Welcome again to everybody! Make yourself at house. In the time-honoured tradition of our group, here is our weekly discussion thread!
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I think we should be cautious about something now that the fediverse is rapidly growing.
We should be careful not to get drawn into wrecker tactics. If you search the fediverse for lemmygrad, you'll see quite a bit of trouble kicking off in other instances. I came across this when looking for news about lemmygrad being down on the weekend. I wouldn't ordinarily search to see what others are saying about us because I don't care for the drama. And if If liberals avoid this place, I'll be happy.
But there's a problem. People are posting lies about us and warning others not to come here. But that's not the worst of it. Now, I don't want to see monsters where there aren't any. But it seems to me that the structure and form of these posts and comments are dangerous. The way they're framed will lead others to (a) put words in our mouths and (b) question us in a particular format.
We've seen this already on posts on lemmygrad, and some of you may have seen it in comments here and on other instances. It goes, roughly, like this: 'I've heard that you eat babies. Why do you eat babies?' Or: 'Why do you love Putin/genocide/etc?' Or: 'Don't worry about those people on LG, they're all young, and don't know why better.' Or: 'Don't worry about [redtea], he's a champagne socialist from New York.'
These comments are infuriating. And they will lead you to slip up if you're not careful. Because, when faced with an accusation, the temptation is to defend yourself. But how do you do that? You might reply that you only eat babies on Fridays, or that you love Putin for XYZ, or that you're not young, you're 45, or that you're not from NY, you're from a small village outside Memphis, population 10. If you reply to these provocateurs with the wrong response, you may allow people to build up a profile about IRL-you, attached to statements that could get you in trouble. Don't fall for it!
Is this a psy-op? All those agents paid to astro turf the narrative on Reddit and Twitter will be looking for other work. So I wouldn't discount it. Ultimately, it doesn't matter. The effect is the same whether it's isolated or orchestrated. People are being riled up to come at us with their pitchforks, here and on other instances. Be careful, and don't fall for their tricks. Don't dox yourself. Don't be trapped into saying something illegal.
I'm posting this so that we can talk about how to spot these traps and how to avoid them. Everyone on LG is concerned with making the world a better place, with ending oppression, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, exploitation, climate catastrophe, etc. We have vitriolic enemies because of it. Don't let them define what we stand for—choose your words carefully.
I started reading this comment and thought it was going to be about people making deliberately inflammatory comments (of which I'm the worst offender) that would play into the userbase being evil. But yeah, doxing is an even more real concern.
It's difficult, especially online. IRL, I can be deliberately inflammatory and with a disarming smile and a wink, the conversation stays friendly. That's not so easy online. Where, to make it more complicated, you and the other person are practically anonymous. And we're constantly faced with trolls, so the temptation is to shut them down and have fun doing so. We probably could be better at not being deliberately inflammatory but I'm in no place to judge. It's worth us discussing that, too, though, so that we only do it on appropriate occasions and when we intend to.