If you delete all the users from your politics community that you don’t agree with, what is the point of the community?
mobilisation.
Comment on Are users who openly parrot literal Nazi talking points allowed here?
Nath@aussie.zone 23 hours ago
We’re missing a bit of information here. I got your report, went to the thread to get the context.
Firstly, I saw that you had literally screen-capped the comment in question and included it in a new reply. So, removing the comment would have achieved nothing - it would have still been there.
Secondly, the comment was Zionistic in nature, which while especially unpopular in nature is not against instance rules.
Thirdly, I wasn’t aware that the comment in question was similar to something Nazis said. I don’t even know if the user who made the comment knew that. So, leaving it there and letting downvotes do their thing allowed for education as well.
Lastly, the comment was in the Australian Politics community - which is intentionally the lightest-touch moderated community because there’s a difference between political discussion where parties disagree quite vehemently and an outright echo-chamber. If you delete all the users from your politics community that you don’t agree with, what is the point of the community?
To answer your question: No, we don’t allow Nazis here. It is literally one of the questions we ask on the application screen. “Nazi talking points” is not on its own a good metric of what is acceptable today. We basically have a whole community in support of Reichsnaturschutzgesetz. I don’t especially take issue with Tierschutz, either. One of the reasons the Third Reich gained actual popular support was some of their early policies were in fact in the best interest of the German people. There is still a Kindergeld today, though giving full credit to the Nazis to that one wouldn’t really be genuine. It is fair to say they supported this policy. So I guess our stance on “literal Nazi talking points” will boil down to other factors and get taken on a case-by-case basis.
Finally: If there’s a user you genuinely don’t wish to see around here any longer, you can hit the little down arrow on any of their comments and block them.
cockmushroom@reddthat.com 9 hours ago
Zagorath@aussie.zone 22 hours ago
To suggest that lebensraum is just some random policy that Germany happened to have in the '30s and ‘40s, and wasn’t one of the core things that made the Nazis the Nazis (as in, the personification of and byword for evil itself that they have since become) is an absolutely wild take to have, in my view.
I screen capped it because I did not want to engage directly with a Nazi. But it was nevertheless important to publically call out that behaviour for what it was. I don’t believe it has no effect to ban Nazis while also, in the relevant context, to use Nazis’ words as examples of what to look out for with other Nazis. If others disagree with me there I would be happy to have a respectful conversation on the topic of whether my comment should have been removed or edited. But I do not believe that there is that nuance to be had with whether the Nazis themselves should be welcome.
Seagoon_@aussie.zone 13 hours ago
I think you should engage.
How else are you going to change minds than by engaging.
CTDummy@aussie.zone 9 hours ago
A profound lack of awareness or an actual troll.
“I don’t want to engage with Nazis.”
“You should engage. How else will you change my, I mean, their mind.”
GeeDubHayduke@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 hours ago
“I think you are a disgusting vermin, and anyone remotely liked you, should be killed.”
“That’s interesting. Let’s unpack that.”
You honestly think any kind of productive conversation is gonna happen between these two parties? Tolerance of intolerance in action, right here, folks.
Zagorath@aussie.zone 9 hours ago
Fyi you’re currently talking to the Nazi who caused this conversation to start.
eureka@aussie.zone 22 hours ago
I want to raise a point on the “Nazi talking points” response:
Lebensraum is a relatively infamous policy, and one which neo-Nazis like the NSN explicitly invoke. They’re never holding up banners saying “protect the wildlife”, “support animal rights” or “fast roadways now!”, this is the bigoted supremacy generally associated with Nazism and carried on by neo-Nazism.
But this isn’t just “all the users you disagree with”, or even just disagreement - if someone, when discussing an expansionist regime, tries to justify “living space”, that makes me think that person might well want me thrown in a camp and killed. It’s no smoking gun, but it’s a loud wolfwhistle.
Nath@aussie.zone 21 hours ago
Sorry. While I readily acknowledge that I don’t hang out in those circles, nor really scrutinise their rhetoric, I have honestly never heard that phrase before. In English or German. This does paint the comment in a brighter light, and I probably would have been more inclined to remove it had I been familiar with the term.
Zagorath@aussie.zone 28 minutes ago
That’s good to see, but as of right now the Nazi’s explicit mask-off comment is still up, and they are still not prevented from commenting further in the future.
Fwiw, I didn’t learn the phrase from online discourse about neonazis, I learnt it from education about WWII in its original comment. Until reading other comments in this thread I was not even aware that it was popular among neonazis as a dogwhistle. So we both learnt something unfortunate here today.
eureka@aussie.zone 9 hours ago
Yep, exactly, and that’s why I say it’s more useful when a report is more specific - most people are lucky enough that they aren’t exposed to online neo-Nazism enough to know their rhetoric, euphemisms, codes and symbols (beyond the swastika).