Hi all, as with most of you, I’m an immigrant from Reddit. I never used to go on to the NZ or regional subreddits because frankly, I felt very unwelcome and those places were extremely negative.
How then do we build a new community that is based on being positive and accepting, even of those with different points of view, political leanings, religious beliefs or lifestyles? Everyone deserves a voice, no one deserves to be shouted down or made to feel unwelcome or belittled because they have differing thoughts.
Even festering cunts like Brian Tamaki and his ilk, deserve a seat at the table. We live in a free country and that means everyone should get a voice. Everyone gets to speak their piece, even if you don’t like it.
How do we stop this community devolving into yet another online echo chamber?
I disagree. If you kick the Nazi out of your bar, he ends up going to the Nazi bar down the road and becomes even more extreme. If you let the Nazi into your bar, you have a chance that they will see the error of their ways and not be a Nazi any more. By the same token, if the Nazi in the bar starts shit, you can still kick them out of the bar.
Also, great music choices.
This is way too idealist though. It would be nice if it happened that way, but in reality (and to continue the metaphor) the Nazi will just bring all their Nazi mates to the normal bar, drive minorities away, smash some shit, and turn the normal bar into another Nazi bar that recruits more Nazis.
The people who come to online communities with far-right (in this case) extremist ideals aren’t doing so with the possibility of changing their mind. They want more eyeballs on their horrible ideas so that they spread - and turn from online hate to real-life hate.
It’s exactly how we end up with stuff like the riots at parliament, and LGBT youth centres getting burned down. It starts online.
Yeah it’s also the thing that has ruined most of the other Reddit alternatives that have popped up over the years - it turns out that most people don’t really want to be exposed to in depth discussions about why certain groups of people should all be killed.
The problem is the stench of nazis permeates your bar for the rest of time whether you succeed or not.
Sure. Nazis are super-prone to self-reflection, and definitely never have any adverse impact on the communities around them.
And then someone else comes in, sees the Nazi sat at the bar and nopes right back out. Next one comes along, they see the Nazi and think “this is my kinda place” rinse and repeat and then there’s no one left in your bar except Nazis and Nazi sympathisers.
Your desire to be good is admirable but we’ve seen this happen again and again on Reddit where subs went from entertaining content to alt right echo chambers. Let’s not make the mistake of tolerating the intolerant.