Bernie Sanders' Second Life Headquarters Besieged by Trump-Supporting Swastikas (vice.com)

Wagner James Au, writing for Motherboard (edited and condensed):As Donald Trump continues to ride roughshod over much of the United States, there are multiple reports that Trumps' virtual fans are riding roughshod on Bernie Sanders' unofficial headquarters in Second Life as well. Sanders' spot is in the sim (Second Life region) of Caspoli, with a Bernie 2016 banner that can be seen from satellite. It's a Roman-themed hangout space in a peaceful meadow, where Bernie supporters often gather to share news of their favorite candidate. But lately, the place has been besieged by pro-Trump griefers. [...] During a Bernie rally in Second Life, Sanders support group member Macaria Wind goes on, Trump-supporting demons flew around Bernie's rally, endlessly typing "TRUMP! TRUMP! TRUMP!" into text chat.

Comments

False flag?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like something Bernie would do for sympathy.

Re:False flag?

[mrex]

Yeah, without some evidence that these are actual Trump supporters (whom I imagine don't envision themselves to be appropriately represented by *demon* avatars), this really smells of a Something Awful-style false flag attack.

Re:False flag?

[avandesande]

The simpler explanation would be 'troll'

Re:False flag?

[NotDrWho]

It sounds like something Linden Lab would do to let people know that Second Life still exists, apparently.

Re: False flag?

[Anonymous Coward]

At least he was in a TV station so he didn't threaten any innocent people.

Re:False flag?

[npslider]

Second Life still exists?!

Re:False flag?

[Applehu Akbar]

If I wanted to be mean and hex Bernie's SL presence, swastikas would be the last thing I would put up. I would poke fun of his platform by doing something like have a set of unicorns chained to a capstan, labeled Bernie's Energy System. Or how about a theme park called Venezuelaland, with hopeless peasants shooting each other over the last few rolls of toilet paper.

Re:False flag?

[Grishnakh]

Bullshit.

But you're probably right about it being a false-flag operation: it was most likely staged by the Hillary campaign. After all, her campaign already pays shills to spew propaganda on social media sites. With Sanders obviously preparing to exit the race, Hillary is looking ahead to the general election where she'll most likely to fighting Trump, so she's doing her usual dirty tricks to try to make him look bad.

It could also have been done by the Cruz campaign. After all, they resorted to dirty tricks like this before when they falsely told people at caucuses that Carson had dropped out of the race.

Re:False flag?

[mrchaotica]

I still half-suspect that Clinton asked Trump to run in order to screw up the Republican party so she had a better chance of winning (which explains his "I-don't-give-a-shit-about-electability-or-the-moral-event-horizon" rhetoric), but then the strategy backfired when Trump realized he had an actual shot to win.

Re:False flag?

[PopeRatzo]

Most of what's been pinned on Trump supporters has actually been paid and planted people from the Hillary camp, and in a couple of cases Cruz/"establishment" people.

You are delusional.

https://img.washingtonpost.com...

Re:False flag?

[reboot246]

They ALL claim that they're the one who will do it right this time, but none of them ever seems to succeed. Maybe the flaw is not in the method, but in the theory.

You know what they say about doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.

Re:False flag?

[PopeRatzo]

If I wanted to be mean and hex Bernie's SL presence, swastikas would be the last thing I would put up.

But then, you're not some dickhead 8chan/pol type. They would absolutely throw up swastikas, because they're Trump supporters and neo-nazis (I'm sorry, the new term is "ethno-nationalist")

Not one of them is capable of giving an opinion about Sanders without mentioning that he's Jewish.

Re:False flag?

[PopeRatzo]

Most of what's been pinned on Trump supporters has actually been paid and planted people from the Hillary camp

How about this Trump campaign worker with the Nazi tattoos? Is she a Hillary plant too?

http://www.nydailynews.com/new...

Re:False flag?

[Trailer Trash]

Most of what's been pinned on Trump supporters has actually been paid and planted people from the Hillary camp, and in a couple of cases Cruz/"establishment" people.

You are delusional.

https://img.washingtonpost.com...

