By David Futrelle
On Monday, Reddit announced what looked like a massive crackdown on hate, banning some 2000 subreddits guilty of hate speech and/or harassment, including The_Donald, once Reddit’s main hangout for Trump trolls and a vast virtual storehouse of hate.
But the closer one looks at Reddit’s actions the less dramatic they appear. The vast majority of the newly banned subreddits were tiny and/or inactive. The_Donald itself had been moribund for some time as its inhabitants, expecting an eventual ban, had long ago moved offsite. And some of the most hateful sudreddits out there remain intact — the misogynistic havens of the Men Going Their Own Way subreddit and the assorted “Red Pill” subreddits.
Yep, they launched a crusade against hate speech that simply ignored the extreme misogyny of the site’s MGTOWs and “Red Pillers” — exactly as I worried they would in a post here last week. Sure, Reddit took down the small and only semi-active AgainstWomensRights subreddit and seems to have cleared out some even tinier incel subreddits. But somehow they overlooked r/MGTOW and TheRedPill, each with a massive audience of its own.
Let’s consider r/MGTOW, perhaps the most egregiously hateful of the surviving subreddits. Were the higher-ups at Reddit fooled by the assertions of some MGTOWs that their movement, such as it is, has nothing to do with misogyny and is really about men celebrating life on their own terms? Because that’s complete bullshit; MGTOW men spend so much time slandering women they barely have time to cook themselves dinners.
Take a look at this selection of posts from r/MGTOW over the past several years and see if you can detect any hints of misogyny.
Huh. Seems to me that this might just be some sort of hate subreddit. And these are just the headlines. What happens when you click on the headlines and look at the actual posts in question? This is the sort of thing you get.
There are plenty more examples in the archives here. And even if you’re not convinced by the misogyny, there’s no way to get around the other forms of hate that run rampant in the MGTOW subreddit, including racism and antisemitism and all the other hatreds popular amongst the alt-right.
Reddit’s new rules claim that “communities and people that incite violence or that promote hate based on identity or vulnerability will be banned.” It’s clear that the MGTOW subreddit is in constant violation of the rules for its promotion of hate against women — and that no reform of the subreddit is possible, as hatred of women is in fact the central tenet of MGTOW ideology. There’s no denying the obvious: if Reddit’s new rules are to mean anything the MGTOW subreddit should be banned immediately.
If the things MGTOWs say about women were said about any other group no one would have any trouble classifying them as hate speech. I don’t know why misogyny is so often given a pass when it comes to discussions of hate speech, but it shouldn’t be. Ban r/MGTOW now.
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I’m fairly active on Twitter and I have seen this too. I struggle to explain their behaviour. Defensiveness? But then I’m sure a percentage of them are bad faith actors. Whyyyyyy are they so determined to defend their image from perceived attack instead of allowing women to have discussions?
I think my favorite (sarcasm) twitter guy is the one who responds to tweets by women about some sort of misogynistic behavior by replying fake jokey versions of that behavior.
For example, if a woman tweets about mansplaining and the replies are full of men saying
“Well actually… haha! Just kidding!”
So annoying.
I’m glad I’m a social media nobody, so I don’t get a lot of that.
I would say there is different size of pass.
Obviously country-dependant, but for example in France you can get away saying much worse things about Romani than about muslim, even tho you can say horrors on both. Just a little bit less horrible for muslims if you want to be considered polite and proper.
Whether it was any importance is another question. Reducing the size of the pass look like a working strategy, but I am not sure it’s actually a working strategy.
@Shreyas
It seems to be because companies exist to make money. If they ban hate, that’s a lot less traffic and so they make less money. As a result, it generally takes something that gives them bad PR™like the r/Jailbait incident™to actually do anything.
@sunnysombrera
I think it’s because they feel attacked, so they think they have to make clear they are not doing the behavior. Just like how some white people in any discussion of race try to defend themselves and generally don’t look great in the process. They might also be surprised how the discussion isn’t about them, so they try to recenter it on them.
O/T: Graham Linehan update:
Now that he has been banned from Twitter, he now posts angry rants to YouTube multiple times a week.
The one saying women don’t appreciate the cities men build for them? Classic “we hunted the mammoth” moment. Like, only men build cities. For the sole benefit of women. ?
(from Ohlmann’s comment) Yeah, unfortunately, it’s similar in Quebec for “dogwhistle” comments against Muslims. Not against Romani people, maybe because there aren’t many here…though there’s an English word for cheating or short-changing someone that comes from “g*psy,” so it’s basically saying they’re cheaters.
I put a star in that word just to be safe – some people say it too is imprecise & has negative connotations – though a colleague at a summer camp where I worked (in 2010) used it for her own background. But then people teased her that her tears would magically cure wounds – apparently this is a legend?? – like Romani were unicorns or something.
…That was more like the “magical Native” stereotype than anything about being a cheater, but still pretty other-ing (if I can verb that like the academics do!)
