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

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.

Meet 'Dissenter': A far-right 'comment section' for hating on journalists

Welcome to the home of everything MAGA and Gamergate.

www.dailydot.com

 

[HiddenFist]

Let's keep it real, journalism might at well be called puff pieces these days especially with these exceptionals running everything.

 

[TowinKarz]

Conservatives are wrong about one thing:

Journalism throughout history has always been bad. There is no mythical era of good journalism. There has been good journalists but that has always been despite the culture and institutions.

I'll agree there was no Golden Age, but today is a fuckin' Dark Age post-Roman Empire collapse compared to how I remember journalism being in the late 90's. Not with nostalgia-tinted lenses, I still thought they were biased, but they still did a better overall job than the fact-less fee-fee-infused slop that passes for "news" these days.

I don't know what the greatest car ever built was, but I know a few that weren't it.

I don't know if journalism was ever great, but I can sure see it's current state is due to a 20-year-long skid with no end in sight.

 

[Slap47]

I'll agree there was no Golden Age, but today is a fuckin' Dark Age post-Roman Empire collapse compared to how I remember journalism being in the late 90's. Not with nostalgia-tinted lenses, I still thought they were biased, but they still did a better overall job than the fact-less fee-fee-infused slop that passes for "news" these days.

I don't know what the greatest car ever built was, but I know a few that weren't it.

I don't know if journalism was ever great, but I can sure see it's current state is due to a 20-year-long skid with no end in sight.

Gulf war incubator death by Nayirah, plus Malala's speech

Nayirah al-Ṣabaḥ (Arabic: نيره الصباح‎), called "Nurse Nayirah" in the media, was a fifteen-year-old Kuwaiti girl, who alleged that she had witnessed the mur...

www.youtube.com

Nah, it was comically bad 20-30 years ago.

 

[whatever I feel like]

it's another ana valens article, isn't it?
of course it is
View attachment 680973

Whats wrong with your faaaaaaaaaaace?

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

Why are these """"""journalists"""""" so dedicated to giving free advertising to random shit they hate which no one knows/cares about? Who the hell even heard of "Dissenter" before now? Makes me wonder if the hit pieces written about this place gave it more traffic.

 

[frozenrunner]

Why are these """"""journalists"""""" so dedicated to giving free advertising to random shit they hate which no one knows/cares about? Who the hell even heard of "Dissenter" before now? Makes me wonder if the hit pieces written about this place gave it more traffic.

I had heard about it from a few different places, actually. This is being talking about by people who hate it because it has the potential to be a big deal (much more potential than GAB itself, the "freedom of speech Twitter that nobody uses," ever had). And they're holy warrior ideologues, so they're trying to get it in front of it. Because Dissenter would let people talk in places they've been told they can't talk by the regressives who shut down comments sections. You can imagine why they're so angered by its existence.

 

[Sissy Galvez]

ITT tranny very upset people will comment negatively on his “masturbating as a tranny” article vs being able to silence bigots and critics.

It’s very humorous to me how these “people” get upset a corner of the internet could mock them without repercussion. Who cares, you have twitter and your articles without comments sections. Stick to your safe spaces and ignore it.

 

[Fatrick Hamlinson]

I'll agree there was no Golden Age, but today is a fuckin' Dark Age post-Roman Empire collapse compared to how I remember journalism being in the late 90's. Not with nostalgia-tinted lenses, I still thought they were biased, but they still did a better overall job than the fact-less fee-fee-infused slop that passes for "news" these days.

I don't know what the greatest car ever built was, but I know a few that weren't it.

I don't know if journalism was ever great, but I can sure see it's current state is due to a 20-year-long skid with no end in sight.

Journalism has always been a steaming pile of dog feces, but a reason why it attracts more flies and maggots now rather than in the 90s is due to the decline of newspapers. We have access to free articles online now, so we don't need to pay for the newspaper, which in turn devalues the work that journalists do. They are paid less because now we don't have to pay for our news. The journalists who were literate and could string a pretty phrase together are in greener fields which pay better. Now we read the words of the dregs who can't command a better price and are willing to subsidize their pittance with Patreon donations.

