When Did it Become Acceptable to Bring Politic of Hate into SL?

[KanryDrago]

While I wont particulary express my personal political views here and I have friends on what i think of as both the left and right what I would say is you are mistaking omething.

You say these trump supporters have hateful political views. You do realise they probably think the same about yours?

Sadly politics is polarised these days their is your side and the other. You can monster the other and call them names like fascist, or commie. It doesnt mean they are it just means you disagree with them and are polarised to such an extent you can only see those that dont agree with you as the enemy. it is not healthy

[Beth Macbain]

One side believes it’s okay to separate terrified children from their parents and lock them in cages. The other doesn’t. The issues aren’t political anymore... they’re about humanity. If shouting from the rooftops about what monsters Trump supporters are hurts their little snowflake feelings... well, to quote the plastic witch, “I really don’t care.”

We’re talking good vs. evil here, not left vs. right.

Edited January 7, 2020 by Beth Macbain

[KanryDrago]

4 minutes ago, Beth Macbain said:

One side believes it’s okay to separate terrified children from their parents and lock them in cages. The other doesn’t. The issues aren’t political anymore... they’re about humanity. If shouting from the rooftops about what monsters Trump supporters are hurts their little snowflake feelings... well, to quote the plastic witch, “I really don’t care.”

We’re talking good vs. evil here, not left vs. right.

and leftist councils in the country I live believe its right to separate adopted children from their adopted families after years after the parents express support for parties that are perfectly legal but that the left think are bad. What is the difference? Both sets of "The other side are evil" is no different

[KanryDrago]

4 minutes ago, KanryDrago said:

and leftist councils in the country I live believe its right to separate adopted children from their adopted families after years after the parents express support for parties that are perfectly legal but that the left think are bad. What is the difference? Both sets of "The other side are evil" is no different

My point was really too many will look at the two examples and think my side right because its my side. I personally think both are wrong

 

[Tolya Ugajin]

20 minutes ago, Beth Macbain said:

One side believes it’s okay to separate terrified children from their parents and lock them in cages. The other doesn’t. The issues aren’t political anymore... they’re about humanity. If shouting from the rooftops about what monsters Trump supporters are hurts their little snowflake feelings... well, to quote the plastic witch, “I really don’t care.”

We’re talking good vs. evil here, not left vs. right.

Except, one side didn't think such separations and cagings were bad when their guy did it (as is well documented, since the pictures that started the hullaballoo are from 2015) so apparently it's good vs. evil.

The real underlying problem is, neither side is serious about fixing the situation - they are both too busy making political hay out of it.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

16 minutes ago, Tolya Ugajin said:

Except, one side didn't think such separations and cagings were bad when their guy did it (as is well documented, since the pictures that started the hullaballoo are from 2015) so apparently it's good vs. evil.

The real underlying problem is, neither side is serious about fixing the situation - they are both too busy making political hay out of it.

The "real" problem is that we continue to think in terms of "sides" -- crude binaries predicated on "power" rather than human values.

I don't have all the answers, or maybe any of them. I'm still looking, asking questions, accepting critique. I have ideas, things I believe are good. But belief isn't knowledge.

But I damned well know evil when I see it -- and I don't care if that evil is being perpetrated by the "reds" or the "blues."

If more people focused on the basic human values that we actually mostly share, we'd all be a great deal better off.

[Luna Bliss]

[Seicher Rae]

 

Edited January 7, 2020 by Seicher Rae

[Luna Bliss]

Both parties in the US are bought by moneyed interests today, but at least the Democrats have historically thrown the disadvantaged a few more bones..

[Beth Macbain]

43 minutes ago, Tolya Ugajin said:

Except, one side didn't think such separations and cagings were bad when their guy did it (as is well documented, since the pictures that started the hullaballoo are from 2015) so apparently it's good vs. evil.

But that’s not the entire story now, is it? 

[Tolya Ugajin]

27 minutes ago, Beth Macbain said:

But that’s not the entire story now, is it? 

Pray, tell us all the rest of the story, we're all so enthralled at the prospect of reliving this debate  from 2018.  I know I come to the Forum for the thoughtful and balanced political debates.

[Beth Macbain]

28 minutes ago, Tolya Ugajin said:

Pray, tell us all the rest of the story, we're all so enthralled at the prospect of reliving this debate  from 2018.  I know I come to the Forum for the thoughtful and balanced political debates.

