Comments are unlocked again

If I start getting the same bad-faith comments and spam I'll lock them again, but since this hit the front page of the blog section I think it's appropriate to reopen them.

by EngiQu33ring; 1690224275; Delete; Report

I'm assuming you're talking about when I said "I'll give you the benefit of the doubt" in another thread. I've explained this multiple times already so I'm just going to copy/paste what I said somewhere else.

That's a way of saying "I'll drop that for now so we can move on because I have other points to make." That isn't an admission I don't really think something, it's a concession to let it go for the remainder of the conversation because it won't go anywhere else otherwise. There were other things I felt were worth bringing up, like how she removed respectful, legitimate discussion while leaving up a wall of hate comments, but would never get there if I dug my heels in on that.

I get why she doesn't like that, I also don't like that, tongue-in-cheek or not it was in poor taste. What I like even less though is that every time a dozen queer folks do something stupid once while someone is recording it turns into a moral outrage that the entire worldwide community is expected to atone for. Right wing media uses that kind of shit against us like a weapon and Syra is participating in helping them use it.

Additionally, I've removed your comment below. If you want to criticize what I've written you're welcome to, but reframing what I had to say as being mad that my comments were deleted is arguing in bad faith and I'm not doing that here.

by EngiQu33ring; 1689633674; Delete; Report

I said "I'll give you the benefit of the doubt" on another thread meaning "I'll drop that for the sake of this conversation." I still firmly believe Syra's behavior is indicative that she has been behaving in bad faith and that she has been using more than one account for the reasons I have outlined above.

by EngiQu33ring; 1689377855; Delete; Report

Okay, but I strongly don't think that she is LGBTQ alliance, I don't doubt she has the ability to use alts, which I don't know who the alternative accounts are but I just don't think that this person is LGBTQ Alliance..

by Neli; 1689379130; Delete; Report

Engi, you never answered my question about what the other supposed alts would be. You deleted our conversation.

by Trosolix; 1689477794; Delete; Report

I wrote an entire post directly above this explaining outlining the common propaganda technique and giving examples of Syra’s behavior that leads me to believe she created the Alliance page. I deleted your comments because you are being intentionally difficult by asking “who’s the alt” on a post answering that question

by EngiQu33ring; 1689511721; Delete; Report

This post is hinting that SYRA's alt is LGBTQIA Alliance but you just said "I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you didn't make that account and that you're being sincere.".... So is SYRA LGBTQIA Alliance or not

by Neli; 1689534515; Delete; Report

And what about all the other people that LGBTQIA Alliance has interacted with? Are they just in on it? (Not trying to come off as offensive I'm just asking genuine curiosities of mine..)

by Neli; 1689534648; Delete; Report

Like I already answered above, that's a way of saying "I'll drop that for now so we can move on because I have other points to make." That isn't an admission I don't really think something, it's a concession to let it go for the remainder of the conversation because it won't go anywhere else otherwise. There were other things I felt were worth bringing up, like how she removed respectful, legitimate discussion while leaving up a wall of hate comments, but would never get there if I dug my heels in on that.

I also don't think anyone else interacting with that account has to be "in on it" for it to be fake. If the point was to bring take things from an argument to an all-out shitfest, as few people as possible should have been in on it. I'm not saying at all that some of the people sending Syra hateful messages were fake, some of those people genuinely are assholes and should have their accounts suspended. I am saying that the purpose of that account was to bring out the absolute worst in everyone involved by validating their assholery, whether or not they were supporting Syra, and then further amplifing the problem by deleting anything constructive.

There were people in both comments sections providing constructive feedback to Syra about the inaccuracy of what she was posting and how it fits into a anti-gay agenda being pushed by the far-right, and telling the Alliance account that, while Syra was wrong, so were they. Pretty much all of those comments were deleted but the worst, most hateful comments were left in place. That kind of behavior doesn't make sense unless the intention was to provoke the strongest and angriest reactions possible.

This is textbook "how to radicalize members of a community against one another" propaganda, and as far as I can tell it is doing exactly what it was intended to do.

by EngiQu33ring; 1689540732; Delete; Report

Some of the worst people I've ever known go out every day with a smile and a nice outfit and open up every conversation with a compliment. Being polite to individual strangers doesn't mean someone can't still do crazy bigoted shit.

by EngiQu33ring; 1689356437; Delete; Report

It really doesn't take much time to do something like this. You can use a site like Temporary Mail or one of the other dozens of sites like it and have an account in two minutes Copy a layout from the layouts section, put a few words in the profile description, and in 5 minutes you have a full profile.