 

[registered 2 hide avatars]

the main difference is that back then there was no internet, so basically nobody had access to any information except what the press decided to broadcast.

take this for example:


without the internet, all you would have ever heard would be CNN's version about how she "condemned the violence".
but thanks to the internet, you now have access to the actual quote, which is not nearly as non-violent and peaceful as CNN would have you believe.
in the 90s, this would have flown under the radar. they would have gotten away with it, everybody would have believed their lie. but today people have the means to find out what actually happened, and call them out on their manipulation.

Yes, journalism was manipulative then and is still manipulative now. But that doesn't mean the quality of journalism is the same. It has become so easy to publish articles thanks to the internet, that the only way a lot of these publications stay afloat is by fabricating controversy and churning out these terrible biased articles like the one in the OP. Which causes people to dislike journalists and journalism as a whole.

 

[idosometimes]

Conservatives are wrong about one thing:

Journalism throughout history has always been bad. There is no mythical era of good journalism. There has been good journalists but that has always been despite the culture and institutions.

This is untrue. Journalism was partly objective when it had to be. The "glory days" of the 1950s or whatever where actually glory days. Media organizations were mostly non-partisan. This was a huge change from before when parties would run their own newspapers.

Journalism has moved away from facts and objectivity now because you can get facts anywhere. They are selling opinions. To get more viewers/readers, you need to be as crazy as possible.

 

[Krokodil Overdose]

Yes, journalism was manipulative then and is still manipulative now. But that doesn't mean the quality of journalism is the same. It has become so easy to publish articles thanks to the internet, that the only way a lot of these publications stay afloat is by fabricating controversy and churning out these terrible biased articles like the one in the OP. Which causes people to dislike journalists and journalism as a whole.

W/r/t journalism, it's simply a matter of degree, not of kind. Shitty buzzfeed clickbait is no less fanciful than Walter Duranty's lies about the Holodomor, but they have a lot less impact due to the ability of people to contradict it. This ability to tied to the disintermidation properties of the internet: it lowers the barriers to entry, and it allows people like Buzzfeed to operate. OTOH, it lets people like us operate as well, as well as the "bloggers in pajamas" who took down Dan Rather in 2004. On balance, I'd say the latter more than makes up for the former.

 

[NiggerFaggot1488]

Journalism is in fact better than it ever has been, in the past, the requirements of mass distribution ensured that only bought off editors would reach the minds of most people. Radio, and then TV broadcasts made this even worse, both because of the reduced need for literacy and the increased cost of production and distribution compared to print news. The internet turned that all on its head however.
"Journalism" as practiced by people with Journalism and Creative Writing degrees who get paid by corporations is as bad as it ever has been.

One big difference, and this was an anomaly from the 50s to the 00s, is that people believed in "objective" journalism. This mythical "objectivity" always seemed to coincide with whatever takes the CIA agreed with when it came to foreign policy matters. Take that however you like.

In the past everyone knew and accepted that all journalism was partisan, with newspapers proudly stating their political party affiliation. It was all much more honest than todays papers.

 

[Aristophanes]

I just view Gab as a holding pen or containment area for far-right crackpots, where we can watch and laugh at them from a safe distance.

 

[Next Task]

Journalism is in fact better than it ever has been, in the past, the requirements of mass distribution ensured that only bought off editors would reach the minds of most people. Radio, and then TV broadcasts made this even worse, both because of the reduced need for literacy and the increased cost of production and distribution compared to print news. The internet turned that all on its head however.
"Journalism" as practiced by people with Journalism and Creative Writing degrees who get paid by corporations is as bad as it ever has been.

I think it's a mixed bag. Recent stories like the Covington kids would have, in previous times, only been presented the way it initially was, because either we wouldn't have the video or we wouldn't see it if they did. So in that way there's an extra layer to journalism based on the amount of information available, and how it can force the media to be more honest.

But we realistically have to have people who curate and direct the news for us, because it is literally impossible to sift through everything ourselves, and as more and more information goes online it only gets worse. And I think nowadays, we see the rise of niche journalism. Because it's no longer cost-effective to be a national newspaper in the same way as pre-internet, and the fragmented market and overwhelming amount of information means specialising has been the only way to succeed, rather than fail less quickly.

But a big part of the problem for me is that I don't generally support an attack on journalists and journalism, but there's thousands of people who write absolute bullshit for bullshit websites - the author of this article being a prime example - who call themselves journalists, and have enough access to media to yell about attacks on them being attacks on the profession as a whole.

