1w ago

On Reddit, if you talk ill of fascists a bot will ban your account permanently.

I came across a post on Reddit showing Mussolini at the end of his career, specifically him hanged from his ankles in the Piazzale Loreto. I left a comment, "we didn't get the chance to do this with Hitler, but we should make this traditional." Yes, not the most benign comment, but far "threatening violence or physical harm," at least I think so. A bot must have come across that and thought "beep boop," because suddenly my account was permanently banned. It's honestly insulting that a human took no part in this process.

You're viewing a single thread.

69 comments

A human was involved in the process at some point
Your comment was "threatening violence or physical harm"
In my opinion there's nothing wrong with threatening Nazis with "violence or physical harm" - they're Nazis, their entire schtick is genocide, how do people think that they're supposed to be dealt with, tea and cakes? Chamberlain tried that, didn't work. What did work was killing a whole bunch of them. For my entire childhood and most of my adult life people were lauded for the effort of killing Nazis or dying in the attempt.
- Cake or death!?
  
  The cake is a lie.
  In PI there is truth.
- Can you name a single person who is threatened by a democratically decided punishment for organizing genocide.
  At worst its a statement in support of using systematic violence as a punishment for crimes against humanity. But discussion isn’t a threat.
  Saying: “Everyone who think x, must be killed” is a threat to violence.
  Hitler did not just think racist things. He was not only expressing himself or identifying as a Nazi. He was unmistakable guilty of organizing a genocide.
  There are many self identifying nazis today but there is no demographic of people who belong to the specific group that fits actual Hitler and actual mussolini.
  I can think of a handful alive today that are heading that way but even if those empires broke down tomorow they would not have committed enough evil to qualify.
  
  Can you name a single person who is threatened by a democratically decided punishment for organizing genocide.
  If I understand your question correctly: Radovan Karadžić
  
  Yeah that seems to check out.
  Wikipedia states he is imprisoned for life for the crime of genocide.
  That outcome personally has my preference but to bring it to the matter at hand.
  Op basically suggest that rather then incarceration for life they should be given the death penalty.
  I cant see such thing as a threat. Because in so many “modern” places its the status quo. Definitely not as a offending expression to be banned.
  Til the day we as a species evolve to a post death penalty world without state monopoly on violence such discussion are as normal as humanity itself.
  
  You're missing the bit where NATO had to go in and participate in the war to prevent further 'ethnic cleansing' by the Serbs.
  War crimes trials only happen after the war is concluded.
  As for OP, what they're doing is saying fascists actively being fascists deserve death. It's not like people who are currently supporting fascism can't stop being fascists. The choice is up to them.
  
  Gun to your head, certainly means you can't stop being fascist. A normal human is not going to stand up to fascism in reality.
  
  Loads of normal people stood up to fascism everywhere it has occurred. Some did it it in big ways many did it in little ways and in 1945 it was fairly comprehensively beaten into submission. What OP recognises is that it's easier to oppose before it consolidates and not after. Part of the consolidation process requires that fascism be normalised and consent be manufactured. That is the stage we're in right now and that is why Huffman is making reddit a safe space for the normalisation of fascism.
  
  Thats is in all honesty not how i read ops message though.
  They want to make the dynamic where the organizers of ethnic cleaning are held accountable a set tradition. And the only names in context are Mussolini and Hitler.
  The crux of this argument may be what we understand as an active Nazi.
  To me Musk is an active Nazi, he speaks their ideology and caters to others that also do and employed its symbolism. But there is no proof that he is or was involved in organizing genocide.
  So i don't think op is saying Musk deserves death (yet).
  I also see many people who are openly racist and identify as Nazis. Spread hate. But don't actually engage in violence. Many of these are indoctrinated or born in such culture. I don't think they are a target for OP either.
  I agree that some of these can decide to stop. which bring me to my truer understanding that these most of these people can learn to be better. Which is exactly my argument not to punish them with violence.
  But the organizers who set the machines of death in motion cannot be redeemed this way. Hitler if he was alive can not be pardoned and given acces to the public world. We as a society must come to a consensus what to do with criminals like that.
  Spending the remainder of their life in a maximum oppressive system with zero freedom is not a perfect solution. Neither is putting them to death. Both of these options can be supported with ethical arguments, there is no objective winner. Till we find ethical argument for an options that is objectively superior to both ,showing support in favor of the existing solutions is fair and has nothing to do with threatening someone.
  I agree the sentiment of a public hanging doesn’t help to see it that way, but language is by default colors to carry emotional value and not only literal value.
  I feel similar to “eat the rich” getting banned. No one who states that is seriously advocating for cannibalism.
  