If you ever see those bots interacting with each other in the forums or blogs, that's exactly what they're doing. If you do it in an incognito browser you can even have both accounts open at the same time. There's even browser plugins that allow you to isolate a login session to a single tab so you can have two accounts open right next to each other on the same window.

by EngiQu33ring; 1689282677; Delete; Report

TL;DR: if you see a ridiculously offensive post, just report it and move on. They WANT your reaction in order to paint “the other side” as the bad guy.
You are not immune to propaganda.

by Lisa♱Frankenstein; 1689250774; Delete; Report

I appreciate this comment! Behind the Bastards is a great recommendation, love their podcast

by EngiQu33ring; 1689256632; Delete; Report

I find it very hard to believe someone willing to make multiple accounts to argue with themself and selectively prune comments to make queer people look cruel and pro-pedophile is actually bi

I really hate saying that because in pretty much all circumstances that's a really shitty thing to say, but if they're willing to manufacture all of this other stuff up just to cause a shitfest, imo it isn't a huge leap to say they'd make that up too as a way of trying to further complicate the conversation

by EngiQu33ring; 1689216307; Delete; Report

Yaknow ur probably right but theres alot of lgbt people who act like theyre better because they hate trans people or they hate a minority, its kinda sad if theyre bisexual and acting like this but if they arent I wouldn’t be suprised :c

by Radicalz; 1689216647; Delete; Report

Yeah, that's fair. Homophobic self-loathing is a hell of a drug, I've been there before.

I mean like, not playing-homophobic-barbies-with-multiple-accounts-on-an-obscure-website level of self-loathing, but still

by EngiQu33ring; 1689217455; Delete; Report

We get a weird mix of anti-corporate progressives and anti-social 4channers here. Some people join spacehey straight from some pretty nasty far right image/chan boards and bring their weird views about queer people and their obsessive behaviors with them. The whiplash in tone from browsing the most recent blogs is wild

by EngiQu33ring; 1689042476; Delete; Report

Makes sense. Honestly, I'm surprised many people from 4chan would want to be here in the first place (assuming they know of its userbase). Then again, I'm here with a 4chan-themed profile...

by Nikita; 1689042759; Delete; Report

It makes sense when you think of the way traditionalism tends to tie into a belief that things were always better before, which is somewhat ingrained in this site.

If you went through stumbleupon in the old days, it was. Well, very clear that the internet base on the right is thriving in its recruitment of young men.

They made it feel like a real tangible culture to be a n*zi. I think thats one of the reasons the internet became limited in the first place. If you give a f*scist unhindered freedom, what you wind up with is a large, easily spreadable problem.

by RockabellAllana; 1689131774; Delete; Report

This is true, I guess I never really thought about it like that! I think I'm a little young for the best days of StumbleUpon, but I could imagine there was a lot more heinous shit you could run into back in the earlier days of the 'Net. I remember 4chan got crazy enough that they ended up containing their worst on /pol/, and then at some point they even had to start heavily moderating that. Then comes 8kun...

by Nikita; 1689133287; Delete; Report

I feel bad for people who do this kind of stuff tbh. Like what happened in these people's lives that made them like this? What wires are crossed in their minds that would make someone spend that much time on something like this? The sock puppet account and SYRA being the same person is so fucking obvious if you think about it for more than a few seconds. How miserable and empty they must feel to want to spend that much time being shitty on the internet.

by EngiQu33ring; 1689035198; Delete; Report

I don't feel bad enough to want better for them, doing shit like this is completely reprehensible but like. God I'm glad I'm not them

by EngiQu33ring; 1689035252; Delete; Report

yeah like not to overanalyze the internet but this isnt instagram or twitter or even tumblr. there are no followers. nobody knows who the fuck anybody who isnt their friend is, the only people Everyone knows are the fucking ones that spam friend requests, like that stupid clown. that is the only spacehey celebrity. the odds of ur friend groups overlapping enough that a popular blog will have people naming names is just. it dont happen

by Motte; 1689035401; Delete; Report

Honestly I think the purpose is simpler than that, they just want to hurt certain people and know that doing certain things will make them uncomfortable and upset. There's a pretty sizable population here of queer teenagers and too much shit for the mods to adequately handle. Seems like as good a target as any for this kind of crap.

by EngiQu33ring; 1689035642; Delete; Report