r/The_Donald helped radicalize users into far-right identities and discourse – Active users on r/The_Donald increasingly used white nationalist vocabularies in their comments within three months. ( journals.sagepub.com )

I know most people that were on reddit at the time are fully aware of this and won't be surprised but don't dismiss the findings out of hand. It's important that studies are being conducted and the fact that the finding match our lived experience is still noteworthy.

Linkerbaan ,
@Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

One cannot be an active thedonald user without already being a white nationalist.

Any dissent gets an instant permaban.

instavi76 ,

Any dissent gets an instant permaban.

So just like r/conservative? I only commented there once and was instantly permabanned. It was a while ago. Deinately before Trump was president, maybe 2015. Maybe earlier.

I kinda watched the political climate change drastically since 2015. Statring form Trumps presidency to spreading all over America, Europe and the world. And I wonder where this came from in such masses. Russian efforts and paid propagandists? They can't be THAT powerful, can they? It is insane and it spreads everywhere. Into every corner of the world. I don't understand it. People seem to want authoritarian leadership. Have they all lost their minds?

Daft_ish ,

Not defending Russia, the us wrote the book on election interference. To act like it's not possible now is insane. American exceptionalism is the biggest hoax. The GOP is now banking on the us letting Putin win. They've sold us down the river with fanciful delusion that they will get to rule the ashes and install their Christo-fascist bullshit.

TropicalDingdong ,

I would be extremely interested if things changed after the sub went private.

Daft_ish ,

My story from the donald is I got banned for saying, "Donald will have more than 2 terms." Or something like that.

Now Republicans don't think they should ever lose elections.

Ensign_Crab ,

Yes, that's why nazi digg kept them around.

SuddenDownpour ,

This won't make Spez any more uncomfortable when he wants to sleep at night. According to him, that subreddit was "valuable discussion".

kbal ,
@kbal@fedia.io avatar

I would've been curious to see what kinds of words got counted as "far-right vocabulary" but it appears that research has recently gone back to being effectively concealed behind paywalls for those of us not in academia.

ZeroCool OP ,
@ZeroCool@vger.social avatar

It's 2024, anyone feigning ignorance about what constitutes a "far-right vocabulary" is just being disingenuous.

kbal ,
@kbal@fedia.io avatar

That's not really true. Anyway, the "supplementary material" provides a few examples at least. We can only assume that they should be representative and that care was taken in drawing the boundary between that sort of thing and less objectionable but culturally adjacent terms.

https://web.archive.org/web/20240511183257/https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/suppl/10.1177/1532673X241240429/suppl_file/sj-pdf-1-apr-10.1177_1532673X241240429.pdf

thanks_shakey_snake ,

Good find, thanks.

"Gamer precursor" is a bit of a surprise. I know gaming communities can be toxic, but it seems like the odd one out in a list with "conspiracy, racist, violent, sexist, and offensive."

ZeroCool OP ,
@ZeroCool@vger.social avatar

“Gamer precursor” is a bit of a surprise.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamergate_(harassment_campaign)

thanks_shakey_snake ,

Yes lol I've heard of Gamergate. But I still don't think "far right" when I hear "gamer." It wouldn't shock me to learn that they correlate to some degree, but whereas the other precursors sound per se characteristic of the far right to me, "gamer" seems like an odd fit.

Like lots of people from a broad range of backgrounds would describe themselves as gamers, and that's generally uncontroversial. Not the same for any other precursor in that list.

Hence, surprised.

SPRUNT ,

Oh, hey! Come on now!

They could just be really, really stupid.

kbal ,
@kbal@fedia.io avatar

Speaking of online extremism, imagine calling someone stupid for wanting to read a scientific paper before forming an opinion about it.

Zorque ,

One can assume, yes. But that's not especially scientific, is it? What's the point of the research if you can't look at the methodology?

Someone else defended the post from people saying "well d'uh" by saying we need to corroborate our theories and not just assume they're correct. Kind of hard to do when research is hidden behind paywalls.

kakes ,

Was going to say this same thing to back you up. We can't both defend this "obvious" study by saying "it's good to have data to back it up!" And then simultaneously argue against having data because it's "too obvious".

I completely agree, a study like this is as good as worthless without disclosing the list of words, or the methodology used for testing words (if they are stored in a latent space rather than a list, for example).

thanks_shakey_snake ,

Why are we downvoting this comment? It's a perfectly reasonable thing to wonder about the study, and I had the same thought.

Not because I can't possibly imagine what could constitute "far right vocabulary..." But just cause I'm interested in the study methodology.

Like yeah, any of us can often identify far-right language when we see it... But how did the researchers approach that systematically? Are there any surprises there, like phrases that I wouldn't recognize? Did they include patterns like "randomly capitalizing words for emphasis?" That would be interesting to know.

Or maybe I misunderstood, and the people downvoting are just pro-paywall, idk.

kakes ,

Some people seem to be more concerned with this study "feeling" correct more than it actually being verifiably correct.

BonesOfTheMoon ,

Remember when they lifted the no racism rule? I do.

Illuminostro ,

We 'member.

Appoxo ,
@Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Reddit or the sub?

BonesOfTheMoon ,

The Donald.

Iceman ,

It was a hilarious mask of movement. They did it to "own" /r/Sweden in the subwars and obviously got their asses handed to them.

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Yes. And I really should have left Reddit then and never looked back.

glimse , (edited )

To all the people rushing to sarcastically comment how surprised they are: Yes, we all saw it happen. But..

It's important that studies are being conducted and the fact that the finding match our lived experience is still noteworthy.

This is why OP posted it. Science isn't feelings, you need data.

DreamlandLividity ,

Science is feelings

Typo? 🤣

xChronoZerox ,

Seriously 😮‍💨 science is literally the opposite of something vague like "feelings"

DreamlandLividity ,

Could be social commentary on what passes as "science" on social media these days. 🤣 That's what made me laugh.

glimse ,

Yes

Th4tGuyII ,
@Th4tGuyII@kbin.social avatar

While it certainly is a bit of a captain obvious moment that exposure to far-right echo chambers helped radicalise vulnerable people into the far-right, but I can see the merit in having empirical evidence supporting what we see (as OP said) - it is a lot easier to dismiss an andecdote than statistical evidence

seaQueue ,
@seaQueue@lemmy.world avatar

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/29abad51-991a-4430-9dad-44488c78eabe.png

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