@epitome
That part reminds me a bit of Janice Fiamengo’s paeans to men and things they invented.
Reddit also left porn communities that focus on people who don’t consent, which is fucking creepy. I found out about them because I have a family member who’s apparently awful, but thankfully they only had access to swimsuit pictures of me and other family members, and while I’m skeeved about it, it’s not going to impact my career or anything. Not everyone is so lucky. Women routinely get punished for other people being creepy assholes.
What is WITH the pretended inability to distinguish normal nudes/lewds/etc from coerced or plain stolen content? Like, there’s just subreddits that are EXPLICITLY focused on revenge porn, and I don’t understand how Reddit is getting away with it.
I do believe Reddit do that out of laziness more than out of interest. It’s actually not very clear if they would not get more money out of kicking hate groups out of their services, but what is certain is that it would require major efforts on their part, which they are too lazy to do.
Someone writing in The Grauniad’s take on this:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/02/reddit-youtube-facebook-block-racist-groups-why-did-it-take-so-long
@Ohlmann
In addition, to moderate hate takes effort and money, so they don’t want to expend the resources to do it.
It also looks like Facebook might be cracking down soon, but considering Zuckerberg is an ally to Trump, and a White supremacist as well, I very much doubt it.
@Diego Duarte
I gave up any hope of Facebook reform when Zuckerberg held a meeting with Ben Shapiro where Ben whined about being “silenced” while operating sockpuppets in violation of the terms of service.
@Naglfar
Was this before or after he held a meeting with Tucker Carlson, endorsed him as an important “thought leader” and hired his website to do fact checking on Facebook?
@Diego Duarte
Uncertain, this seems to have been happening around the same time and both were revealed in October. I became aware of the Shapiro thing first, but I’m not sure which happened first.
OK … some explain to me why someone with a Jewish-sounding surname would be hobnobbing with white supremacists?
@Surplus
Zuckerberg is of Jewish descent, yes, but I think he figured he would look better to FaceBook’s more conservative users (think Baby Boomer conservatives who are into QAnon) by meeting with Tucker Carlson and letting the antisemitism of the latter slide. There also do exist conservative Jews like Shapiro who served as tokens for the alt right, so it’s possible Zuckerberg was trying to get in on that action.
@sunnysombrera
I like Tumblr precisely because misogyny is less of a problem there I think (although it does have a TERF presence which I don’t see that much, depends on who you follow)
@Shreyas
The idea that somehow offensive 19th century views about the world that degraded the lives of women, Black people and other people of color, the LGBT+ community, mentally and physically disabled people etc. should be counted as free speech, basically views that the paradox of tolerance warns about. That and money.
@Naglfar, @Surplus
IIRC Zuckerberg is friends with Shapiro.
But yeah, Jews who betray their own people were a thing during the Third Reich and they’re still a thing now. One famous example: this deceptively pretty creep, who Bibi Netanyahu seems to be emulating. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avraham_Stern
IDK what to call it a lot but it’s a complex I see a lot with Jewish Trump supporters – swapping loyalty to Diaspora Jews for pro-Israel ultranationalism, tikkun olam for an ideology of “protecting our race” by any means necessary. This is a very uncommon outlook among Jews in the US (most of us unsurprisingly vote left), but the ones I’ve met who followed these ideas have been memorably horrible.
@Cyborgette
Yeah, I also know my share of right wing Jews and really don’t get along with them. The worst part, though, is when conservative non-Jews point at Ben Shapiro or Dennis Prager and expect me to be receptive to them because they’re Jewish. This speaks volumes about how they see us.
@Surplus
Appart from what Naglfar and Cyborgette said, because they are racist. A lot of Jewish people have European ascent, so they will ally themselves with White supremacists on that ground, just like a lot of Latinos will band with them based on misogyny.
As far as I’m concerned, Zuckerberg’s wife was making comments against BLM back in 2015. Zuckerberg himself is so far beyond that line that it would be disingenuous to pretend he isn’t overtly racist himself.
I’m part of some facebook groups showcasing how blatantly one sided bans are. The N-word and assorted bigotry, which range from mild racist references to threats of hanging and/or violence and rape will go unaddressed and not subject to any suspension whatsoever. However, even the mildest form of criticism towards White people or men will result in an autoban.
That is not coincidence, that is working as intended for Zuckerberg.
@Diego Duarte
As well, although most white supremacism includes antisemitism, some will put it aside for a bit if they think it will get more people on their side. Jared Taylor, for example, has tried to pander to Jews who are racist. The stereotype of Jews as shrewd and wealthy probably makes some white supremacists think they’re an asset.
