the donald is well moderated, esp. from doxxing and other personal stuff. they are of course very lively and get to the nerves of leftists, but that's about it. it's actually quite entertaining if you can leave behind enmities (and don't take it too seriously).
Considering the thread thread above, I certainly wouldn't call it "well moderated". The all caps and inciting users come off as extremely childish and unprofessional.
I don't know what Steve was thinking, but 10 seconds in that thread makes me start to understand.
/r/The_Donald is a place where a mix of trolls, fascists, and white nationalists get riled up, and work to start a horrifying new chapter in history.
Fascists and white nationalists defend it by claiming it's just clownish fun. (which, unamusingly, is EXACTLY the same explanation given by the supporters of fascism in Italy, and Russia, and Germany). Trolls really are having fun, they just don't give a fuck.
It's propaganda. It's gross. All of the donald's loser readers and writers have the right to share their bad ideas; but they have no particular right to say it on Reddit.
/r/The_Donald has changed a bit since the election has passed. There was some serious investigative work being done on the wikileaks podesta files. They uncovered things that the maintream media missed because they were too busy convincing people Hillary was going to win by a landslide. Things were uncovered that got some powerful people fired.
It's since turned back into mostly memes and shitposting though.
All I'm asking is to not automatically dismiss it all as propaganda. Regardless of your political affiliation, the podesta files should be looked at very closely. Most of the mainstream media glossed over it and the only place that really dissected the emails was /r/The_Donald. It's concerning that wikileaks was rarely, if ever, mentioned in /r/politics.
If that's their positive contribution to the world, then consider me unimpressed.
I abhor the notion that it's acceptable to hack the private communications of a political opponent, and publish them wholesale. I hate that people have decided it's somehow normal (or worse, noble) to engage in such chicanery because it was politically expedient. It's entirely different than other forms of leaks.
Wholesale surveillance is a terrible idea no matter who is doing it.
It's really effective propaganda, because most folks aren't clever enough to realize that the lack of countervailing scandal is solely because the other party didn't do any hacking... but it's a terrible precedent, and anybody who participated in it should be deeply ashamed of themselves.
Anybody who praises it should borrow a moral compass.
Ashamed? Snowden illegally obtained his information and leaked it to the public. Are you ashamed that you now know about the NSA's surveillance?
edit: Once the information is out there, it's out there. You should not dismiss illegal or unethical activity because of the way in which that information was obtained.
Personal property rights and personal freedom are critical to freedom; and anybody who argues otherwise should be deeply ashamed of themselves. Even (perhaps especially) when they're talking about the rights of those who disagree with them politically.
It's Thanksgiving, and today I give thanks that not everybody wants to shit on freedom and liberty the way you do, just because it makes campaigning simpler.
As for your silly argument about Snowden, he didn't engage in wholesale surveillance; the NSA's wholesale surveillance was public knowledge before his leak; and his leak was meant to change policy, not to attack a political opponent. As such, absolutely none of my criticisms apply to him.
Using HN primarily as a place to do political battle is an abuse of this site. Since your account(s) do that and you've ignored our requests not to, we've banned this one. Please stop creating accounts to break the HN guidelines with.
Having had talked to actual russian nationalists and fascists, it's complete bull. Their views are based on search for sincerety and almost religious revelations, it's a completely opposite mindset of internet trolls.
Having lived in the middle east where fascism and totalitarianism is the norm, the Donald subreddit was child's play. The politics sub reddit had more Implicit propaganda in favor of trump and Bernie (from my cursory readings) but both were pretty bad. I don't remember any pro Hillary propaganda when I used to visit the website. I just stopped going to reddit during this election. I think that helped me keep my sanity.
You could say the same thing about fake TV news comedy shows where lots of millenials get their news. It's all over the spectrum. Be careful what you wish for when you want "bad ideas" banned.
We've banned this account for showing up just to do ideological battle. That's an abuse of the site. We're happy to unban accounts if you email hn@ycombinator.com and we believe you'll post only civilly and substantively in the future.
