War Meet ‘Dissenter’: A far-right ‘comment section’ for hating on journalists

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Have you ever hated journalists so much that you wanted to create an online commenting system just so you could complain about them behind their backs? Well, we have good news for you. If you’re a card-carrying member of the far-right, you can now shout into the void with Gab‘s new social media platform Dissenter, the self-described “comment section of the internet.” It’s basically StumbleUpon for people who voted for Trump.

Dissenter lets posters share a URL, comment on it, and see if others also have opinions. While the site essentially lets users discuss articles in a centralized place, it also doubles as a stomping ground for randomly complaining about things on the internet. Tweets, YouTube videos, and articles discussing Dissenter regularly flood the service, with very little constructive discussion actually going on in the site. It’s mostly just an echo chamber for conservative users who want to complain about feminism or Democrats. Hell, you can even install a browser extension to see what your right-wing buddies are saying while you browse through Breitbart.

It’s easy to see why Gab created Dissenter. While most news sites have gradually removed their comments sections amid harassment and dogpiling against journalists—the Daily Dot retired its comments section in 2015—Dissenter is trying to give its users a place to mobilize against mainstream news media and lash out collectively.

For the record, slurs are commonly found on Dissenter and they range from racial epithets to homophobic comments.

Gab creator Andrew Torba acts as if the Dissenter is a free speech haven, but “free speech” isn’t absolute. There are limits to what one can and should say in a public space. And besides, there are already thousands of other news aggregate websites out there with minimal moderation, letting users pretty much say what they want. Reddit is a classic example. So is Mastodon’s fediverse.

Of course, this is Gab we’re talking about. Gab is a notorious hot spot for the alt-right. The site played home to Tree of Life mass shooter Robert Bowers, who posted to the site before killing 11 and injuring seven during morning Shabbat services. “Free speech” is just a cover here. Dissenter isn’t about protecting the First Amendment; it’s about letting its users punch down on marginalized journalists, Twitter users, and public figures.

For the record, things are going just as you would expect on Dissenter right now. The Daily Dot gained access to Dissenter via this reporter’s Gab account (however, anyone can see posts on Dissenter; you just need a Gab account to join and post). Articles from far-right sources such as Breitbart, the Gateway Pundit, and Info Wars are commonly posted on Dissenter, and more often than not, users simply copy and paste tweets onto the platform and comment on them.


Discussions vary. One post calls House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) an “evil Satanic bitch” whose “time is ending, the pain in [sic] incoming.” Another claims “everyone working and earning more knows that things are way better under President Trump.” A third post lashes out at Rotten Tomatoes after the site closed its “Want To See” system amid misogynistic review-bombing over Captain Marvel, with one woman claiming the movie’s “primary actor went out of her way to alienate the audience, and succeeded.”

At times, comments are verbal diarrhea and difficult to understand. In a rant filled with improper grammar and spelling errors, a user claims LGBTQ activists “want to marry your 3-year-old” and “be women with a willy-dilly.”

“[Trans women want to] sell their unborn as a vulgar piece of meat at the butcher around the corner Trans your 5 year old so they can make it a sex slave And much worse,” one commenter complains. “See the inhuman mental illness level?”

Journalists are a common target on Dissenter, and users regularly turn to publications’ homepages as venting grounds. CNN is a favorite to hate on, with users calling it “fake news.” Meanwhile, visit Dissenter’s BuzzFeed’s page and you’ll see users spamming “learn to code,” an insult hurled at journalists to imply that they should switch to the tech industry after being laid off. The Kotaku page’s comment section shows a long list of users posting the #Gamergate hashtag, with some complaining about the site’s reporting.

“‘Games Journalism’ activist website,” one Dissenter user complained about Kotaku Wednesday night. “Not a real video games news website. Can’t seem to keep politics separate from gaming either.”

Dissenter is particularly sensitive to criticism, and negative reporting can lead to endless criticism in a far-right hugbox. Case in point, after Vice’s David Gilbert penned a report criticizing Dissenter, users shared the URL and claimed Gilbert’s writing was “slander” and part of a “smear.” One poster called Vice “fake news,” while another wrote, “learn to code.” Even Torba jumped into the post, arguing Gab “is not a ‘far-right social network.'”

“No comment section on Vice? What a surprise. Not anymore!” Torba wrote on his own site. (The Daily Dot reached out to Torba for comment for this report.)