How does that picture refute what he says? False flag operations are part and parcel of the looney left. Hell, this just came across the wire today:

http://college.usatoday.com/20...

Re:False flag?

[Anonymous Coward]

And McCain had a fundraiser who had a meth lab in her home. Let's blame the candidate for anything one of their fans does!

Maybe I should go around saying "I love PopeRatzo" while kicking puppies and wearing a shirt with pictures of dead babies on it. By your logic, it's a reflection of YOUR character, right?

Re:False flag?

[Dogtanian]

It sounds like something Linden Lab would do to let people know that Second Life still exists, apparently.

Until I noticed that it was his "unofficial" headquarters (#), I was surprised that politicians like Sanders were even bothering with something whose cyber-savvy-bandwagon-jumping potential peaked a decade ago and which most people have almost forgotten existed.

Thing is, even then I saw no real evidence that its latest-hot-thing media prominence was matched by the number of people actually using it, no sign that it was remotely mass-market popular in the way that Twitter and Facebook became (or even that MySpace once was). It was something that the media latched on to as the next big thing (with various bandwagon-jumping celebs, etc who wanted to be seen at the cutting edge of the glorious cyber-future in turn associating themselves with it.)

I think this is partly because it fulfilled a vision of what "cyberspace" was expected to become- a combination of the online future and the fulfilment of 90s virtual reality promises (sort of). It was also the sort of thing that lent itself to journalistic pontificating about identity, amusing incidents, et al.

And I think that the media- which wasn't as tech-savvy or clever as it liked to think, particularly back then- was so wrapped up in this and paranoid about missing the boat on the next big thing that they were just a bit too keen to jump on the Second Life bandwagon. At least until it became clear that most people didn't care about it and never would. Not to say that it was unsuccessful, just that it was never going to appeal in the "every man and his dog" way that Facebook did.

Anyway, is the latest incident a publicity stunt? Who knows. At any rate, it smacks more of trolling- a has-been echoing of the infamous "flying penis" stunt of its heyday- than actual Trump supporters. Personally, Second Life is something that would have sounded incredibly cool and desirable to me when I was in my early to mid teens (and even Habitat would have impressed me), but by the time it actually came along it seemed less desirable (as does VR to me now), to the point I've never actually used it.

If people enjoy playing around with their avatars, that's fine for them, but the idea of walking through a boring- and by now, dated-looking- landscape interacting with lifeless uncanny valley mannequin fantasies (that look nothing like the actual people behind them) appeals to me even less than it did ten years ago.

(#) i.e. Nothing to do with him per se, just a bunch of people who were probably using Second Life anyway that happen to be Sanders supporters, I'm assuming.

Re:False flag?

[MightyMartian]

I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but I confess this is one I have a hard time completely dismissing. He's literally pulling the party to pieces, and with his own real competitor (and not even much of that anymore) being a vile sociopathic hard right troll named Ted Cruz, if this wasn't a secret plot to completely fuck over the Republicans, then Hillary Clinton may very well be the luckiest Presidential candidate in modern times.

Re: False flag?

[Anonymous Coward]

I suppose '92 Republican presidential hopeful and noted white supremacist David Duke was put up to endorsing Trump by Democratic party operatives. Your reality sounds really soft and cushy with all those pesky sharp corners filed off.

Re:False flag?

[mrchaotica]

Given the backfiring plus the unexpected competitiveness of Bernie Sanders (not to mention stuff like the still-possibly-pending email indictment), I'd say Clinton might be an exceptionally unlucky candidate! I mean, considering how much of a shoe-in the media declared her to be back six months ago (let alone in 2012), how much worse could she have possibly fucked it up than she has?

Re:False flag?

[ArmoredDragon]

I forgot that Second Life even existed, for at least two years but probably more, until I read this.

....wait....SecondLife is still a thing?

[OutOnARock]

who knew?

Re:....wait....SecondLife is still a thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's actually the real news here.

Re:....wait....SecondLife is still a thing?

[fustakrakich]

Both they and Sanders are begging for attention. It's almost sad to watch. The democrats are desperately trying to keep people interested. But what's left to say about Clinton that we don't already know? They should switch their focus to congress, so even if Trump wins he won't get past them.

