You can hardly describe it as "attacking a group". At the time moot got tired of these people crying 24/7 on /v/, the video games board.

moot has frequently exercised his unique power to ban a topic to prevent a single topic from overrunning a board. And, like the other chans before it, those most invested in that topic have a huge persecution complex and believe they are being censored when they are simple being told to take their soapbox elsewhere.

> have a huge persecution complex and believe they are being censored when they are simple being told to take their soapbox elsewhere.

How many places do you have to get kicked out of before your 'belief' that you're being censored becomes true?

Depends.

How many places does it take for you to get kicked out of before you start thinking to yourself 'maybe I'm the asshole?'.

How many places do you have to be accommodated by people that don't want to hear it?

Replying to both you and the sibling comment:

Feel free to claim that they are assholes, or that people shouldn't have to accommodate them. But that doesn't falsify the claim that they're being censored.

I have no desire to listen to people I consider to be assholes. I have no problem censuring those people in my life. There is no right to be an asshole. If you're going to be shitty towards other people, you should not expect a positive reaction from them. You should probably expect to be treated shitty in return. That's basically the golden rule.

Instead there is a bunch of people who believe their shitty behavior is completely justified and righteous and then can't comprehend why people don't want to tolerate them. I have no sympathy for that, whatever language you want to use. Call it censorship if you want, but there is no rule nor law that says shitty behavior has to be tolerated and supported.

And I have no desire to be lied to, yet here we are, censoring a group, and claiming they're not being censored.

When faced with the facts, the question is evaded, attempts are made to change the topic, and every slippery, misleading tactic is used to avoid admission.

I can only conclude such people are wholly uninterested in the truth, and are in fact actively opposed to it.

I think a lot of people tie a certain emotional value / weight / bias / power dynamic / etc to the word censor instead of using it in the cold (valid) way you are here. In other words, a forum that bans speech of type X is setting rules and a government that bans speech of type X is censoring, when truly, both are the same action (censorship) but in completely different contexts.

That might account for why it seems many people on this thread are talking past each other. I don't even think, as you imply, that the person you are replying to is purposely using misleading tactics to avoid admission.

I feel like there's this avoidance of using the word censorship because people think it implies something they don't want to imply about their principles. I could be wrong, but this is just something I've seen play out again and again in discussions about this topic.

For instance, my belief that it is fine and in-fact desirable that private forums censor particular topics, behaviors, etc doesn't necessarily mean that on-principle I am across-the-board "pro-censorship" (whatever that means).

So yes, a group is being censored from a private forum and decided to create their own private forum. I still don't see a problem with that, or "admitting" that is what is happening.

> the person you are replying to is purposely using misleading tactics to avoid admission.

I honestly don't think it's on purpose, nor do I think it's limited to the word/act of censorship. It's a simple, subconscious mechanism of

group I dislike is victim of X (justly or unjustly) --> victimhood grants social power --> downplay/diminish/justify their victimization so they do not gain power

Who, exactly, is the 'we' here? Who, exactly, is 'such people' here?

You're talking in vagaries, and including me in them, and I don't particularly care for that.

Bottom line for me is that if you want to call assholes being excluded from some spaces as 'censorship', you're free to do that, but most people are just going to call that 'assholes getting what they deserve'.

If you want to argue that we should be more accommodating towards assholes, then I really look forward to hearing that argument.

I was talking about the general situation (hence the vagaries).

And I'm not arguing for being more accommodating - I'm arguing for calling a spade a spade. To kick a group of people out of almost every discussion forum, then accuse them of having a "persecution complex", is hypocritical in the extreme.

> If you want to argue that we should be more accommodating towards assholes

Not once did I argue that they should not have been excluded, or anything even remotely similar, yet almost everyone who replies insists on putting words in my mouth. Given how straight-forward my posts were, I'm going to assume this misreading was deliberate.

You're admitting to speaking in vagaries and then also calling your posts straight-forward, and then basically accusing me of trolling you.

Sorry I can't read your mind.

Sorry, I should have said 'generalities'. If you can point at which phrase I used that implied we should be more accommodating towards assholes, perhaps I can learn to express myself more clearly in the future.

