Comment on Are users who openly parrot literal Nazi talking points allowed here?
eureka@aussie.zone 1 day agoI want to raise a point on the “Nazi talking points” response:
- On one hand, it’s certainly more useful when a report is more specific, yes. I know plenty of fascist talking points which aren’t common knowledge or obvious.
- On the other, it sounds like they’re talking about Lebensraum - “living space”. If we look at it technically, it was a common concept in German politics decades before the Nazi Party was formed. And it’s a far cry away from the various social reforms implemented in the Third Reich you mentioned. But in context, I think it’s clear that someone on aussie.zone reporting a post for “Nazi talking points” is reporting that a post is fascistic, supporting the supremacist aspects Nazism is famous for. People surely aren’t going to report pro-vegetarian posts for this reason, or even anti-union posts (despite the crushing of worker’s organisations being core to fascism).
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.
If you delete all the users from your politics community that you don’t agree with, what is the point of the community?
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 1 day 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.
eureka@aussie.zone 1 day 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).
Zagorath@aussie.zone 20 hours 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.
Nath@aussie.zone 17 hours ago
Which you’re clearly good with, since your screen-capped version of the comment is also still up. The purpose of moderation is to prevent people from being exposed abhorrent content, spam, unsolicited nudity, scams and other harmful content. I’m reluctant to step into discussions that are clearly between actual humans as a general rule, unless they are being abusive or derailing threads. I could also count on my fingers the number of human user accounts I’ve needed to actually ban from the site. Whatever a power-tripping mod is, I am not.
The next time you think a comment should be removed, I would recommend that you don’t go out of your way to be sure more people see it as you report it. As things stand, I see more value in this moment as a learning point. Yours is still the only report that particular comment received. The truly offensive stuff, I can be pinged by half a dozen reports within 30 minutes of the comment being posted. I also remain unconvinced that the user who made that comment would self-identify as a Nazi. Zionist, sure - though that is apparent more from other comments than this example.
Zagorath@aussie.zone 14 hours ago
That may be one purpose. But it isn’t the only one. Another is shaping the norms of a community and what is acceptable. I’ll share the parable of the Nazi Bar, but put it behind a collapsible spoiler in case you or anyone else is already familiar:
The Parable of the Nazi Bar, by Michael B. Tager
I was at a shitty crustpunk bar once getting an after-work beer. One of those shitholes where the bartenders clearly hate you. So the bartender and I were ignoring one another when someone sits next to me and he immediately says, “no. get out.” And the dude next to me says, “hey i’m not doing anything, i’m a paying customer.” and the bartender reaches under the counter for a bat or something and says, “out. now.” and the dude leaves, kind of yelling. And he was dressed in a punk uniform, I noticed Anyway, I asked what that was about and the bartender was like, “you didn’t see his vest but it was all nazi shit. Iron crosses and stuff. You get to recognize them.” And i was like, oh ok and he continues. “you have to nip it in the bud immediately. These guys come in and it’s always a nice, polite one. And you serve them because you don’t want to cause a scene. And then they become a regular and after awhile they bring a friend. And that dude is cool too.” “And then THEY bring friends and the friends bring friends and they stop being cool and then you realize, oh shit, this is a Nazi bar now. And it’s too late because they’re entrenched and if you try to kick them out, they cause a PROBLEM. So you have to shut them down.”
I’ve shared my thoughts on why this particular user deserves the label Nazi elsewhere in the thread, and my reply to Lodion in particular also includes some of the justification for including the screenshot. But I’ll elaborate on that particular point here.
I don’t think mere exposure to that kind of Nazi rhetoric causes direct harm. Which is why I did not think it was causing harm to screencap the comment. Instead, it is the long-term permissibility of that content which causes harm. The Nazi Bar. If Nazis’ views are permitted, you get more Nazis.
I shared the comment first of all to highlight that user in particular to anyone viewing the thread to warn them off from engaging. And also to highlight that same parallel that I made in the reply to Lodion. That even if one person may not themselves be a Nazi, they are engaging in some ideology that is dangerously close to that of Nazis. Highlighting an actual Nazi whose views they would agree with was supposed to serve to emphasise that parallel, while serving as a dis-endorsement of the Nazi’s own view. I think that sharing harmful views in the specific context of highlighting both that and why they are harmful is not at all similar to simply having those views and sharing them sincerely.
lodion@aussie.zone 16 hours ago
I took Seagoon_'s comment to be in support of the ban on particular phrases, by highlighting another dog whistle for nazis. Before this, I (like Nath) did not know this was a nazi dog whistle.
I don’t believe Seagoon_ is a nazi. I do believe they’re a zionist. In Australia as it stands… one is illegal, the other is practically government policy.
To say anyone in support of the new legislation in QLD is a nazi, as you have stated, is an extreme take on the situation. I have many issues with the legislation as it has been passed, but do not believe supporters of it are automatically nazis.
As Nath has commented, as a rule we let human to human discussions run their course… unless they’re going off the rails. Simply posting something you do not believe, or you do not agree with is not grounds for a comment to be removed.
Zagorath@aussie.zone 14 hours ago
To be clear, I fully believe that the user in question is a Nazi. There is no other rational explanation for their behaviour. Any space that allows that user is a Nazi bar.
The legislation itself I do not believe is only supported by literal Nazis. But that the ideology in support of them is a similar far-right reactionary one. It necessarily involves gleeful support at the slaughter of thousands of innocent people, including the deliberate killing of medics and journalists whose only job is to reduce suffering and expose how awful the regime inflicting this is. It also necessarily involves support for the restriction on civil rights including freedom of expression. It may not be capital-N Nazi necessarily, but it is certainly far-right authoritarian, of the sort that might have attracted a less formal lower-case-n “nazi” label a decade ago, when actual Nazis were more closeted. But that shouldn’t be surprising. My point was to demonstrate that being a Zionist, in 2026, necessarily puts you ideologically very close to Nazis, even if you don’t necessarily cross the line into actually being a Nazi, like this particular user obviously does.