  People support fascism because they are persuaded that their political goals can and will be attainable through violence. Violence is central to the fascist credo. If they are challenged with the credible threat of equal or greater opposing violence they will not be so keen on their chosen route to their political goals because it will involve a level of personal sacrifice that they are not prepared to countenance. If the threat of violence is enough to change their view from fascism to something else then it is a worthwhile alternative to violence without the threat. Although people should be willing to carry out the threat if they do not change their view.
  The argument that this view can be reversed so as to support the need for threats of violence and actual violence against anti-fascists overlooks the simple fact that anti-fascists are already being threatened with and exposed to violence. It's an integral part of the fascist package. That's the big lesson of the holocaust: by the time there's something to punish, it's already too late.
  
  In an academic sense i agree with you that this is how fascism is and that there is logic to it they wont want to pursue a scenario where they do not have the hierarchical upper hand in a violent clash.
  However i doubt this is how most modern fascists are and how its ideology spreads. I am willing to bet that the vast majority of Americans neo nazis don’t even know who Mussolini is. The “leopards ate my face” phenomenon is a result of this. So is the “local known immigrant good, stranger immigrant bad” They are essentially brainwashed into the ideology of hate without truly understanding what it is about. They are equally brainwashed to distance themselves or look away from the people around them that do commit violence.
  When asked in the streets supporters of trumps deportation plans expressed its only natural that said thing was done in a humane and ethical way and they trust those that execute such plan achieve this. When they do witness violence from their side they believe the victim must have deserved it in some horrible way. Only a small minority understands and expresses a desire to kill just because of ethnicity.
  To me the entire war rhetoric between political left vs right is a function of the greater fascist ideal. While we are occupied fighting fascist appearing neighbors, those in power with the money and means to instruct real systematic oppression, censorship and in control of the state monopoly on n violence are not being stopped.
  
  I'd say that it's not about fascist appearing neighbours it's about preventing the normalisation of fascism, like it's just another mainstream political viewpoint.
  I think what can be achieved is the splitting off of the unthinking mass who support curbs on immigration (in practical terms fascism can only do without immigration because it intends to institute some form of indentured or slave labour) from the hardcore fascists by making it clear that fascists are abhorrent.
  
  Amen on preventing the normalization of fascism and on trying to split the unthinking mass the same as the Nazi intellectual.
  But i am a bit confused about the argument here. I believe you are in favor of calling for violence against fascism in a wider sense. And therefor interpret ops message in the same way.
  I am in a somewhat mirrored perspective where i feel strong about pacifism and freedom of speech. Words can hurt but to me can be never be labeled as violent, so i read op as valid but colorful expression. They also themselves express that they do not see their own message as a call to violence.
  Fascism is naturally abhorrent, but how does threatening fascist expression show that abhorrence to those trapped within? If our threat is general and op meant indeed a call to violence against all including non violent fascist express then we do the opposite of splitting those groups and actually mostly the unthinking will be targeted. Violence calls for more violence.
  
  OK let's return to OPs original example. Mussolini strung up. Good job and all. I don't particularly like talking about deserts because it's a childish misunderstanding of the universe. Nobody deserves anything. They get what they get. Having said that, if you're a Fascist dictator who uses violence and fear on your own population, you're going to store up some resentment and if said resentment finds an opportunity and an outlet you can reasonably expect a bad outcome.
  I would go one further than OP and say that if you materially aid and abet said Fascist dictator, as for example his girlfriend, you should reasonably expect to share that bad outcome and happily she did.
  There were a great many partisans who took revenge on the fascists at the end of the war and this also should not have come as a surprise to them.
  OP is using Mussolini as an object lesson here, to use the modern way of putting it: Fuck around and find out. Which Mussolini did and modern fascists may also expect to also.
  The January 6th 'protesters' were pardoned but they also spent a deal of time in jail. They fucked around and they found out.
  If the full weight of Trump's Republic protects them they may feel emboldened but eventually the fascist regime always falls because they are economically illiterate, their inner circle fight like rats in a sack, they are incompetent and once the leader dies the whole collapses. And at that point fascists who have been doing fascist stuff should expect not clemency or mercy or any of the things they denied other people. They should expect to be upside down in a petrol station or something equally unpleasant.
  It used to be that even the most unthinking and, frankly, racist people that I came across in work and the various places I used to drink would have been appalled to be lumped in with fascists and Nazis who were characterised as social misfits and considered beyond the pail. Everyone who was racist knew it was wrong. And now it has been normalised. If we'd been less tolerant of people presenting the racist arguments year after year and rather than trying to educate or reason with them had offered them violence or the credible threat thereof we'd be in a better position now. They'd have never reached the mainstream because they'd have been seen as losers still by the unthinking.

69 comments