Has r/canada been astroturfed?

56  2018-01-22 by barkusmuhl

The top story right now is a picture of four dozen or so women participating in a women's march in Whitehorse (the poster isn't even Canadian and spelled Whitehorse wrong). It's a total non story but has somehow resulted in a massive number of upvotes (10.2k) and has hit r/all. In addition a mod has gone so far as to delete all dissenting comments to the political message of the protest citing brigading, nevermind that the only brigading going on appears to be from the mysterious forces upvoting the story.

I think this was part of a coordinated effort to get as many women's march stories on r/all as possible.

edit: the story in question - https://np.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/7rvw7e/womens_march_in_white_horse_yukon_2018/

42 comments

1  AssNasty 2018-01-22

Yes. A lot of right wing astroturfing.

1  KimballOHara 2018-01-22

Lol, no.

1  jinx__bot 2018-01-22

Jinx! You and kilkor posted the same comment at the same time! See their comment here.

I am a bot who is owed many Cokes.

1  dsannes 2018-01-22

Good bot

1  Afrobean 2018-01-22

Neoliberal shills ARE right wing shills. To call their authoritarian bullshit "liberal" or "left" is an insult to progressives, socialists, and others who are actually on the political left.

1  AssNasty 2018-01-22

Uh, ya, it is. Basically an invasion by metacanada and they took over the mod spots.

1  shmusko01 2018-01-22

Lol, the_dumbass poster comes swooping in to try and claim otherwise, while the person who is correct gets downvote brigaded.

Yes, /r/canada has been taken over by alt right twats.

1  KimballOHara 2018-01-22

Alt right doesn’t really mean what you think it does. Nor does “taken over”... given the amount of censorship I’ve had in the normal Canada subreddit since US election kicked off, it really looks like it was being left turfed and what you think is an alt right take over is the censorship going away.

Either way the wild swings back and forth are bad.

I hope we can eventually discuss the pedo revelations and others horrifyong kakistocracy from late 2016 wikileaks without a civil war.

No amount of ridicule will convince me multiple adults sharing a slice of za is normal, nor is posting #hotard on photos of children.

Xoxo

1  shmusko01 2018-01-22

Alt right doesn’t really mean what you think it does.

Yeah, it does.

it really looks like it was being left turfed and what you think is an alt right take over is the censorship going away.

LOL

Sure bud.

That's why most of its topmods are metacanada clowns or repeatedly remove anything critical of them or their echo chamber, whilst posting bigoted alt right bullshit.

Either way the wild swings back and forth are bad.

Lol. "Both sides are bad". Is this a real thought? An actual belief?

No amount of ridicule will convince me multiple adults sharing a slice of za is normal,

Colour me surprised your compass for what's normal is broken.

1  Ham_Sandwich77 2018-01-22

It's 81% upvoted.

1  decimal9 2018-01-22

This is the right answer. The thread was heavily, heavily brigaded by pro-government shills from The_Donald. F

1  AssNasty 2018-01-22

The shilling existed way before TD. Like years and years ago

1  ewwwwwzipties 2018-01-22

All the Canadian subs are extremely censored.. This is not surprising..

1  barkusmuhl 2018-01-22

I've noticed r/canada has ratcheted up the censorship recently, but this one takes the cake.

The mod in question made this statement:

Discuss the matter at hand respectfully and rationally. Don't attack OP. Don't disparage women in general, or attack or ridicule women's rights or protests. Doing so is against our rules prohibiting bigotry/intolerance and such comments will be subject to moderating action.

You literally can't criticise feminism or any femalecentric political movements on r/canada according to this mod.

1  YetAnotherUsername_ 2018-01-22

Sure you can criticise feminism or femalecentric political movements under that rule.

Surely you know how to do those things without also disparaging women in general, or attacking/ridiculing women's rights?

The bit about attacking/ridiculing women's protests is a bit iffy, but even from that part of the statement, you absolutely can still voice criticism of women's protests.

1  tittycocks 2018-01-22

are you serious? I would love to see the posts considered “attacking women” that were removed by this kid

messages like these are stickies along with retards claiming they’re being brigades by TD to stomp out any and all comments that break the jerk. Much easier to notice with PC subs/topics, you don’t have to post anything offensive at all to have your comments removed if they don’t agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment of the post.

