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In their own way, the comments are more interesting than the article. Atwood lists StormFront as one of the sites they investigated the dynamics of. The other two object; one claims Atwood was dismissive of his concerns in a twitter convo. In the end, the posts were civilized and the discourse, nonexistent. Each is visibly holding back his fuller opinion not b/c it would be uncivilized to give it but b/c he fears being seen as such. What was gained?

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I actually clicked on the Stormfront link, and felt stupid immediately afterward; as far as I could tell the only demand was that you were polite to other white persons. Certainly I didn't get a very strong "be nice to every poster" vibe.

Stormfront is fairly notorious for being a racist forum, which is populated chiefly by racist whites (and those who wish to act like them) and run solely for the benefit of racist whites. It is a hateful place and its rules should be viewed with skepticism on that basis.

exactly. I find it problematic that they seem to think calling someone names is completely impermissible but citing a white supremacist forum's guidelines is not.

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