Reddit Racism: An Open Secret | Hacker News Reader

Reddit Racism: An Open Secret

newrisingmedia.com

13 pointsoinksoft10 comments

Prejudice is apart of every human society, so it should not be surprising that it shows up in our online communities. Egregious racist comments are no good to anyone, but I generally feel like anything that creates a dialogue is better than the alternative. If someone, with the veil of anonymity, can articulate their prejudices, then the dialogue that results from that will ultimately be better for reasonable people (with the assumption that all humans have some prejudice, but still hold the capacity to reasonably correct their thinking).

It feels like a sea change over the last year or so. Reddit used to feel pretty progressive, but now, even in the tamest subreddits, it feels like casual racism flourishes. Guess that's how it goes with social networks; they always start off with interesting people and interesting dialogue, and as the community matures and grows, the mob-mentality breaks down the doors, says "nice round-table you have here" and proceeds to ruin the place.

I believe it is a StormFront initiative, because all racist comments in a targeted thread will be flooded with upvotes, and all comments in any way critical will receive an equal number of downvotes. I did a little research and did find some StormFront threads discussing YouTube comment initiatives, /r/politics initiatives, etc. so I don't think this scenario is at all unlikely. The clear patterns set it apart from the "ugly people speaking their minds" hypothesis. In general I have observed this pattern in specific, seemingly targeted Disqus comment threads, etc. since ~2010. Notably, the comments usually intersect with criticisms of Obama.

There's no way there are that many Europeans on Stormfront. The single most caustically racist topic on the website is Muslim immigration in Europe, particularly when it's discussed on /r/worldnews. And the ugliest rhetoric comes from Europeans. At least self-described Europeans.

I'm a bit annoyed that you conflate racism with Islam. Muslims come from religious and cultural backgrounds which encourage and excuse violence, gang rape, and hysterical fervor over any potential insult. It's fucking terrifying to be a woman in many parts of Europe now, and especially (in fact, almost exclusively) in Muslim neighborhoods.

It's not a matter of hating other races. East Asians and Latinos have assimilated fantastically well with European values of women's rights and non-violence. But North African and Middle Eastern cultures are the worst in the world, and they're taking deep root in Europe thanks to people like you who accuse everyone else of racism and "Islamophobia."

You and I are talking about two different brands of bigotry found on that website: There's the Muslim bashing which I do believe is organic, and sadly, reflective of mainstream western views of the religion. I don't observe those voting trends on topics about Islam. The rapid sink/float phenomenon is specific to rants about people of African descent, mainly American blacks. It gives the impression of some cooperation amongst users.

Pseudo anonymity lets people show off their unfettered natures for good and bad. Unfortunately, there seems to be a lot of bad.

It's not that this racism doesn't exist, it's just that showing it explicitly is not socially acceptable in public settings.

Kind of an eternal september problem. I unsubbed most of the defaults like 3 or 4 years ago so I don't ever read much of the poop.

e) Ugh, the comments.

If its their oppinion, who is to say its wrong or that your oppinion is more correct?

I wish hadn't looked at the comments.

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