Europe
Europe community on dbzer0. Intended to be a place to discuss European news, politics, or just general topics from a European perspective. Since this is on dbzer0 expect the community to lean more leftist-anarchist but a wide range of views are accepted here (within reason).
Rules:
1. No Bigotry or Hate Speech
Any forms of Homophobia, Transphobia, Queerphobia, Racism, or Ableism will be met with swift and harsh action and will not be tolerated here whatsoever. Bigots will be banned immediately on-sight. This includes apologia of it.
Trying to be politely or intellectually bigoted i.e. "Just asking questions" won't be tolerated.
2. No Zionism
Any forms of Zionism or Zionist rhetoric will not be tolerated here, this includes Zionist apologia, accusations of antisemitism towards anti-Zionists, or blatant denial or downplaying of the genocide towards Palestinians. Any attempt to uphold or prop up the IHRA definition of antisemitism, will be treated as Zionism.
Anyone engaging in Pro-Zionist sentiment or apologia will be actioned in accordance with its severity.
Note: Trying to find loopholes or whataboutery to see what is or isn't genocide denial or Zionism will be treated as a violation of this rule. Don't test us.
3. Stay Civil
Please maintain civil discourse in the community. Do not engage in arguments with others, name-calling, or insults. Note that calling out bigotry or Zionism is not considered an insult. In heated arguments users are encouraged to or even required to disengage failure to do so will result in mod action.
4. No Misinformation
Spreading of misinformation intentionally in this community is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. Spreading misinformation hurts the credibility of the community and can mislead people sometimes in dangerous ways. Users who intentionally post misinformation as articles, comment answers, or in attempt to win arguments will be actioned swiftly.
Note: This includes Russian and Chinese propaganda. Users with a history of such posting will be banned on sight.
5. No AI Content
Please do not post articles or content primarily created using generative AI. Generative AI content may contain misinformation or be lower quality and thus is discouraged. Posts and comments featuring it will be removed. However this community does not allow or tolerate Anti-AI trolling or hostility and users who engage in such behavior will be actioned for it, additionally Anti-AI trolling violates Rule 3 and often Rule 4 so it is generally unacceptable already.
Note: Rules 1 & 2 may be subject to preemptive mod action due to their severity, and they apply to a user's entire post history. Not just this community.
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By using the internet the way they do. Fascists love new, unregulated media where they can exploit media illiterates. In the meanwhile the only effective things we can do is holding against their rhetoric and spam the mainstream media with leftwing populism that‘s just as brainless.
Bullshit and half truths are 10 times faster to produce than well researched arguments. You can’t win a war if your enemy moves 10 times faster than you so you have to use their ways to beat them or you will die in agony.
Up until recently I hesitated to use populism because it goes against everything I believe in but we will lose this war if we‘re too afraid to get our fingertips a little dirty by playing dirty.
Speaking of using your enemy‘s ways to beat them: The governor of California is a Democrat who practices gerrymandering in the open and gets applauded for it. All Democrats should do it. Not that the Democrats are actually left or anything but the point is it‘s better to win dirty than losing against cheaters. And only if it becomes a problem for both parties will Republicans be willing to join the negotiating table and regulate it together eventually.
The same goes for social media. Only when it becomes a problem for both sides will governments figure something out. After WW2 most of Europe implemented very good regulations for a healthy media landscape but they never applied it to the internet. I think that‘s how we got here for the most part.
Now we are damned to use populist’s weapons to beat them. And I‘m not saying „Go out there, spread lies.“ But exaggerate, meme them, give them names and labels. Walking the streets isn‘t how right wing extremism rose so forget about that. This war is digital for the most part so film them when they do evil in the open and post it. We have to make ourselves visible if we want to be taken seriously. The masses want to see a show so give them one.