The Obama administration built them, yes. Zero tolerance family separation (and children dying) is all Trump. As for it being a 2018 debate, I’m terribly sorry your attention span is so short when there are still children living (and dying) in those cages.

[Luna Bliss]

[LittleMe Jewell]

Well, if nothing else, these threads always let me know who I don't want to get into any heavy conversations with.

 

Then again, in SL, I prefer not to get into any heavy conversations at all.

[Lyssa Greymoon]

3 hours ago, KanryDrago said:

You say these trump supporters have hateful political views. You do realise they probably think the same about yours?

Oh no, people LARPing Nazis in Second Life might think we're bad people!

Edited January 7, 2020 by Lyssa Greymoon

[Maryanne Solo]

All I know as a complete outsider is Trump and his ->🙀👈🤚 but why did that Pelosi hag drag those children up onto that rostrum that time?
I have child protection certification of the highest order and to me that is outright child abuse pure and simple, NO excuses.
Who would use innocent children like that?

This is what I meant by my one side is as bad as the other comment. 🙄

[Prokofy Neva]

What I find disturbing is how many Trump campaign kiosks are all over SL now, and mainly owned by just one person who runs a rentals business. Just one person can have that kind of effect, and if they don't put more than one per sim, they aren't in violation of LL's rather half-heartedly enforced ad rule. But if they were to cap that world-wide, we'd see less of that and other obnoxious stuff.

What's also sad is that there are few counter kiosks. Maybe there's a Sanders kiosk here or there. But what is really needed is some kind of anti-hate kiosk. But people have also big networks of yellow jacket (French) kiosks that seem questionable to me. As with the "Impeach Bush" guy who defaced SL terribly and didn't really care about politics as much as being obnoxious and pushing Linden limits, I think this attention-getting visual and verbal behaviour isn't necessarily of substance but about other things.

Linden Lab is in the US, and like most Silicon Valley Internet companies, it tends to try to have a First Amendment level of free speech, even though as a non-state actor, it cannot enforce this protection and is not required to offer it, either. Most Internet platforms have TOS rules that are shy of the First Amendment. But for all kinds of historical and lifestyle and idiosyncratic reasons, you might find the Lindens responding more against hate of LGBT than they do hate of Jews or Trumpian white supremacist rants.

One of the ways I have been griefed by a set of very hard-core 4-chan type griefers is by impersonations of me as a "bot" named by my company (I don't use bots at all) and spewing of racist, Trumpkin stuff in groups. This leads to slews of hate mails against me and bans from properties -- that's why it is done. I and others abuse report it, the Lindens can take their time on it, but eventually, those day-old alts are deleted, only for new ones to appear. I think Linden libertarianism and also the overwhelmed AR system contribute to this problem.

One of the problems companies face is trying to define hatred. This shouldn't be so hard as they imagine as there are very well-established UN definitions in CERD and other tready bodies, but in the US, the bar is set high for free speech. And given how rabid and crazy the Twitter far left is on these subjects, that is a good thing, quite frankly.

As I said on the libtech list, I think they should have a ban on racist remarks and of course racist incitement because they are a university, and it is not only unbecoming of a university, but usually universities have their own standards against racism that they should enforce on their lists.

Wearing a MAGA hat is not something you can lawfully qualify as "racism" even in a university sense, and the atrocious disinformation and lies that went out about the Covington boys around their face-down with the Black Israelites and a Native American are a very good indication of that. The media didn't comprehend how the Black Israelites started this rumpus, insulting not only the boys but the Native Americans; Black Israelites have now murdered 6 Jews and an Italian-American policeman in Jersey City. This isn't trivial. Online hatred leads to offline violence and that is why we need to care more about it. I personally believe Trump is responsible for the murder of Jews in Pennsylvania, and attacks on media figures and the escalation of white supremacist violence. But I am certainly not going to let anti-fa off the hook because they have a long history of violence and extremism here and in other countries.

The problem with your post is that it doesn't have definitions or plans but just an overall indignation. It's ok to vote with your wallet even when your sense of injustice is only vague, but frankly, I wouldn't want to put you in charge of deciding what free speech should be tolerated and what is not, because I suspect your views are leftist and narrow on this subject because what you appear to wish is to outlaw all explicit Trump supporters and voters. And you and others do not have grounds for this. A Trump voter can be someone fed up with campus political correctness (with good reason); there are black Trump voters; there are people wearing a MAGA hat because someone merely gave them a free hat; there are workers who lost jobs who voted for Trump who five minutes before that would have voted for Sanders if the left still cared about workers, and so on. It's a very blunt axe to go hacking away at all things with the name "Trump" on them. 

