Welcome to NationStates, a safe space for fascists so long as they express their murderous ideology euphemistically. Leftists who hurt their feelings will be banned.
...I just had to respond with this discussion thread. Is NS a safe space for leftists? Should Moderation do more to rule based on facts rather than feelings?
TL;DR answer: Absolutely.
Some leftists have argued that NS is actually a safe space for fascists and that it's actually leftists who are being "unjustly" censored for trolling (in some cases, literally clear-cut, all-x-are-y trolling, e.g. ACAB, which many leftists magically think it's okay to say and which I myself have reported on multiple occasions). Given that NS seems to be overwhelmingly dominated by radical leftists, and given the sheer amount of hate I've been roundly subjected to by leftists, particularly in the months and weeks leading up to the 2020 U.S. Election, as well as a number of unjust warnings and bans against my name by Moderation, I take strong exception to this extraordinary claim, a claim that reeks very strongly of an unfounded and highly ironic victim mentality on the part of the Left. I'm strongly inclined to believe the reverse is true, only substitute "fascists" with liberals, moderates, conservatives and centrists.
A site that is dominated by leftist, openly, unironically, and shamelessly communist and Marxist users is conducive to the creation of numerous, de facto safe spaces and echo chambers on NSG such as MAGAthread, the U.S. Election thread, and the U.S. BLM riots thread, to name a few, with liberal and conservative players exceedingly far and few in between. It is also conducive to a highly toxic environment that lends itself to bad-faith, leftist dogpiling, gaslighting, defamatory smear campaigns and character assassinations, and sustained harassment across multiple threads of non-leftist players such as myself. Hardly a safe space for fascists, real or imagined, if you ask me. Literally no one likes fascists, but everyone just adores communists and Marxists.
Moderation has stated in its Election sticky that given the demographic supremacy of leftist players on NS, they would do more to correct for any leftist bias in reporting by trawling the past ten pages of a thread or so. Yet leftist sensibilities are apparently considered so sacrosanct by Moderation that it directly affects how they rule on certain posts:
TIL that condoning self-defense, calling for illegal immigrants to be decisively rounded up and deported by law enforcement (one-day ban for "covid misinfo" was downgraded to a warning for "trolling" on appeal), and calling Arab/Islamic culture's compatibility with liberal, democratic values into question are all now actionable offenses. Sarcastically referring to Islam as a "religion of peace" is trolling too because god only knows why. Insulting the King of Thailand and expressing political dissent in the strongest of terms is also considered "trolling".
I'm beginning to think this is less about combating "trolling" and "hate speech" and more about appeasing the delicate sensitivities of radical leftists, Muslims, and authoritarians (right-wing and left-wing) alike irrespective of Moderation's actual intentions. I find the second example regarding my ban (revised to a warning) for decrying illegal immigration to be particularly suspicious given some of the strongly-worded responses to my post from the usual suspects, the sudden, unexpected spate of reports against me, and their openly stated wish that I be removed from this site for expressing opinions they happen to disagree with. I got roundly singled out by leftists and swiftly banned, initially for "covid misinfo", subsequently downgraded to a warning for "trolling" on appeal (a possible instance of moving the goalposts?), by Moderation while I was AFK for inadvertently hurting their delicate feelings when all I was doing was canvassing for a political candidate on U.S. Election Day and attempting in vain to alter the outcome of that election.
I can't help but suspect there was a certain degree of appeasement involved on the part of Moderation and they were under tremendous, albeit unjustified, pressure to act against me while I was helplessly AFK and blissfully unaware of my situation. I also can't help but suspect that this naked attempt by leftists to get me banned may have been possibly coordinated given how much hate I've gotten from them these past couple of months. I'm concerned that this and other reports against myself and others could be politically motivated.
That's just the most egregious example I can think of. Leftists whose feelings have been injured have gone as far as to get certain players they disagree with banned from the site for the mere "crime" of wrongthink rather than for any actual instance of trolling or bigotry, and at least one of them (not naming names) has said so openly. They do this even on the flimsiest of pretexts, such as "covid misinformation" that turns out not to actually be misinformation at all, but facts verified by reputable news sources (and rightly upheld as such on appeal), at which point the goalpost abruptly shifts to "trolling". (To be fair, the covid misinfo rule has also been wrongly applied to a left-wing player (and overturned on appeal) on at least one occasion, but that's for a different thread.)
These leftists are attempting to enforce cancel culture on this very site with mixed results. They cannot and should not be allowed to succeed under any circumstances. I hope Moderation takes note of this disturbing trend, NS avoids the same fate as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other spineless tech companies, and Max Barry takes a firm stand against this communist red terror that's currently playing out both online and IRL, in America, Europe, and Hong Kong.
We liberals and conservatives are the ones being routinely censored for our opinions, not leftists. I, for one, am willing to play my part, no matter how small, to push back against this rising tide of political censorship even if it means fighting a losing battle and being vastly outnumbered on this site. I will not go gently into that good night. No surrender.
