Radical Leftists Built Their Own FOSS Alternative To Reddit After It Banned Them (vice.com)

eeplox shares a report from VICE, adding: "Community-built sites like these are very much needed since Reddit announced they were going closed source": After r/LeftWithSharpEdge was taken down, ziq [one of the subreddit's members] decided to leave Reddit and create an independent anarchist community free from its rules. Raddle.me, which was originally called Raddit.me, is an "alternative that is focused on community building and openness, and not controlled by a corporation," ziq told me. The original name was intended to sound similar to Reddit, but was later changed to avoid potential trademark issues. Raddle doesn't have advertisements or run analytical software, so its size is difficult to calculate -- but that's by design. The site is meant to be an alternative to social networks that profit by monitoring user behavior and serving advertisements. "We have no ads, no tracking, no user profiling and we don't collect or share any user data with anyone," ziq said. The site is community-built and anyone can contribute to the code.

Ziq's commitment to privacy is an appealing virtue for Raddle's users. "I'm always very uneasy about the lack of concern for privacy online," Tequila_Wolf, a user who posts frequently to Raddle, told me in a direct message. "When you have friends on government lists who get harassed at every border because, say, they are members of Anarchists Against The Wall, you know you don't want to get on that list." Raddle ultimately came out of more broad problems ziq and Emma saw with Reddit. Ziq complained about how it has increasingly become a recruiting ground for the alt-right, the social network's overemphasis on America (r/politics, a major subreddit, only discusses U.S.-based politics, for example), and the fact that the site's code isn't open source, among other issues. Emma mentioned what she says is a problem with harassment on the site. "To me, the biggest problem with Reddit is how its administrators ignore the routine harassment and witch-hunts of marginalized people that takes place, with r/The_Donald being the most prominent example," she said.

Comments

No way to create communities.

[Lordpidey]

Right now the site seems to have no way to create forums (The equivelant of a subreddit), this concerns me, as if conversations are to be sequestered to an appropriate forum, then certain viewpoints can be silenced simply by not having an appropriate forum, turning the site into a large echo chamber.

Re:No way to create communities.

[ShanghaiBill]

Well, they ARE leftists you know.

Are they? Leftists are collectivists. TFA says these people are anarchists, which is the polar opposite of collectivism.

Re:No way to create communities.

[Freischutz]

By the way, collectivist anarchism*1 predates anarcho-capitalism*2 by how much? a whole century?

*1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Very interesting link. So these people want to eliminate the government, and replace it with an organization empowered to coerce people into following a set of rules.

Wow. No wonder they can't get anyone to take them seriously.

Is that so different from what the Alt-right and most of the Republicans/Tea-Party want to do? They want to smash the current democratic government and all it's structures (or what remains of them) and replace them with and authoritarian leader or possibly a clique of political oligarchs masquerading as a democratically elected body that heads an organisation empowered to force everybody to follow their set of rules and their social norms. The only place where the Republicans/Tea-Party and the Alt-Right differ is that for the former the resulting social order has to be a christian theocracy whereas the Alt-Right is flexible on that point.

Re:No way to create communities.

[Kjella]

The existing power structures (big government, big business, big anything really) lead to people in power and institutions and systems who protect their own power. The most delusional political activists think that if only we wiped the slate clean we could rebuild a new world order where nobody takes advantage of anyone else and it'll be so great people will join voluntarily. Which I suppose is a step up from communism where everybody will be forced to work for the greater good. The problem is that power structures appear out of nowhere almost instantly, even in kindergarten you can observe leaders, followers and outsiders as well as the power of social influence and social sanctions. Having a valuable resource to use or trade that others don't is a power structure, obviously private property is power. Two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner is obviously a power structure, creating the rules for a shared resource is power. The only way to avoid power is if we all became totally self-sufficient hermits, the War Games solution - the only way to win is not to play.

Perhaps the biggest misunderstanding is those who confuse perfect competition with laissez-faire capitalism, that regulation hampers competition and deregulation will lead to more and better competition. Let me try to put it bluntly: Perfect competition presumes that vendors will engage in an intense, cut-throat competition to destroy their own profits and livelihood without any structural costs, barriers to competition, transaction costs, lack of transparency and without creating or protecting any unique brand or features. It's an entirely fictional concept to begin describing basic elements of capitalism which is why a lot of people have heard of it but understood so little. Basically almost every class following it is about how that's actually not true due to reality like economics of scale or network effects, how actual customers are relatively uninformed creatures of habit that don't all instantly jump ship because the competition is $0.01 cheaper, how to create your own unique brand that people prefer like Coke vs Pepsi, how to protect unique features through intellectual property rights (IPR) and so on.

