banned because of people saying things like "brb smoking a fag". I highly doubt any discussion of right wing extremism is possible in the long term on Discord, let alone it "primarily acting as a hub for the extreme right" or even being their primary platform in general.

So what is right wing discourse in India? How would I distinguish it? Not to be disrespectful, I just would like to know since I have such a large number of Indian friends.

> So what is right wing discourse in India? How would I distinguish it? Not to be disrespectful, I just would like to know since I have such a large number of Indian friends.

I'm not very familiar with it, but I understand a big component is "Hindu nationalism," which seeks to turn India into an exclusively Hindu nation. That's resulted resulted in attacks and official harassment against minority Muslims and Christians.

A couple weeks ago the NY Times had an article on it: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/22/world/asia/india-christia...

There are plenty of Indians who will also say the NY Times loves to publish exaggerated and negative articles about India.

Googling "site:.in hindutva" produces some interesting articles about the relationship between Hindutva and Hinduism.

It seems to be of much debate. Rahul Gandhi made some controversial comments about Hindutva and BJP last year, I believe.

> There are plenty of Indians who will also say the NY Times loves to publish exaggerated and negative articles about India.

I'm sure there are, but that likely-true fact doesn't shed any light on anything. For instance, Trumpers say similar things, simply because they're hostile to anything that portrays Trump in a negative light. They attack the media in order to hide the truth.

Given how attacks against relatively unbiased media are now part of the standard propaganda playbook, I don't put much stock in them unless they're very convincing. "People say" doesn't pass that threshold.

r/chodi paints an accurate picture

I have seen a few forgiven “extremists” subreddits before and I often have no idea what they are talking about. It’s all obscure debates and references that someone outside of the country wouldn’t understand. Last one I remember was just posts about how good India is and how Pakistan sucks.

Thr political elite is right wing. There is no discourse against a government that is actively pursectuing Christians minorities.

This is a series that's hot from the press.

[Copying an HN comment]

Part 1 - https://thewire.in/tekfog/en/1.html - Tek Fog: An App With BJP Footprints for Cyber Troops to Automate Hate, Manipulate Trends

Part 2 - https://thewire.in/tekfog/en/2.html - Tek Fog: Morphing URLs to Make Real News Fake, 'Hijacking' WhatsApp to Drive BJP Propaganda -

Part 3 - https://thewire.in/tekfog/en/3.html - Tek Fog in Action: Targeting Women Journalists, Pushing Communal Narrative on COVID, Delhi Violence -

Discussion with the journalists - https://old.reddit.com/r/india/comments/s4jfw7/hey_reddit_in... - Hey, Reddit India. We are the team behind the Tek Fog investigation, which uncovered the BJP-affiliated app for social media manipulation. ASK US ANYTHING

The journalists on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UI7NLMLOMLw

The right wing discourse is about advocating the replacement of existing democratic law in place of the vedic laws just like the olden days of pre british era. Vedas are the Hindu religious book that provides structure by which a society should be run by dividing people in to varna system(caste system).

India can never go back to vedic days, simply because there is no incentive for all Hindus. All Hindus are not the same in Hinduism. Vedic book advocates only a particular caste should have monopoly over education and only another to the right of having weapons, etc. This worked well prior to british colonilzation because people were not educated and could not see the big picture. That changed after the british rule and every one was given education which woke enough people to see the bigger picture of caste system.

The right wing advocates know that just with Hinduism they can not unite. They need another religion to hate and unite over that hate. This is where ISLAM comes in. Indian Muslims like the rest of the world can not take a joke on koran or Allah. This is very convenient for the right wing to spread hate and unite people over it. In contrast there is lot of atheist movement especially in South India where they can trash talk Hindu gods and their scriptures on public media at least for now. South India is more progressive and educated compared to North states.

When I see “worrying” or “problematic” in an article headline I know I can safely ignore it

"Problematic" is the 2019-2020 catchphrase which roughly translates to 'Things that dont actually matter, but we want the pageviews'.

I've always thought of it as meaning "Something that makes me feel unconfortable but I can't articulate why".

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