Dissenter isn’t doing anything new for the internet. It’s just an extension for the alt-right, one to help them mobilize against journalists, critics, and progressive websites. That shouldn’t be surprising. If you’re really looking for a space to share your opinions without “rampant corporate censorship,” as Torba claimed in an email to Gab users, there are already plenty of alternative social media networks out there that let you share your voice as long as you aren’t a bigot. But if you’re headed to Gab or Dissenter, you aren’t there to post in good faith.

“All of the right people are mad about Dissenter. According to plan. They can’t stop it. They can’t do anything about it. It’s glorious,” Torba posted on his Gab account.

One hour later, Gab was apparently having maintenance issues. That didn’t stop Torba from getting defensive when HuffPost’s Jessica Schulberg pointed this out.

 
I checked Dissenter earlier this week to see what interesting info was being posted and all the comments were on youtube videos by nobodies. What a good idea thats being wasted here.

edit: I check it again and its suddenly good, though it still needs a layout update. I guess something must have happened recently to make people want to get around censorship?
Over the last 3 years, it seems like every news site on the planet with a significant following has turned off comments & feedback. I think that's what really spurred it on. There were always people calling out shit journos in the comments sections of cesspools like VICE - sometimes to great effect.
Rather than hire talent, rather than hold themselves to a higher standard, news sites doubled down on clickbait and turned off all their comments.
Dissenter made a splash because a lot of folks'd been shut up against their will for a long time.
 
It's a good concept and idea, but this implementation is somewhat weak.
 
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I think the reason it's doing so well is that it basically piggybacks on Social Media and lets people do directly what we do here on the Farms: take the piss.

Got some shithead on Twitter going on about how the solution to all problems is to kill white people? Dissenter lets you comment on that. Some dipshit puts a mockery-worthy post up on Buzzfeed and disables all responses? Dissenter lets you comment. See an article up on some site that uses Disqus as the comment engine and the OP labels anything that isn't 100% in lockstep spam? Dissenter bypasses that shit. Some group taking shit too seriously on a subreddit and baleeting anyone who disparages their autistic headcanons? Dissenter gives a way to mock that.

Not really interested in it since that's basically what I use the Farms for, but it's a good idea and if it pisses off the usual suspects that's enough for me to raise a glass to it.
 
I think the reason it's doing so well is that it basically piggybacks on Social Media and lets people do directly what we do here on the Farms: take the piss.
Now that you mention it, what would be really nice for a similar program is if commenting on a page using the program would create a corresponding thread on a forum, be it Gab, Voat, Kiwifarms (plus archive!).

So a Kiwifarms version that basically extends the A&H thread to the article would be pretty cool.
 
Sorry about the double post.
It appears that some idiots haven't been using Dissenter properly, so much that they've had to put this banner, which also links to the Gab's community guidelines (<tinfoil>or maybe it was some leftist vigilante pretending to be a rightwing extremist so they'll take this tool down. What a genius, if that's the (very unlike) case</tinfoil>):
View attachment 695990
This is probably related to the NZ's shooting, due to that psycho spewing a load of memes (and now people look at me weird whenever I quote a meme. No,really, thank you, idiot. And also the Italian Television\Radio now broadcasts all kind of Left propaganda. No,seriously.)
A) how many memes have you been dropping in public that you summed it up with 'whenever I quote a meme'?
B) why are you dropping memes in public?
 
A) how many memes have you been dropping in public that you summed it up with 'whenever I quote a meme'?
B) why are you dropping memes in public?
A) When I was with friends, and it usually is the common one-liner without making weird noises nor moving like a tard.
B) Because I was with friends at a place and it was on topic.
 
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Over the last 3 years, it seems like every news site on the planet with a significant following has turned off comments & feedback.

It's hard to accept criticism when your article on the Guardian about how 4chan, Gamergate and white men is responsible for all violent gang rapes is made fun of by people with funny cartoon avatars.
 
Over the last 3 years, it seems like every news site on the planet with a significant following has turned off comments & feedback.

It's part of (((their))) plan. I touched on it in this TDS thread post.

https://web.archive.org/web/2018101...ons/Sovereign_Challenge_Report_091718_web.pdf
As professional curators and gatekeepers dwindle and are replaced by self-appointed and unaccountable ones, individuals are forced to assess information in ways for which they are not trained.
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While “fact” and “truth” are often considered synonymous, they actually have very different meanings in this discussion. The commonly held definition of “facts” are that they objectively exist in reality, regardless of belief, culture, or other consideration. They cannot be logically disputed. “Truth” on the other hand is made up of facts, but can be tempered by beliefs and interpretation. As such, two people can draw two different “truths” from the same set of facts.
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This means they should consider disabling commentary systems—the function of allowing the general public to leave comments beneath a particular media item—and be careful to refer to the spreading of false information and providing a fact-based correction without explicitly repeating the false message itself.
 
