lmao i hate these ghouls that conduct and share research on online groups/forums, when they also have a clear disdain and severe misunderstanding of the groups/forums they study
currently skimming through the paper and it's painful
i also can't help but feel like the liberal use of "tankies" was an intentional decision by the authors to drive up the most clicks (and inevitable citations) on this slop
Their working definition of tankies.
“Tankies regard past and current socialist systems as legitimate attempts at creating communism, and thus have not distanced themselves from Stalin, China etc.”
is it not painfully vague, almost to the point that it is practically meaningless at differentiating some leftists (or leftist forums) from others?
edit: more thoughts:
calling your paper "data-driven" isn't an excuse to approach your research project with like zero theoretical (or nuanced) knowledge about (but a strong negative bias towards) the groups in your study
the paper was getting cool-ish until they started interpreting the results of their "Misalignment Analysis"... This section is very cringe (re: "Acceptance of CCP Narratives", allegations of anti-Semitism, and preference state-sponsored media (but only the bad kind (not american) state sponsored media). The sections before this, where the paper was more predominantly data-driven, seemed actually OK.
the toxicity analysis seems dumb as fuck because it doesn't account for all the ruiners that come in to pick fights and get banned immediately. Like when lemmygrad.ml was growing its user base, the authors suggest that the "tankies" were at their most toxic, but I suspect that spike in toxicity was driven by new users picking fights and reactions from older users to these newers...
my new favourite part of the paper:
Our dataset also has a notable lack of far-right communities. For example, there is no representation of fascism or alt-right communities
BASED scholar DEBUNKS horseshoe theory and SILENCES all red-fash allegations
is it not painfully vague, almost to the point that it is practically meaningless at differentiating some leftists (or leftist forums) from others?
It includes literally everyone that has ever called themselves an actual socialist.
The only people not included in this fuckery are the people saying they're socialists when what they mean is the nordic model. There aren't any people waving the red flag who do not agree that the ussr and china were legitimate attempts at some point or another. There's literally nobody that matters who would say that these revolutions and the subsequent attempts were attempts at communism. They may disagree at which point their failed or veered off course but they'll all agree they were legitimate attempts.
This functionally puts literally all socialists under the "tankie" banner.
This functionally puts literally all socialists under the "tankie" banner.
Yup. This reminds me of discussions from a few weeks ago about how liberals are beginning to use "tankie" like how conservatives have been using "woke" ... they've jumped on this new label that they can easily slap onto something they don't like or understand, so that they can protect themselves from having to engage in good faith with anyone to their left or reflect on their own ideas
Well of course, that's because state-sponsored media in Western nations has no vested interests!
I'm also thinking of all the neoconservative or openly fascist propaganda shared by privately owned outlets like Washington Post or Time Magazine that would get a pass, because - according to their logic - it's news sponsored by spooky second/third world governments that deserves the criticism for being biased and misleading...
lmao i hate these ghouls that conduct and share research on online groups/forums, when they also have a clear disdain and severe misunderstanding of the groups/forums they study
currently skimming through the paper and it's painful
i also can't help but feel like the liberal use of "tankies" was an intentional decision by the authors to drive up the most clicks (and inevitable citations) on this slop
Their working definition of tankies.
is it not painfully vague, almost to the point that it is practically meaningless at differentiating some leftists (or leftist forums) from others?
edit: more thoughts:
calling your paper "data-driven" isn't an excuse to approach your research project with like zero theoretical (or nuanced) knowledge about (but a strong negative bias towards) the groups in your study
the paper was getting cool-ish until they started interpreting the results of their "Misalignment Analysis"... This section is very cringe (re: "Acceptance of CCP Narratives", allegations of anti-Semitism, and preference state-sponsored media (but only the bad kind (not american) state sponsored media). The sections before this, where the paper was more predominantly data-driven, seemed actually OK.
the toxicity analysis seems dumb as fuck because it doesn't account for all the ruiners that come in to pick fights and get banned immediately. Like when lemmygrad.ml was growing its user base, the authors suggest that the "tankies" were at their most toxic, but I suspect that spike in toxicity was driven by new users picking fights and reactions from older users to these newers...
my new favourite part of the paper:
BASED scholar DEBUNKS horseshoe theory and SILENCES all red-fash allegations
It includes literally everyone that has ever called themselves an actual socialist.
The only people not included in this fuckery are the people saying they're socialists when what they mean is the nordic model. There aren't any people waving the red flag who do not agree that the ussr and china were legitimate attempts at some point or another. There's literally nobody that matters who would say that these revolutions and the subsequent attempts were attempts at communism. They may disagree at which point their failed or veered off course but they'll all agree they were legitimate attempts.
This functionally puts literally all socialists under the "tankie" banner.
Yup. This reminds me of discussions from a few weeks ago about how liberals are beginning to use "tankie" like how conservatives have been using "woke" ... they've jumped on this new label that they can easily slap onto something they don't like or understand, so that they can protect themselves from having to engage in good faith with anyone to their left or reflect on their own ideas
I suspect they don't consider linking to the BBC to be indicative of a bias towards state-sponsored media either
Well of course, that's because state-sponsored media in Western nations has no vested interests!
I'm also thinking of all the neoconservative or openly fascist propaganda shared by privately owned outlets like Washington Post or Time Magazine that would get a pass, because - according to their logic - it's news sponsored by spooky second/third world governments that deserves the criticism for being biased and misleading...