[BREAKING] Livestreamed mass shooting in Christchurch Mosque, New Zealand - Sensationalist Headlines

oh... less than 24 hours then...

The other guy I know who is alt-right spends his time on one of his many Facebook alts getting banned for trolling people for reactions. For him it seems to be about "the laughs" for getting "the snowflakes" riled up. I don't really know where his actual beliefs stand but I've known him since high school and he's always had a troubled life. Which also seems to be a precursor to getting radicalized into a belief. They give belonging to those who feel like they don't belong. He loves cats and cars and going to renfest.... But he's also got a black sun as his FB picture. He's a nice guy who could probably easily fit in here in the automotive addicts thread or firearms thread... But he's also a Nazi. It's kinda weird when you know one of these people and can still see the humanity in them, even if their beliefs are twisted. How do we pull these people back to a bit of normalcy? How do we show them the flaws in their thought process when they surround themselves with hateful rhetoric and have themselves convinced it's just a big harmless joke? Removing or deplatforming the rhetoric may help stop the slow drip of radicalization. I feel like a lot of these people feel left behind by society and they need an alternative or they're going to turn to dangerous groups. That seems true for all groups as well. Neo-Nazis/KKK... Islamic terror... Scientology. They all prey on people who are desperate for belonging. People don't just wake up one day and decided to shoot up a mosque or blow up a building or something. We can stop this hut we have to stop the flow of information. Anywho IDK where I'm going with this.

While I genuinely don't think pewdiepie should be the focus here nor should he be partitioned any major blame, the idea that he's some alt-right hating saint is just not the truth. The guy actively courts people like Ben Shapiro, JBP and is a fan of Stefan Molyneux. These aren't just milquetoast right wing pundits. saying 'I don't like the alt right' yet being confronted with this? "if it smells like shit everywhere you go, maybe it's time to check your own shoes" the guy is not some crazed fascist. clearly. but damn, check who you share a bed with, especially when you've got influence like you do.

Joe Rogan is friends with Alex Jones but that doesn't mean Joe Rogan thinks Obama is a reptile.

Rogan is a hack enabling idiot too. Is there evidence he's friends with Alex Jones besides having him on the show a few times? I wouldn't put it past him to believe such a thing anyway. besides, promoting the material of these people is a little different from being friends with them.

Dude, no.

Pewdiepie didnt just shoot 49 people sorry. Hes not my focus just because of a name drop. Its like me shouting filthy frank 4 lyfe before shooting myself in the head with a shotgun. Would you blame joji?

i literally stated as much in the first sentence? don't be so patronising lmao, clearly a discussion about people with such influence is worth having.

Call him an idiot if you want but some of us know the difference between discoursing and advocating.

you got me, oh enlightened one.

Calm the conversation down please

are you going to deem that user unworthy of listening to protect your fragile opinion?

This is just guilt by association in different words, I don't think we should treat people like that.

listening to what? he's made it clear he has no interest in talking about it further and shut down the conversation. I don't think I'm the one being fragile here lol.

You got me, I don't think I could contribute a statement as valuable and powerful as: "I don't think pewdiepie should be the focus, so let me write a paragraph on pewdiepie,"

I can't believe that on many websites, discourse about this event in which at least 50 people have died is now about PewDiePie instead. Him saying PewDiePie at the start of his video was literally intentional disinfo to make you not talk about the event itself. It's so transparent that he had literally nothing to do with this it isn't even funny.

Some people are coming off as very edgy here, toning down on the snarkiness goes a long way if you want people to seriously engage in a discussion.

either you're missing the point or ignoring what I said. my point was he's clearly making a misstep by probably lying about disliking the alt right, mainly because it would be prudent to do so. we have his words, 'I don't like the alt right', vs the observable reality, he is friends with people from those circles, fans of some of them, and has even promoted their material. are his actions or his words the charade?

Meme warfare is a real thing now. He was radicalized on memes and memes have now been weaponized. Memes are the best way to spread propaganda and disinformation.

I know this might be hard for someone on the internet to grasp, but you can be friends with someone without affiliating with them politically.

You say he's "probably lying about disliking the alt right", but where's your proof? Him being friends with some alt right figures doesn't prove that, that's guilt by association. As for promoting material, he did that once inadvertently and apologized for not checking properly.

he is friends with people from those circles, fans of some of them, and has even promoted their material. No normal person befriends or fans a piece of shit like Stefan Molyneux without having at least a tangential interest in their material. Didn't he make a video about how good Jordan Peterson's book was too?

https://twitter.com/RacismDog/status/1106612629676662784 (Apologies for that Twitter account's gimmicky posting style, I couldn't find better tweets conveying the same message on short notice)

And the worst thing about it is that you can't even address it and be taken seriously because it sounds so fucking stupid

Don't be defeated by pessimism. There's a lot of unabashed cruelty in this world, which makes me feel hopeless sometimes too but if there are solutions to the world's problems, we'll never find them without hope.

Still though, Felix is in a position to flip the script against far right influences considering his general influence and resources. He's absolutely not the cause, but he can do something considering his cards. I'd argue he could have done so even prior to the Fiverr incident. When you're one with resources and connections to work with as he does, you can absolutely do concrete things to improve situations. But he's a far smaller cog compared to the wider clockwork of what can be used for toxic ideals. Google and Facebook have far too much power that is isolated and hoarded. Even when they make attempts to do some proper moderation, it's left to poor automation that's been notoriously unhelpful and often corrosive as a whole. Either upper management has to have some incompetents replaced or heavy regulation has to take place. Along with the topic of the moderation, there's those who vindictively take advantage of the status quo to poison the waters. It's been happening for around the past decade where such toxic far right individuals are being exposed in the matter of their ties and effects. Koch, Mercer, and other heads who put heavy resources towards creating a status quo in their favor. A healthy competent moderation can happen, but it requires the venomous veins to be uprooted. That will require a lot of work, but perhaps it could happen. The cause and background of these tragedies have been competently explained many times before by others, but it hurts all the same do to how much could have been prevented. These events don't have to happen, but they do and will occur without a lot of concrete changes from those who hold power. Not everyone has the same sort or amount of power, but it should be used all the same if there is a desire to truly improve the lives of people. There are those who use power for vindictive interests; Those for productive interests that are beneficial for those beyond their own; Quite a number hold power and don't know what to do with it. Power is a tool in many shapes and forms. A tool that is a blank slate to work from and can be used for much and more. It'll take a lot of good strong people to do what's right with it. In the wrong hands, power can be used for malice and stagnation. It will take time, effort, and healing to use power for a better way; But I believe it can be done.

What can he do exactly? Make a video on YouTube explaining the dangers of far right thinking? I don't think that will have as much of an impact as you're hoping. I mean, he has already made apology videos of him saying the n-word, the "kill all jews" video request, what more does he need to do? If people associate him as someone far-right then that's mostly up to people's own perception from past events. Based on tweets and videos that I have seen of him fairly recently I can't find anything else suggesting that he's a far-right supporter.

The "it's just a joke" defense prevent people from taking it seriously, and that defense is a staple of the alt-right. They absolutely love to use "it's just a joke, don't take it so seriously" when they say hateful and racist things.

"It's just a joke" is just a lazy way of absolving responsibility for what you say imo