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A lot of media outlets have turned off the comments section, because no one was commenting bar the people in the article who were being misrepresented.
They didn't like the lack of engagement demonstrating how their medium was dying and they didn't like their lies being pointed out right to their faces.

At least that was the case where I worked previously. A higher engagement was on Twitter, but not by much if it was just a non-outrage inducing article.
 
A lot of media outlets have turned off the comments section, because no one was commenting bar the people in the article who were being misrepresented.
They didn't like the lack of engagement demonstrating how their medium was dying and they didn't like their lies being pointed out right to their faces.

At least that was the case where I worked previously. A higher engagement was on Twitter, but not by much if it was just a non-outrage inducing article.

Yeah why would anyone comment on a news site where they would just get banned immediately? Why post in the comment section of a really dumb article exposing people who posts wrongthink on the internet or something like that?

For more than a decade news media have worked hard to shut people up with extreme moderating or by shutting down the comment sections(per "sensitive" article/oped that can't be criticized or site wide on everything). Now that engagement is the name of the game they have fucked themselves over, anyone could have told them that would happen but they had devised a system where they no longer had to listen to things they didn't want to hear, welp.

They have to run "commenting on or criticizing news is bad and evil and should be left to professionals" because they're deeply entrenched in the business model where only they have a voice with reach.a
 
Wham bam double banned from both Chrome and Firefox simultaneously:

Damn. They're not even hiding it anymore. Then again I suppose they've been out in the open about cheerfully censoring wrongthink for a couple years now. It's just gotten so brazen lately.

Sigh. I figured this was coming, but god dammit this is something I desperately wanted to be wrong about.

For anyone who cares, you can still install the extension manually in both browsers. The download page provides instructions.
 
2016 has made them lose their minds, literally. They think by banning all wrong-think they can make this go away. The thing is that this is not possible. People will always generate ideas and when you try to silence them for little to no reason, that only reinforces their viewpoints.

Google acts all high and mighty, but they were participating with the Chinese government to restrict freedoms. Both companies are pieces of shit.

Silicon valley erroneously thinks that its technocrats can make a utopia. They're arrogant pieces of shit. Eventually I think the internet is going to 'fork' because of shit like this. They're eradicating ways to compete and they just do not care.
 

The "Columbia Journalism Review" is taking credit for this.
 
2016 has made them lose their minds, literally. They think by banning all wrong-think they can make this go away. The thing is that this is not possible. People will always generate ideas and when you try to silence them for little to no reason, that only reinforces their viewpoints.

Google acts all high and mighty, but they were participating with the Chinese government to restrict freedoms. Both companies are pieces of shit.

Silicon valley erroneously thinks that its technocrats can make a utopia. They're arrogant pieces of shit. Eventually I think the internet is going to 'fork' because of shit like this. They're eradicating ways to compete and they just do not care.

Look at how effective their psychological warfare campaigns targeting Trump has been. They know their tactics are effective and know they can get away with all extremes as long as they aim for right leaning targets. Their greatest win is that they can silence wrongthink not by force but by terror, by instilling fear in those that still believe that speech can be free; and keeping dissidents in line by inciting brainwashed NPCs to act against, more and more often with violence.

Whether Alphabet execs believe the crap wackjob crap they're pushing, I don't know, but from leaked info we can assume that a majority of their employees do buy into that and thus behave like a religious cult that is absolutely certain it's crusade is righteous and necessary, fueled by their corporate echo chamber and by the dustopian Silicon Valley culture.


The "Columbia Journalism Review" is taking credit for this.

So the protected class of leftist journalists threw a fit and got their way. Not that it takes much to cajole tech firms into quashing dissent. You know that over at Google and Mozilla they are celebrating this as anpther great victory for their righteous battle against those who would exercise wrongthink unsupervised by their betters. The future is now: if you do not participate in one of our heavily censored Orwellian social media outlets, you simply will not participate.
 
Honestly the best part was the journo mentioning free speech/lenient moderation in a same article.

Great, another NPC den.
NPC_template_1.jpg

Artist's impression of Dissenter.
"n-no u" in an image form lmao
 
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