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[–]Alduin 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

It's an intelligence/law enforcement agency tactic (not that it's necessarily them doing it). They basically flood a forum with undesirable content until the only real people left are people who agree with them (honeypot).

What I would suggest is a "block" or "ignore" button that works. If I have a user blocked, all of their content should be hidden from me. Then the racists and feds can go do their thing together and the rest of us can ignore them.

But first things first: Know thy enemy.

https://cryptome.org/2012/07/gent-forum-spies.htm

[–]wizzwizz4[S] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

The trouble with that, however, is that new readers will still be biased in that way and we'll gain more undesirable new users than the other end of undesirable and the entire site will slowly shift its culture in one direction anyway.

[–]Alduin 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

So you're saying all the racism spam will still show up to new users, so only racist spammers will sign up for an account?

That might be true... It's a hypothetical though, and this problem goes a little further. Voat is a good example of what happens. I would say it's been one of the most successful attacks I've seen. What happens now if you get an account and say something that goes against the narrative, or even just say something that's normal and unrelated, you won't find a receptive audience. So there's NOTHING BUT racism and hate there.

I don't mind racism and hate. In fact I think those kinds of discussions are necessary. But what I do mind is when there's NOTHING BUT racism and hate.

Keep in mind the people who talk like that are probably less than 10% of people (and I think that's being generous). Most people who come here will be normal. Not Reddit normal (which has the same problem at the opposite end of the spectrum), but normal.