Particularly people fail to see how the prisoner's dilemma works when it's repeated, like if you lower prices and steal my customers I'll have to lower prices and steal your customers, we'll both lose money so let's not be idiots. Or when they all switch to terms that are unfavorable for the customers like forced arbitration. This kind of tacit collusion is why we need checks and balances, not just inside the branches of government but between the government and citizens, manufacturers and consumers, employers and workers and so on. If all the choices are bad you don't really have any choice, of course unless you have a gun to your head you in theory always have the War Games solution but practically it can be almost impossible. For example I doubt many people can avoid signing up for some kind of phone service, you can pick your poison but it's hard to not play the game. Unless you want to be a hermit in a cave again, something has to curb their ability to dictate terms, create lock-ins and shut out the competition. If they don't play nice now, they certainly won't play nice when the gloves come off.

They're too far to the left even for Reddit?!

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't really care enough to look into their beliefs more, but what I find most surprising is that they were too far to the left even for Reddit.

Reddit in general is among the most left-leaning social media sites out there. Even expressing a centrist or moderate viewpoint in many subreddits will typically get you punished in some way, if not outright banned.

It's typical to find what any reasonable person would consider to be extreme left content posted at Reddit all of the time. In some subreddits you're lucky if you're only subjected to socialist content, rather than what should be considered outright Communist propaganda.

These people must be really, really, really, really, really far to the extreme of the extreme left if Reddit isn't a suitable place for them.

Re:They're too far to the left even for Reddit?!

[Phydeaux314]

Reddit is too big to lump into a single category. It has multiple communities from all across the political spectrum.

Is /r/latestagecapitalism left wing? Yes.
Is /r/thedonald left wing? No.

Typically reddit puts up with subreddits as long as they don't advocate or end up used to commit violence. Both /r/politics and /r/thedonald want each other gone, but it's not happening until it becomes evident that purpose of the subreddit itself is problematic. It's not the level of political extremism, it's what the sub is getting used for and advocates for that dictates whether or not it's allowed.

Calling liberals or conservatives a "cancer on our nation that should just fuck off and die" isn't actually against the rules. Saying "so-and-so is a liberal/conservative, here's his/her address, go get 'em wink wink" is against the rules. If you have enough of the latter on your sub, it's getting the boot.

Re:They're too far to the left even for Reddit?!

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't really care enough to look into their beliefs more, but what I find most surprising is that they were too far to the left even for Reddit.

Reddit in general is among the most left-leaning social media sites out there. Even expressing a centrist or moderate viewpoint in many subreddits will typically get you punished in some way, if not outright banned.

It's typical to find what any reasonable person would consider to be extreme left content posted at Reddit all of the time. In some subreddits you're lucky if you're only subjected to socialist content, rather than what should be considered outright Communist propaganda.

These people must be really, really, really, really, really far to the extreme of the extreme left if Reddit isn't a suitable place for them.

Why should this surprise you? There are 50+ extreme radical communists groups operating in the United States of America that I could rattle off. At least 2 of them have me on a public kill list. Pause for a second and think about that -- what kind of groups make public kill lists? I'm on those list because I'm a semi-public face on an organization that defends the first amendment, and will not allow the heckler's veto to prevent events if at all possible. For this reason the communists absolutely despise me, and they certainly have no love for the III% or any other group standing up to protect people who are trying to assemble and hold an event in peace.

The need for moderating groups to prevent violence wouldn't even exist without years of these groups attacking people. I would venture to say much of the alt-right wouldn't exist without the extremists on the left pushing SJWism, and far too many so called centrist left being "okay with it" or at least not making any serious attempts to reign it in. It certainly doesn't happen in the major cities where the violence, intimidation, threats, and lawlessness of alt-left groups continues on largely unchecked.

I do take some exception with this article calling these folks anarchists and socialists. Most of them are hard core communists, many with an extreme SJWism twist that reminds me of Mao's cultural revolution. These are the last people who should ever hold a position of power anywhere in government.

Fools

[Baron_Yam]

>"We have no ads, no tracking, no user profiling and we don't collect or share any user data with anyone

Two things will happen if the site survives a significant length of time:

1) Whoever is funding it will become a dictator, deleting posts and banning posters with whom they disagree, without admitting they're doing it and in fact doing their best to keep the fact a secret.

2) When the money runs out, they'll convince themselves that 'just a little bit of advertising is OK', and slowly sell out.

Wait, wait ... leftists are now being banned?

[Opportunist]

Then what's left on Reddit?

Great, more echo chambers

[elrous0]

Yeah, that's just what we need now.

Re:Liberals create echo chamber

[ClickOnThis]

If you think Liberal == Radical Leftist, then you have your head up your ass.

Peoples' political views can fall across a wide spectrum. It's convenient to demonize your opponents by shoving them all to one extreme end of that spectrum. Convenient and wrong.

Re: How typical of leftists

[Phydeaux314]

Left winger here. I'll happily debate politics with people interested in a calm (if passionate) rational discussion. I will not waste my time arguing with somebody spewing racist dogwhistles with no intention of listening or thinking about the points made.

Nope, just another echo chamber.