1  YetAnotherUsername_ 2018-01-22

Then it is that behaviour, and not the statement posted in the comment above mine, that is the issue.

1  barkusmuhl 2018-01-22

are you serious? I would love to see the posts considered “attacking women” that were removed by this kid

Https://www.removeddit.com/r/canada/comments/7rvw7e/womens_march_in_white_horse_yukon_2018/

1  benjwgarner 2018-01-22

Have you seen modern feminism? Criticizing "feminism or femalecentric political movements" is defined as "disparaging women in general, or attacking/ridiculing women's rights".

1  barkusmuhl 2018-01-22

Can you?

1  YetAnotherUsername_ 2018-01-22

It says it can't show the removed comments, so I just got an image of some people marching in the snow.

If comments are being removed for criticising feminism, etc., then it follows that they are not being removed under that statement, but because of some other mod view on that subreddit.

1  BizarreBazza 2018-01-22

The Australian ones are no better. The mods of /r/melbourne don't even allow people to comment on crime posts anymore. The main Australian sub is so biased it's a joke.

1  willmeme4crypto 2018-01-22

r/metacanada is lit

1  BonEchoCanuck 2018-01-22

This

1  cuteman 2018-01-22

Censorship is mod side.

OP is talking about external astroturfing which would signify special interests having an incentive to shill on /r/Canada

If the situation is particularly cancerous they will censor in favor of specific special interest(s) and promote the same.

1  KimballOHara 2018-01-22

Yes, Canada is pretty left of center for a while, but I've noticed increased narrative enforcement patrols lol

1  420_bloze_it_feggit 2018-01-22

Who cares? It’s only canada

1  oldMiseryGuts 2018-01-22

Are you against the womens march?

1  barkusmuhl 2018-01-22

I couldn't really give a shit about the women's march, but I am against censorship and propaganda.

1  oldMiseryGuts 2018-01-22

Well maybe they just wanted to celebrate a good thing and sometimes you just have to shut up the haters that just want to bring everybody down

1  latentprophecy 2018-01-22

Guess what? Your are in fact the hater trying to bring everyone down. Shocked?

1  oldMiseryGuts 2018-01-22

How do you figure? Im know im getting downvoted like crazy for offering a different perspective on why r/canada shut down comments. But fuck me right, its not like people come here for discussion or anything

1  barkusmuhl 2018-01-22

You want to have a discussion but you just defended a mod disabling discussion.

1  oldMiseryGuts 2018-01-22

The way i see it is, they’re two completely different posts. 1, is celebrating something happening that is a really big deal to a lot of people, posted in a place that is not specifically for polital debate. 2, is a discussion about censorship, posted in a place specifically for debate and sharing of different opinions.

I understand why you’re upset, all Im saying is i can see why they would do it, and depending on what was being said/deleted maybe it was the right thing to do

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1  barkusmuhl 2018-01-22

thanks bot

1  dancing-turtle 2018-01-22

Is it public space on the internet? If yes, yes it's being astroturfed.

(I'm Canadian, but I've given up on /r/Canada for anything related to politics.)

1  tittycocks 2018-01-22

I think this was part of a coordinated effort to get as many women's march stories on r/all as possible.

reddit as a whole has been doing this for years with their flavor of the month #resistance, however in the past year and a half they really stopped trying to make even the slightest efforts in appearing organic. every large sub is astroturfed, and even smaller ones that normally aren’t temporarily become so when the newest movement pops up. communities of 200 people get fucking 80k upvotes and it’s “organic” neat reddit sure

1  JIM_THE_RETARD 2018-01-22

Welcome to Reddit in 2018

1  joseph177 2018-01-22

It's the current year after all. Let's see just how much of a reversal of everything we can accomplish.

1  FollowJesus2Live 2018-01-22

It has been for years. I'm Canadian, but /canada is insufferable

1  decimal9 2018-01-22

Yeah, the thread was heavily brigaded by pro-US government shills from The_Donald and metacanada. Fortunately, the mods took a strong stand against their shilling and removed their governments defending the Trump administration.

Stay woke. The women's march was one of the largest anti-government protests in US history. People are waking up.

1  bloodonthecleaver 2018-01-22

people showed up in droves for the marches last year and this year, and you think it's impossible that 10k redditors supported it...?

1  barkusmuhl 2018-01-22

You want to have a discussion but you just defended a mod disabling discussion.