Hello comrades. In the interest of upholding our code of conduct - specifically, rule 1 (providing a friendly, safe and welcoming environment for all) - we felt it appropriate to make a statement regarding the lionization of Luigi Mangione, the alleged United Healthcare CEO shooter, also known as "The Adjuster."
In the day or so since the alleged shooter's identity became known to the public, the whole world has had the chance to dig though his personal social media accounts and attempt to decipher his political ideology and motives. What we have learned may shock you. He is not one of us. He is a "typical" American with largely incoherent, and in many cases reactionary politics. For the most part, what is remarkable about the man himself is that he chose to take out his anger on a genuine enemy of the proletariat, instead of an elementary school.
This is a situation where the art must be separated from the artist. We do not condemn the attack, but as a role model, Luigi Mangione falls short. We do not expect perfection from revolutionary figures either, but we expect a modicum of revolutionary discipline. We expect them not simply to identify an unpopular element of society , but to clearly illuminate the causes of oppression and the means by which they are overcome. When we canonize revolutionary figures, we are holding them up as an example to be followed.
This is where things come back to rule 1. Mangione has a long social media history bearing a spectrum of reactionary viewpoints, and interacting positively with many powerful reactionary figures. While some commenters have referred to this as "nothing malicious," by lionizing this man we effectively deem this behavior acceptable, or at the very least, safe to ignore. This is the type of tailism which opens the door to making a space unsafe for marginalized people.
We're going to be more strict on moderating posts which do little more than lionize the shooter. There is plenty to be said about the unfolding events, the remarkably positive public reaction, how public reactions to "propaganda of the deed" may have changed since the historical epoch of its conception (and how the strategic hazards might not have), and many other aspects of the news without canonizing this man specifically. We can still dance on the graves of our enemies and celebrate their rediscovered fear and vulnerability without the vulgar revisionism needed to pretend this man is some sort of example of Marxist or Anarchist practice.
As a newer user on this site, I couldn’t agree more. I mod a large-ish leftist subreddit so I do get the challenges of moderating effectively but seems like the mod team here just removes anything that vaguely hurts someone’s feelings.
There is a difference between feeling unsafe and being unsafe. There is a difference between feeling unsafe and feeling uncomfortable. A lot of people don’t seem to understand these differences.
We should do a Book Club of "Conflict Is Not Abuse".
You misunderstand the point of the rules, this is not an appropriate forum for some difficult discussions because the prioritization is safety. It's a hugbox sure, but that's just a community choice that is no better or no worse than having the goal of "better conversations".
It's a fake hugbox. Mods and users (who align with the mods) are allowed to be as vitriolic as they like, lmao.
All hugboxes are "fake hugboxes" in that way. There's no such thing as pure objectivity.
I really wonder if you guys are significantly younger than me, because this style of moderation is entirely a "thing" in leftist spaces. The original ShitRedditSays was moderated this same way, and you kinda just take the good with the bad. The general posting style is entirely the same too.
At 40, I am probably considerably older than most users on this site. I’m not familiar with ShitRedditSays.
I guess the reason the paternalistic moderation practices here are surprising to me is that the person who persuaded me to join said this was a better alternative to Reddit. One of the reasons he gave was the ability to post the type of shit you can’t post on Reddit. I mod a couple leftist subreddits and I basically have to mod off anything that could be construed as condoning violence or illegal activity. If I don’t, I risk the whole subreddit being banned. I was told this was the type of place where you could post shit like “Killing CEOs is good, actually,” without it being modded off.
I did not anticipate heavy-handed moderation of viewpoints that the mods and their friends don’t like, but in retrospect that was probably naive of me.
It used to be better around here. There were always struggle sessions, but they were usually productive and helped the site figure out what it wanted to be. In the last six months or so, it just seems like the site is eating itself.
That's a bit of a rose tinted view of certain past struggle sessions lol. They were not all positive or productive lol.
Counterpoint hexbear was never good.
I’ve had a pretty positive experience on the site up until today.
A mod won't take down a post for advocating violence against the ruling class or fascists, hell even died-in-the-wool liberals. That is fine. And that is not fine at all on reddit. So, in that regard, your friend was correct and it holds true.
The mods, in this case and others, are policing reactionary opportunism and trying to improve (in some cases preserve) the site's demographic diversity.
Whether they are achieving that and/or doing it effectively - I do not know.
I think the evolution of social media forms like "reddit" has really lead to people putting on "airs" as to what being "part of the community" is.
You're never going to have consistent amazing in depth theory discussions here or on the internet at large. Being part of the community on every site is the same you either are prolific at posting memes other people go haha at and give updoots to, or you're doing jannie shit.
The idea that it's anything more is an entirely individualistic social media marketing ideal sold to you by social media companies. The only way to get beyond the posting memes or doing jannie shit, is to have an extremely small curated site that's only browsed by knowledgeable individuals, or by only having a site with your IRL friends on it. Hexbear is neither of those.
Clearly you weren't with me in the phbb days.
I love the heavy handed moderation, it's a throwback to the pre reddit era and it's generally great for the vibes imo