I'm a Hillary voter, liberal but not progressive, and a first-term Obama voter and second-term Romney voter who will vote for anyone but Trump. But the task then and now is to persuade my fellow Americans that his policies and beliefs and antics and just overall immoral craziness are damaging not only to liberal values for America and its ideals in general and in practice, harmful to all kinds of people.

THAT is the problem. The various forms anti-Trumpism takes is simply not persuasive; his followers have only doubled down; they have only found new reason to support him as the Democratic Party splits more and more and lurches left more and more. When a left-wing Democrat who wanted to take guns away, who is gay himself and a mayor, is slammed because he fund-raises in a wine-cave, we are doomed. Try to understand that.

To accomplish this goal of opposing Trump, I'd rather support protection of refugees and ending of mistreatment of asylum applicants rather than police transgender bathrooms and provide abortion up to birth; I'd rather provide better and subsidized medical care than "Medicare for All" which is an outrageous expense; I'd rather re-join the climate change treaties and re-start the practices of the Obama era than have the "new green deal" which is merely socialism in a poor disguise and so on. And I'm not alone in this in the Democratic Party off Twitter.

I suspect AOC's voters are not likely to vote for her again, because their jobs and medical care and public transport have not improved on her watch, even as she has gone further afield in search of national glory. 

The best way to counter Trump is to start alternative groups and movements and support of alternative candidates, not abuse-report Trump supporters which will go nowhere in SL. LL can only shrug at losing your $11.99 per month. But if you started a group or held meetings or bought some microparcels for another candidate, the media might cover you and you might find others to share your common cause.

 

[Prokofy Neva]

9 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

Yep, I just mute 'em. If only it were so easy in RL.

Granted, that doesn't solve the problem of political signage next door. In one particular case I could get them removed because they're quite flagrantly encroaching on the SLRR, but I figure it would somehow escalate. They're not going to have a sudden blue epiphany just because Governance sends their Steyn/Bork/Levin propaganda back to Lost+Found. Also the parcel is for sale so I suspect they're just "deplorable for profit."

Perhaps you can tell me what exactly the Linden policy/enforcement record is right now. You can't abuse report a Trump sign per se, as is. But if there were more than one on a sim, could you? One on every one of 10 sims in a row? What might work? Encroachment doesn't count, because it could say "We are for a blue sky" and if it encroaches they will remove it. I do wonder specifically about these Trump sign infestations what might be done within the enforcement practices of LL.

[Prokofy Neva]

8 hours ago, Chaser Zaks said:

I'll say this, I have seen people on both sides of the political spectrum on Second Life, from nicest to the more extreme. Political opinions are like butt holes, everyone has one and they all stink.

However it is important to note, no matter what political opinion someone has, Linden Lab does not endorse or support said opinion. Just because one person is spewing hate, does not mean that Linden Lab supports that. Linden Lab has no control over what users say, but they can punish them afterwards. Controlling what users say would result in censorship/filters which would be very harmful to the virtual world.

From what I have seen, Linden Lab likes to take a very neutral/centristic point of view when handling abuse reports and allowing residents to have a freedom of speech and opinion. However they don't support hate speech, it is important to understand what hate speech constitutes as according to Linden Lab. To do this, we have to look at the Community Standards. In specific, we will look at the "Intolerance" section(This section may change at a later date, please refer to the Community Standards for the most up to date version).

My interpretation of this means:

• You can have what ever opinions you want, be popular or unpopular.
• However said opinions may not be used to attack or belittle groups.

For example, "I think <x group> is going too far with their politics" can be OK, but "Eradicate all <x group>" is not OK. Of course context really does matter in this situation and it is a very touchy situation because some stuff can be seen as offensive to others, while not offensive to others.

The Content Guidelines has additional information which basically says the same thing but worded to legally cover content seen in world.

Additionally, Linden Lab could have taken action, but you just don't see it. Linden Lab treats privacy really seriously, so if someone got warned, you won't be informed. Only the person who has been warned will know and it is up to said user to disclose if they were warned.

The problem with the language LL has in its TOS is that you could either use it to "indict a ham sandwich" or use it to do nothing, or both, depending on a given Linden or a given day or a given workload.