To be clear, I'm not accusing the mods of deliberately singling out certain players based solely on their social or political views or of having some kind of nefarious agenda. My criticism isn't intended in bad faith. Leftists do get warned and banned too, and Moderation's refusal to budge on ACAB is commendable despite them creating an entire discussion thread on Moderation demanding special exemptions and preferential treatment for themselves while pretending to be the victims of "systemic injustice" like they typically do for certain groups of people IRL under a thin veneer of "social justice" because they got warned for all-x-are-y trolling. But aside from that rare exception to the rule, I would argue that NS is skewed in favor of leftists, not against them.
So I turn the question over to NSers. Is NS a safe space for leftists? Should Moderation do more to rule based on facts rather than feelings?
A site that is dominated by leftist, openly, unironically, and shamelessly communist and Marxist users is conducive to the creation of numerous, de facto safe spaces and echo chambers on NSG such as MAGAthread, the U.S. Election thread, and the U.S. BLM riots thread, to name a few, with liberal and conservative players exceedingly far and few in between. It is also conducive to a highly toxic environment that lends itself to bad-faith, leftist dogpiling, gaslighting, defamatory smear campaigns and character assassinations, and sustained harassment across multiple threads of non-leftist players such as myself. Hardly a safe space for fascists, real or imagined, if you ask me. Literally no one likes fascists, but everyone just adores communists and Marxists.
Moderation has stated in its Election sticky that given the demographic supremacy of leftist players on NS, they would do more to correct for any leftist bias in reporting by trawling the past ten pages of a thread or so. Yet leftist sensibilities are apparently considered so sacrosanct by Moderation that it directly affects how they rule on certain posts:
TIL that condoning self-defense, calling for illegal immigrants to be decisively rounded up and deported by law enforcement (one-day ban for "covid misinfo" was downgraded to a warning for "trolling" on appeal), and calling Arab/Islamic culture's compatibility with liberal, democratic values into question are all now actionable offenses. Sarcastically referring to Islam as a "religion of peace" is trolling too because god only knows why. Insulting the King of Thailand and expressing political dissent in the strongest of terms is also considered "trolling".
I'm beginning to think this is less about combating "trolling" and "hate speech" and more about appeasing the delicate sensitivities of radical leftists, Muslims, and authoritarians (right-wing and left-wing) alike irrespective of Moderation's actual intentions. I find the second example regarding my ban (revised to a warning) for decrying illegal immigration to be particularly suspicious given some of the strongly-worded responses to my post from the usual suspects, the sudden, unexpected spate of reports against me, and their openly stated wish that I be removed from this site for expressing opinions they happen to disagree with. I got roundly singled out by leftists and swiftly banned, initially for "covid misinfo", subsequently downgraded to a warning for "trolling" on appeal (a possible instance of moving the goalposts?), by Moderation while I was AFK for inadvertently hurting their delicate feelings when all I was doing was canvassing for a political candidate on U.S. Election Day and attempting in vain to alter the outcome of that election.
I can't help but suspect there was a certain degree of appeasement involved on the part of Moderation and they were under tremendous, albeit unjustified, pressure to act against me while I was helplessly AFK and blissfully unaware of my situation. I also can't help but suspect that this naked attempt by leftists to get me banned may have been possibly coordinated given how much hate I've gotten from them these past couple of months. I'm concerned that this and other reports against myself and others could be politically motivated.
That's just the most egregious example I can think of. Leftists whose feelings have been injured have gone as far as to get certain players they disagree with banned from the site for the mere "crime" of wrongthink rather than for any actual instance of trolling or bigotry, and at least one of them (not naming names) has said so openly. They do this even on the flimsiest of pretexts, such as "covid misinformation" that turns out not to actually be misinformation at all, but facts verified by reputable news sources (and rightly upheld as such on appeal), at which point the goalpost abruptly shifts to "trolling". (To be fair, the covid misinfo rule has also been wrongly applied to a left-wing player (and overturned on appeal) on at least one occasion, but that's for a different thread.)
These leftists are attempting to enforce cancel culture on this very site with mixed results. They cannot and should not be allowed to succeed under any circumstances. I hope Moderation takes note of this disturbing trend, NS avoids the same fate as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other spineless tech companies, and Max Barry takes a firm stand against this communist red terror that's currently playing out both online and IRL, in America, Europe, and Hong Kong.
We liberals and conservatives are the ones being routinely censored for our opinions, not leftists. I, for one, am willing to play my part, no matter how small, to push back against this rising tide of political censorship even if it means fighting a losing battle and being vastly outnumbered on this site. I will not go gently into that good night. No surrender.
To be clear, I'm not accusing the mods of deliberately singling out certain players based solely on their social or political views or of having some kind of nefarious agenda. My criticism isn't intended in bad faith. Leftists do get warned and banned too, and Moderation's refusal to budge on ACAB is commendable despite them creating an entire discussion thread on Moderation demanding special exemptions and preferential treatment for themselves while pretending to be the victims of "systemic injustice" like they typically do for certain groups of people IRL under a thin veneer of "social justice" because they got warned for all-x-are-y trolling. But aside from that rare exception to the rule, I would argue that NS is skewed in favor of leftists, not against them.
So I turn the question over to NSers. Is NS a safe space for leftists? Should Moderation do more to rule based on facts rather than feelings?