Re:....wait....SecondLife is still a thing?

[Grishnakh]

It doesn't work that way. The problem is that the Presidential election is normally how Democrats get voters to come vote for Congresspeople; it's largely why they do so poorly in the mid-term elections.

Bernie is the one who's actually gotten the youth excited about voting; there's some strong parallels between his campaign and Obama's in 2008. Obama won largely because the Democrats got the young voters to turn out, after being inspired by his speeches. However, this didn't quite happen this time: they were inspired by Bernie (but this time there's actually substance because Bernie actually has a long track record in Congress supporting his rhetoric, unlike Obama; the youth learned this lesson), but apparently not enough to win the Primaries for various reasons (too many voters thinking Hillary is "entitled" to be President, dirty tricks by the DNC to help Hillary, blatant fraud in some of the primaries such as Illinois where hand recounts proved the machines lied).

What could quite possibly happen is that, with the DNC coronating Hillary and pushing Bernie aside, the young voters will be pissed off and disillusioned, and not bother voting. This means the Dems will lose Congressional seats too. The DNC has really shot itself in the foot here IMO. Only appealing to dried-up retirement-age feminists and conservative blacks and then adopting a condescending tone towards the 35-and-under crowd is not a recipe for success in the general election, unless they've engineered some fraudulent results with the voting machines in many places.

The Democratic Party's biggest problem is voter apathy. They try to pitch themselves as the party for left-leaning (and farther left) voters, minorities, working and lower classes, etc. But then when in office they just kowtow to their big corporate donors, mainly Wall Street and Hollywood, and then whine about how they can't get anything done even when they have control of Congress and the White House, and adopt very centrist and pro-corporate policies. This isn't inspiring to the people they claim to represent, and definitely isn't inspiring to young people who are more idealistic. Polls show that Hillary is downright despised by these young voters. So I really don't see this turning out well for the Dems.

I used to spend a lot of time there...

[ZorinLynx]

It's somewhat comforting to know that nothing has changed in ten years. :)

What a time to be alive

[Anonymous Coward]

Politics in the 21st century, folks. It's only going to get weirder.

Doubtful

[bsharitt]

There are two things I find unlikely about this story.

1. That Second Life is still a thing.
2. That these are actual Trump supporters.

It's just trolls getting a two-for-one deal. They get to disrupt the Bernie supporters while at the same time painting Trump supporters in a bad(worse?) light.

Re:Doubtful

[PinkyGigglebrain]

I agree, its unlikely these where Trump supporters. The use of the Swastika would not be something that a real supporter would want associated with Trump.

So the question is who would benefit from something like this?

I've got two suspects right off the top of my head, in order of likely hood;
supporters of Hillary or supporters of Cruz.

Second Life still exists?

[NotDrWho]

Are we sure that all of this wasn't a PR stunt designed to let people know that Second Life is still a thing that apparently still exists?

Re:Most of swastikas are false flag

[kamapuaa]

I'm sorry, you accidentally quoted Metapedia and expected to be taken seriously.

The Internet is full of jackasses...

[markhb]

In other news, water is wet.

Naw, just trolls looking for attention

[rsilvergun]

Worked too.

Why the fuck is /. wasting our time with this?!

[Anonymous Coward]

What I want to know is why /. is wasting our time with such a stupid submission.

Come on! As I look through the Firehose, I see numerous stories far more relevant, interesting and newsworthy than this pathetic one is.

And don't suggest that I submit stories. I tried that, and they must have been too relevant or something (they had to do with computing), because they ended up silently discarded. I'm not going to waste my time doing that again!

Editors, can we please avoid these pointless political submissions? Yeah, they generate a lot of comments, but they're typically useless comments. They're a lot like YouTube comments or Twitter tweets; they're voluminous but extremely low-quality comments. They're far more harmful to Slashdot than they are beneficial.

Re:Why the fuck is /. wasting our time with this?!

[sumdumass]

How about the one where I kept getting killed by some idiot who would camp at the spawn points? Or how about the one where my neighbor got duped out of a bastard sword or whatever.