There are still journalists doing good work who deserve to be treated better. Journalists who usually work for local papers or specialty sites, journalists who are actually willing and able to uncover truth and have a standard of ethics and at least aren't actively trying to insert biases into their reporting. But as the popular conception of journalism goes from 'people who report news' to 'glorified blogger who lectures you based on opinions', then yeah, the whole profession feels like it should be dismantled and sold for parts.

tl;dr: There was no Golden Age. But there should be a difference between actual journalists and someone like Ana Valens, who should not be considered a journalist and yet gets away with calling himself one.

 

[ProgKing of the North]

In theory this is a good idea

In practice it’s just gonna be trading a far left echo chamber for a far right echo chamber

 

[Cosmug]

The spectacle of an upper crust tranny screeching at a comment section full of mocking proles while claiming to be marginalized is the funniest shit ever.

 

[Karl der Grosse]

One of the most egregious problems with journalists nowadays is that the profession refuses to police itself in regards to bad actors, and also absolutely refuses to let anyone else police them. I think Clarence Thomas is on the right track in regards to making libel and slander cases easier to being and win. That alone would go a long way towards forcing journalists to adhere to a more professional code of conduct.

 

[boulderblundermatt90]

Just like to point out, technically most journalists are being racist.

power/prestige + white = racism.

 

[Krokodil Overdose]

One of the most egregious problems with journalists nowadays is that the profession refuses to police itself in regards to bad actors, and also absolutely refuses to let anyone else police them. I think Clarence Thomas is on the right track in regards to making libel and slander cases easier to being and win. That alone would go a long way towards forcing journalists to adhere to a more professional code of conduct.

Kill NYT vs. Sullivan, burn it to ashes, bury the ashes, and salt the earth they're buried in.
That said, I think that Taleb had the right of it in "The Facts are True, the News is Fake" (very nice article if you're okay with his rhetorical eccentricities), but here's the important bit:

The divergence is evident in that journos worry considerably more about the opinion of other journalists than that of the general public. Compare to a healthy system, say that of restaurants. As we saw in the [Lindy Chapter], restaurant owners worry about the opinion of their customers, not those of other restaurant owners, which keeps them in check and prevent the business from straying collectively away from its interests. Further, skin in the game creates diversity, not monoculture. Economic insecurity worsens the condition: journalists are currently in the most insecure profession you can find: the majority lives hand to mouth and ostracism by their friends would be terminal. Thus they become easily prone to manipulation by lobbyists, as we saw with GMOs, the Syrian wars, etc. You say something unpopular in the profession about Brexit, GMOs, Putin, and you become history. This is the opposite of business where me-tooism is penalized.

EDIT: To expand on this a little, journalism has a particularly acute principal-agent problem because the resource it trades in is information, so it has built-in gatekeeping qualities. After all, if you can gather enough information to know that the person you hired to gather information for you is full of shit, you wouldn't have needed to hire someone to gather information for you in the first place. This is compounded by the information being impersonal; if your doctor, or mechanic, or banker is lying to you, there will usually be physical indicators. If a journalist is lying to you about what's going on in Georgia (any of them) how will you begin to check their veracity without going there?

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

This was the part that really stood out to me:

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?

Behind their backs? Does anything prevent journos from reading this dissenter place? Or is it more like "Where we can't have dissenting opinions silenced"?

Ihope that sort of slip is being noticed. The fucking authoritarianism of what is supposed to be the people's instrument against it. The press is supposed to be there exposing shittiness done by people in power, in naive theory. Obviously in real life they exist to make money, but there has been money to be made exposing those sorts of things. It seems like it's more than financial now, and it's weird that one school of thought would come to so thoroughly dominate most of journalism the way it has.

Part of it, I suspect, is that social justice ideas are a lot of the time counterintuitive, thus shocking, and attention grabbing. The fact that this nonsense caught on just feeds the beast, now you get to advance the shocking crazy nonsense ideas AND call anyone opposed to them bigots and nazis. Then you grandstand on this new claim, and the cycle repeats.

I'd think there would be more of a market for quality opposition to it, but what really is there besides fox? And they aren't that great. You mostly have to look to lots of various independent sources.