These repeated posts about how “the mod pools is tainted, don’t trust the mods, look they wouldn’t even let me smear shit on the walls on my way out” are designed to do one thing only and that’s spread Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt.
The exact same shit happened with hexbear after chapo, and all their struggle sessions, etc etc. The tactic is literally to take small instances of things someone disagrees with and paint them as some kind of egregious systematic failing, engage in bad faith, etc. to attempt to build some kind of critical self sustaining mass of “just asking questions bro” bullshit.
It’s also incredibly common for the tactic to involve trying to appeal to “in” groups by pretending to be part of them and paint the target as part of whatever “out group”. For instance, the way libs use LGBT folk when you don’t vote for Biden, or the way they pretend to be non white on twitter, etc. to lend credibility to their “claims”. On hexbear there was a large amount of (both sides) of every struggle trying to paint the argument as divided along white westerner vs international AES lines, etc.
It was largely organized by fash on KiwiFarms for hexbear (or chapochat), and is probably also being done so now, or by the neolib chucklefucks from reddit.
The key part is not to ever actually “prove a point” it’s to strike while uncertainty is high while ‘changing leadership’ so to speak and take advantage of those elevated tensions to attempt to build a self sustaining argument that isn’t designed to be resolved, just to implode the refugees into smaller and smaller splinter groups and discredit anyone trying to keep the ship afloat.
It’s been used by intelligence agencies in the west against non western and especially communist/anti-imperialist countries so much that IT’S LITERALLY SO MUCH OF A TROPE THAT IT’S THE FUCKING PLOT OF BLACK PANTHER.
Pull your heads out of your asses and don’t have any passionate hot takes about whether “it’s safe here” or whatever until the dust clears and reddit bans us and we sort out this community into one that is fairly immune to outside influence.
Until then form opinions slowly, require more evidence than usual, practice basic privacy and opsec on account creation/try not to carry shit over from reddit, and just focus on shitting on libs for the things we were pre-quarantine. This shit takes time, don’t make yourselves open and vulnerable to marvel movie plot level of creativity “attacks”.
Be smart use your heads and protect yourself and those around you, and log off for a bit if you need to, or focus on something else. Don’t feed the fear until it self sustains.
Great post OP.
As for privacy, whilst I respect others right to it, personally I use my IRL identity on every platform I use, I’m not anonymous anywhere on the internet and I refuse to self-censor. For me I think it’s important to put my name to my opinions to show that I have conviction in my beliefs and that I’m not afraid of trolls.
I’ve had tons of death threats both on Twitter and Reddit but I don’t care because I know these are just terminally-online losers who are desperately trying to cope with the mere existence of people like us. Just the fact that we share our opinions is enough to invoke a complete mental breakdown in these people and I’ve pushed multiple trolls to their breaking points even if it means spending a whole month (literally) on the same Twitter thread every day going back and forth with petty insults.
Don’t let them scare you either, they’ll all talk tough and threatening but they’re just a bunch of fannies who wouldn’t even dare look you in the face.
I agree with almost all of this and am myself personally very open about it on my main accounts and platforms too, I just also use various alts for certain places/accounts/purposes too because even my IRL self is technically an alt I constructed to participate in society to a certain extent, with carefully managed public appearance and perceptions, and I think that’s true of a lot of people.
Not always in a way that is unhealthy like I made it sound above either, but for instance some people might not be citizens and might be on visas that require them not having public opinions about certain things, like communism, or might be part of an already marginalized and vulnerable group, etc.
That’s not to say that any of what you said is bad or wrong, and I applaud you for that level of determination and honestly agree with it, just that there’s degrees in which certain strategies will work for certain people and at the end of the day you will always encounter some tradeoff between safety, privacy, etc. and honest, free, and openness both online and IRL. I guess my point is the online nerds who delight in death threats etc might be too scared to ever follow through, and we’re unlikely to have any kind of large government threats paying attention, but certain people are also likely to end up having their information sent to government reporting hotlines etc by those same cowards that make death threats and dox and so on.
Remember that simply being a communist in America that advocates for anti-capitalism is now technically a qualifier for domestic terrorism. There are also many countries in which there’s a much more real and present danger from people who aren’t scared to do things IRL. As well as plenty where it’s much safer and easier to openly be communist. It’s just a reminder for everyone to simply manage their own safety and situation as they know it and realize they just rely on mods or admins or privacy addons or whatever countless examples we could give to do that job for them.
Being a communist is also a full time active commitment, not just a passive fact about who you are.