It’s not usually what comes to mind when I think of the word “censored”, but I don’t think it’s unrealistic for a forum or conversation to set ground rules on what’s acceptable speech and isn’t.

Gamergate was fueled by outside interests way beyond “ethics in journalism” and anger at feminist game critics. The online outrage was easily led down a much broader path.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/josephbernstein/heres-h...

I agree there were many other factors, but do you think anger at the other side's actions didn't also play a major role?

Sure, if you take alt-right victimology at face value.

I'm not sure I understand your point, can you explain it?

'Taking something at face value' means accepting it uncritically, but sometimes skepticism is warranted.

I understand the saying, I don't understand the point. Is it that the "victimology" is completely feigned and contribute nothing to attract more people to their cause? I'm sure a lot of it is feigned, but they keep doing it because it works.

Yes. Obviously it's impossible to assess every anonymous poster but examples abound of IRL right-wing extremists who use this as a gambit but whose private chats etc. reveal their insincerity.

In reality, when you attack a group, it gets stronger, unless it retains the same strength, or gets weaker. That’s admittedly a less satisfying rule, but at least it’s true.

It's generally believed that it gets weaker (that's the point of attacking someone - to put them down) and my point is that it tends to get stronger. Attacked groups get together and become more active and motivated. They refine their methods and obtain more high ground from the excesses of the attacking parties.

Gamergaters were not victims, they were denounced and derided because of their doxxing and gang stalking activities on the boards. Their actions led to their removal from 4chan.

The video series about women and videogames started a reaction that included what you describe (doxxing and gang stalking activities) among other things. That led to a reaction that included them being "removed" from 4chan. That led to the more radical people to concentrate on 8chan where don't they get called out for being extremists as much. That led to the case in the OP.

Obviously that's simplified, but I think you can see how the dynamic plays out.

The victims aren't gamergaters or feminists or whatever. It's humanity.

Seems... tautological.

I agree. People fighting for more inclusion in gaming have gotten a lot stronger since they were attacked by gamergate.

I agree it cuts both ways. Groups in both sides have gotten stronger.

False. Deplatforming works. People afraid of it state that it doesn't work because they're afraid.

You are saying that on a story about 8chan's /pol/ board, which is populated by people who have been deplatformed from other places.

Providing an easily monitorable spot for people that should be on watchlists. They're not exactly taking over the world from there, aren't they?

(keep in mind that every time that they have to move, their numbers are diminished along the way)

I really disagree. Some of these groups barely existed 5-10 years ago and now they are everywhere. Violence cases like the one in the story is going to make them lose a lot of credit with the public, but if the other side escalates as well (see antifa[0]) things may get even worse.

I wish we could all accept our differences more civically, but I don't know how we can make that happen.

[0] I fully expect antifa to get stronger after this.

I don't like this, but violence is a proven remedy against fascism, possibly the best one. Engaging them in good faith debate in the marketplace of ideas isn't.

Are you familiar the second world war? I'm Italian, the town I'm from was a few hundred meters away from the gothic line. It was heavily bombed by the allies, the retiring nazis and local fascists blew up the bridges and rounded up people for labor camps, the hills around are marked by the graves of partisans. It's possible to stop this sort of thing earlier, with less violence, ideally only state sanctioned violence (since these people tend to commit crimes, as seen in this case).

You're pointing at the other side's violence to justify your own. You're the living example of what I'm claiming happens in this thread.

You think that there are equivalent sides to the argument? I'm going to quote Sartre on antisemites:

“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”

Please don't do ideological flamewar on HN. It's tedious and breaks the site guidelines.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

(I rewrote this comment after the warning)

I think the kind of rationalizing you're doing is not much different from the rationalizing people on the other side of the political spectrum do. I had similar discussions with people from the other side and they argued similarly to you. I think your quote is broadly applicable to both sides as well.

Please don't do ideological flamewar on HN. It's tedious and breaks the site guidelines.

Also, personal attacks, which you crossed into, are not allowed on HN and will get you banned here. Please don't do that again.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I'm sorry, you're right I went to far.

gamergate didn't get 'stronger', gamergate has been over for years, it's just the case that the absurd reaction to the movement created an environment extremely hostile to anything considered 'left' which has now spun out of control.

That's exactly my point.