When we had a police blotter, we could build up some sense of jurisprudence. We could see WHAT and WHERE. We could figure out what clubs perhaps to avoid, or certain sandboxes. We could see their "thinking" on things. I could write reams (and have) on what this told us about their mindset, but the operative point now is that they took it down. You can only find it on the Internet archive if you really, really work at it, only for a few dates. It wasn't complete, and that's a shame. A full-time, 24/27 ticker of actions taken on abuse reports in real time would be immensely instructive and serve as a deterrent, in my view. But the Lindens don't wish to publicize this proprietary information any more.

There are certain RP groups that I view as despicable that endorse racism, slavery, persecution, denigration of women, and more. The Lindens leave this alone as "consensual among adults". I think it lowers the whole culture of SL considerably.

@ clivesteel I don't know who Jagix is or what your ARs have been about so I can't tell what your story is.

Edited January 7, 2020 by Prokofy Neva

[Prokofy Neva]

15 minutes ago, Maryanne Solo said:

All I know as a complete outsider is Trump and his ->🙀👈🤚 but why did that Pelosi hag drag those children up onto that rostrum that time?
I have child protection certification of the highest order and to me that is outright child abuse pure and simple, NO excuses.
Who would use innocent children like that?

This is what I meant by my one side is as bad as the other comment. 🙄

The more pertinent question to ask is which adults -- and did they involve parents -- deployed their children against Pelosi in such an obviously politicized way in the first place. 

[cheesecurd]

5 hours ago, Kimmi Zehetbauer said:

some that donned black avis and Afros and said I was too sensitive

Were they by any chance also wearing formal suits?

[Evah Baxton]

4 hours ago, Beth Macbain said:

One side believes it’s okay to separate terrified children from their parents and lock them in cages. The other doesn’t. The issues aren’t political anymore... they’re about humanity. If shouting from the rooftops about what monsters Trump supporters are hurts their little snowflake feelings... well, to quote the plastic witch, “I really don’t care.”

We’re talking good vs. evil here, not left vs. right.

There is a fantastic and terrible Evil on all sides. I promise you.

[Gregorian Chant]

Oy vey!  Sometimes I think this forum needs a facepalm reaction emoji.

[Pussycat Catnap]

To the left of the left you wil find communism. In the 1930s that was stopped in the USA by... the left shoring up unions thus giving workers a non violent solution to a... tolerable if not ideal living... outside the USA where Unions were stopped Communism rose up and cost, and continues to cost, millions of lives... Where systems were made to enabke the growth of a middle class people chose peace over violence...

To the right of the right you will find Fascism and in the 1940s the world put an end to that at the cost of millions of lives... Fascism also rose because people got desperate and extremists offered simplistic solutions that in truth were deeply flawed and rooted in motivation through fear...

 

Trump himself is a senile old man with dementia... he is not the problem. The problem is his supporters are... to the right of the right... they are not yet fascists, but they are leaning that way and the solutions they propose are often violent.

 

The left, in the 1960s, saw extremists rising up... some of them violent, most anti violent. Those that were violent were stopped. Mostly by the left itself learning how to reign them in and refocus younger members towards more thought based rather than emotional ideas.

The right now needs to reign in it's extremists... letting them have such a voice will lead towards violence... we can already see the signs of that in a rapid rise of hate crimes; violence where the motive was to harm another because of that person's race, sex, religion, etc...

- something even the left of the 1960s almost never did. That sort of thing has only ever been with the international left or the 19th century left....

Extremism is dangerous. It leads to violence, and if you study the history of revolutionary movements they always fail for all sides...

 

Edited January 7, 2020 by Pussycat Catnap

[Amanda Crisp]

11 hours ago, Samie Bagley said:

In these last two days, I had encounters with Trump supporters who filled their profiles with hateful messages. Specifically, profile pictures showing gun violence, groups promoting lies that were discredit by US and UK intelligence, and groups promoting violence toward others. All were reported to LL.

As a result of these encounter and awareness of LL's permissible attitude toward the introduction of politics of hate in SL, I am no longer a premium member. I refuse to financially support an organization that allows the spewing of hate as evidenced by my encounters with MAGATS.

I am deeply disappointed at LL's lack of action in the insertion of politics into SL, and even more disappointed with the LL's inaction toward the infusion of politics of hate in SL.  I am wondering of anyone else has had similar experiences and how people have handled/reacted/felt in these situations. 

 

Best regards,

 

-Pebbles

I do my best to keep my SL free of crusading Political radicals of ANY stripe.

I have muted people before, I will do it again 🙂

SL is my respite from Conservatives and Liberals and anyone who insists on imposing their views on me; I plan to keep it that way.