Steel bands tighten around my heart. My knees knock and my vision wavers. But then I remember I’m not on Reddit, and metacanada has not yet replaced the moderation team with pod people.
What measures are in place to ensure the continuing security of our moderation team? If it won’t compromise them to tell us.
No doubt, I appreciate someone bringing this topic up because as you say, right-wingers will try to sabotage any healthy online community. They do seem to especially target local, provincial/state and national subreddits, which can be fertile grounds for propaganda. I’m pretty active on /r/newbrunswickcanada where there are definitely a ton of right-wing shit-stirrers trying to establish their perspective on issues.
But while moderation is important, the community has to be actively involved in making this space into what we want to see. A big reason /r/Canada sucks isn’t only the presence of the /r/metacanada types, it’s the absence of reasonable people. I also remember when /r/Canada was decent, and I didn’t leave when I first starting seeing fashy takes, because you’ll see those everywhere on the internet. I left because eventually I realized most people I could enjoy discussing with were leaving/had already left.
The more one participates in an online community, the more one can attract like-minded people to that community.
I dunno, I think we’ve come to a point where we really do have to distinguish between potential conservative allies, and outright fascists.
This is a good point, but I’d like to add that we should also distinguish between lower-case conservatives and the Conservative Party of Canada.
I know and love plenty of conservative people. We have different ways of seeing the world, and believe different methods to be best to achieve our goals, but ultimately we all want everyone to live happy, fulfilling lives.
If you align with the Conservative Party of Canada, you are much closer to fascism than I am willing to associate with, and frankly I am too queer to feel safe around these people.
That’s not unfair. I felt genuine dread the day I saw a PPC placard in the window of a business I used to frequent. OTOH, the CPC only exist to fool us into thinking the LPC are tolerable.
The major owners of all the Canadian banks are all the other Canadian banks. All our ruling parties are bullshit. The LPC give us social liberalism when invested capital wants us to have it, and the CPC take it away again when that suits capital more. But they both stay within a very narrow prescribed window where they are allowed to grandstand like they really have any say in the matter. Canada as a state exists to transfer value from natural and human resources into corporate coffers, and all this democracy and civic stuff is just window dressing.
If things get as bad as they can get, the LPC will sell us out just as quick as the CPC. Whatever way the wind blows.