@epitome of incomprehensibility – Oh hey, didn’t know you were a fellow Québécois! And yeah, Islamophobia is unfortunately alive and well in Quebec (just ask Alexandre Bissonnette, the perpetrator of the first actual mass killing of Muslims in a Western nation in decades, with six deaths – seven if you count the paramedic who committed suicide a few months later, it is surmised mostly due to her witnessing the aftermath of his massacre), though it usually takes the form trying to pass laws against overt religious symbols (it’s… complicated, but I don’t particularly approve of these attempts).
As for Roma people, most (French-speaking) people in the province’s experiences with them (if they can be called that) are limited to the Notre-Dame de Paris musical, or the Gipsy Kings musical group (as it’s the name the group chose to call themselves I’m assuming it’s not a slur in the particular context of naming it) which was popular in the late 80s/early 90s IIRC, although I did mention in a thread some time back an incredibly cringey anti-Roma rant by Ezra Levant (who’s actually Albertan) in which he mentionned said word for getting cheated as a good reason to discriminate.
Of course, Mr. Levant is also Jewish, but he gives other bigots a pass and is given one himself on the basis of shared Islamophobia IIRC.
(BTW sorry I’m late, work’s been busy)
@Paireon:
My “favorite” Québecois racist experience: standing in the express checkout lane at a grocery. It wasn’t going very fast. Just in front of me was a short stocky middle-aged Québecoise (as in, anyone who knows the province would have identified her as a pure-laine) getting increasingly irritated as the line kept not moving. The cashier at the time was a very nice hijab-wearing girl, who I’m pretty certain was born in the province, based on how she speaks (I’d heard her speak before on many occasions, this being my local supermaket).
Anyway, the short little Québecoise got progressly more short-tempered, grumbling more and more loudly about how much time this was taking. She eventually reached the end of her tether and moved over to one of the non-express lines, exclaiming to no one in particular, “Aye, plus que c’est foncé pis que ça porte des guenilles sur la tête, pis pus que c’est lent! Non mais c’est vrai!” (Translation for non-Québecois speakers: “Oy, the darker they are and wearing rags on their heads, and the slower they are! No, really!”)
To my shame, I have to admit that I was so stunned at hearing her that I didn’t respond. The gentleman who’d been in front of her, a very dignified man of Middle Eastern origin whom I’m pretty sure was an immigrant, did tell the cashier that the lady who’d stalked away had said some very rude things about her hijab, and that she ought to tell her manager. I did come up with the perfect response 15 seconds too late — namely, “Yeah, and apparently the shorter they are, the more racist they are” — but it was 15 seconds too late. I did express the extent to which I’d winced with the cashier, though. It seemed the least I could do. As she said, “Seriously, I’ve only got two hands.” (Plus, the person in charge of the express lane also has to deal with people buying lottery tickets or bringing in beer bottles, so really…)
The next time I was at the store and went by a checkout with the same cashier, I did check that the little racist hadn’t been back, which she hadn’t. I honestly hope she’s abandoned the store. To my great delight, moving to the next line didn’t get her through any faster. As a matter of fact, I got out of the store before she did…
@Naglfar @sunnysombrera
Reading this thread, it made me wonder if it’s more of a selection bias. I know that everyone I know, no matter their background, definitely has had the feeling of wanting to butt into a conversation and offer their piece. That desire and the behavior around it is going to vary, but barring institutional racism/sexism/etc. it probably wouldn’t significantly vary along lines of race and gender and class and sexual orientation, etc. So some people in all these groups will be predisposed to want to get their two cents in, or try to reframe the conversation, or whatever else.
But… when you’re in a privileged group, you’re a) much more likely to have been told, implicitly or explicitly, that your group (say, “the West”) is the source of knowledge so you have some special wisdom and everyone else is just offering their touchy-feelie opinions (“I’m an engineer so I have science training so I can’t be biased”), b) much less likely to have been required by lack of having power to have actually listened to other people properly, and c) not as likely to have been trained to be collaborative and non-competitive in conversations. (Studies repeatedly find that men tend to view conversations as competitions while women tend to view conversations as collaborations, which leads to differing styles of interruption and speech). *And* those women, people of color, etc. who are the kind of people who in a world without institutional oppression may have been the kind of people who would dominate conversations are much more likely to have had that behavior resisted or ignored, and even if they’re the kind of formidable people who stick to their guns are much less likely to be signal-boosted or viewed as reasonable. (Men are loud, women are shrill. Etc.) Put all that together, and when men see something that’s trending publicly (so they are naturally predisposed to think it involves everyone – and again haven’t had the history of pushback where people have pointed out to them, with the power to back it up, that just because a topic is public doesn’t mean they have an equal involvement or any credibility to make a comment), they add their idea… which they are even more likely to think is relevant because they’re not predisposed to think women understand their own experiences better than they do.
Then you take into account that, by their very nature, jerks get to be louder, say pithy but wrong garbage, and cover a lot of grounds, while thoughtful people take longer to respond, are more likely to have to be reactive, and don’t offer something as memorable but irrational.
r/MGTOW IS NOT a MGTOW subreddit!!!