I mean seriously , this story isn't much more than people being mean in a game. Does slashdot need its safe space or something?

Wheee

[Quzak]

I felt the Bern once. A quick trip to the doctor and a round of antibiotics fixed it right up. Seriously, don't go near the strippers...they nasty.

Satire, not "Supporters" or "False Flag"

[eepok]

No Trump supporter would associate Trumps campaign with a swastika. That would hurt Trump's campaign. The same goes for anyone attempting a false flag attack.

Instead, this was done by people satirizing Trump supporters as brash bullies and mocking Trump's rhetoric as Nazi-reminiscent.

It's not a hard distinction to understand, but apparently the article's author had some difficulty making the connection.

Re:Satire, not "Supporters" or "False Flag"

[Anonymous Coward]

AC: If the New Black Panthers supported Barack Obama, would that mean... (oh snap, your entire argument fell apart!)

MOD PARENT UP

[damn_registrars]

I don't respect Drumpf or any part of his campaign but I have yet to see a Drumpf supporter embrace a swastika as a symbol of their campaign. They might not be the sharpest tools in the shed but even they know better than to venture down that road...

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[Anonymous Coward]

Except for the KKK support endorsement...

but trump supporters like to ignore that one...

well..at least this is an honest posting

[foradoxium]

"As Donald Trump continues to ride roughshod over much of the United States,"

There's nothing like opening up with a preamble showing your bias..

Re:FU Censors

[fustakrakich]

I suppose, since the pardon, should it be necessary to use, has already been drawn up. An indictment won't last all of five seconds.

Re:FU Censors

[Grishnakh]

This is possible, however if Obama pardons her, that's going to (IMO) guarantee she'll lose the election.

Again IMO, it'd be a lot smarter for the Democratic Party to figure out how to get rid of Hillary and nominate Bernie, because he doesn't have all this baggage, and polls much better among general voters than Hillary does, and he'll also get the under-35 crowd to show up to vote for him (and other Dem seats). But with DWS and friends running the DNC, I don't see this happening. I think we can look forward to 8 years of Republicans controlling both Congress and the White House, and if that happens, we'll be lucky if Trump is the Pres since he's not very conservative like Cruz is.

Expect more of the guilting by association

[Trachman]

Many of the Bernie supporters spend a lot of time with computers and on the internets.

Expect more and more association by guilt. I will not be voting for Trump (I will not be voting for anyone, as a matter of principle), but trying to tie Trump is with nazis is absurd.

I am also getting sense, that anyone who is perceived as Trump leaning gets zero pointed here /. pronto.

Re:Joe job?

[PopeRatzo]

Swastikas sound just a tad suspicious, innit?

Not at all. The Trump campaign is littered with nazis:

http://fortune.com/donald-trum...

Also, who could forget this nice lady working for the Trump campaign with stormfront tattoos and "88" tattooed on her hand.:

http://www.nydailynews.com/new...

"False Flag" means something else here

[bretts]

No Trump supporter would associate Trumps campaign with a swastika. That would hurt Trump's campaign. The same goes for anyone attempting a false flag attack.

In a political context, "false flag" is different from its normal meaning of recruiting unwitting double agents; it means slandering your opposition by associating them with something disagreeable. As a result, a false flag attack on Trump would be people waving swastikas at his rallies, and a similar attack on Bernie would be people waving Soviet flags or something.

I don't think that swastika flag is pro-Trump

[AC-x]

Yeah, I don't think that Swastika Trump logo flag is pro-Trump, looks more like 4chan messing around. No doubt next it'll be invaded by flying penises and afroguys chanting "Pool's closed due to AIDS".

To those protesting Trump's innocence...

[hyades1]

Is there any doubt at all in the minds of sane people that 100% of White Supremacists and neo-Nazis who actually intend to vote in the coming US federal election will cast their vote for a Republican?

This certainly shortens the list of suspects in this situation.

Simpler explanation: GOP has jumped the shark.

[Brannon]

Trump is not some aberration, he's the next logical step in the evolution of the current GOP coalition.

I don't believe it.

[wyHunter]

I don't believe these are Trump supporters. They're probably Bernie supporters, or Hilary supporters.