[thesupraman]

What they really dont like is the presence of anyone who does not agree with them.

So they have gone and made their own little club, out the in the back shed, where they can make sure anyone who does not agree with them will be kicked out (the equivalent of the 'no girls!' club sign). They will make their big plans there, all competing to out do the others in how 'revolutionary' they are.they will virtue signal until they are red in the face and their 'community' will slowly shrink as anyone who isnt revolutionary ENOUGH this week gets excluded.

Meanwhile the rest of the world will get on with actual life, something they will be less and less in touch with.

Sad? yes.
Pathetic? yes.

But hey, its no different 'because its on the internet', the only odd thing here is that someone thinks its newsworthy. Its not.

Re:Nope, just another echo chamber.

[goose-incarnated]

To be honest, a lot of the time it is centrists being called radical leftists.

I'm a centrist and i've never been called radical left, I only ever get accused of being rightwing. Apparently the view that rules should apply e regardless of race or sex is a rightwing view. Me saying that if black-only or women-only clubs are acceptable then so are whites-only or men-only clubs apparently makes me some sort of nazi (in my case a black one).

The left is now mostly a speech-suppression movement which is antithetical to a free society. For example, I am a lifelong atheist, but I have never in my life campaigned to prevent religious propagandists from talking at a university.

Re:Nope, just another echo chamber.

[swb]

As society as increasingly become more racially tolerant, the racial equity movements have had to turn to increasingly ephemeral explanations (micro-aggression, etc) to justify African American problems.

The broad hiring of Latinos nation-wide in low wage labor positions, the mass hiring of South Asians in IT positions and how it has mostly worked without broad resistance has really made African Americans reliance on "racism" as the principal source of their present problems increasingly less believable.

So they've turned to increasingly more comprehensive and inescapable explanations of white racism. Whites are generally now assumed to be racist in ways they aren't considered capable of overcoming. In the 1960s you could support civil rights and have black friends and easily not be considered racist -- in fact, you were probably considered suspect by conservatives. Now that's not good enough, you have to permanently accept your inherent racism.

Questioning this narrative of course makes you "obviously racist" and trying to seek alternative explanations for African American suffering (broken families, gang membership and high levels of criminal participation, poor work ethic in school or labor force participation) gets you shouted down or worse.

Re: Liberals create echo chamber

[oobayly]

I have a colleague who said "fucking liberals" when I told him it's stupid to think that electric car technology isn't going to improve in the future.

To him, liberal is just an insult, he has no idea what it actually means.

Re: How typical of leftists

[Phydeaux314]

I prefer to not call people nazis unless they are actually nazis. I find it lessens the impact of the term to misuse it.

And rational does not mean they agree with me - far from it. Rational means their arguments and positions support their professed viewpoints, nothing more or less. I have no interest in having arguments with people that won't be honest with themselves or me.

If somebody tells me that public health care is bad because the government wastes tons of money despite heaps of evidence to the contrary, I cannot have a debate with them because they do not believe in research, logic, or honest debate. If they tells me public health care is bad because the government's role is not to provide health care, then I can talk with them, because while I disagree with that viewpoint there's nothing wrong with the logic itself.

They forgot about what

[edgedmurasame]

"To me, the biggest problem with Reddit is how its administrators ignore the routine harassment and witch-hunts of marginalized people that takes place, with r/The_Donald being the most prominent example,"

Never mind that Reddit has done a lot to silence that (and other non-leftist) community under that exact excuse. After they dealt with the Violentacrez incident, they went from a user-driven site to an admin-driven site with highly-left leanings.

Re:Institutional Racism

[swb]

In order to keep the narrative of white racism alive, "activists" keep turning to more and more ephemeral forms of racism, most of which require no conscious action at all on the part of whites. Conveniently, whites can not refute these racist acts nor can they really change, they can only *atone* for their inherent racism. Racism has become a kind of secular "original sin" -- an inalienable state of being for which they may only pay penance.

Unfortunately as more and more non-white ethnic groups immigrate and rise within the United States, it's becoming apparent that the "race problem" isn't "white racism" as broad, whites vs. nonwhites phenomenon, but is instead something more like "Why can't blacks succeed when others have?"

And the laundry list of others is pretty long -- Latinos, many of whom *don't even speak English*, have managed to thrive in the United States. The Hmong, living like it was the sometime before the 19th century managed to get ripped out of their own country by the US war machine and resettled to the prairies of the Midwest and thrived. The *Somalis* managed to escape a live-action version of "The Road Warrior" and thrive in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in spite of the obvious handicaps of negative sentiment towards Muslims *and* being African (inheriting existing negative sentiment towards American blacks).

How have all of these groups managed to establish working communities not defined by broken families and crime despite substantial cultural obstacles in mere decades or less while native African Americans continue to fail? Surely at some point we can start to talk about problems inherent to and unique to African American communities which cannot be blamed on "racism".