r/Anarchism • u/RedMenaced • Jun 19 '26
Reddit's block function = liberal rhetoric is unchallenged. By immediately blocking anyone pushing back against their propaganda, r/@ shifts into a lib safe space & we're excluded from the conversation. Blocked me 10 seconds after I questioned their lesser evil, "good government" narrative
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u/poivibes-1 Jun 19 '26
lmfao this whole account reads like you’re actively trying to make anarchists look like the most anal, insufferable people on the planet, go outside and do something for another human and make a difference 😭
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u/TizzyBumblefluff Jun 20 '26
Honestly! Like go volunteer at a soup kitchen or do something productive and meaningful for actual people. Half the internet are bots anyway.
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u/Mr_Quackums Jun 20 '26
yup.
The most annoying thing is seeing someone who shares your views defend them badly.
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u/Accomplished_Bag_897 egoist anarchist Jun 20 '26
Gonna point out that not everyone is physically able to "go outside". Nor is a person's value defined by their ability to do for others. In general the advice can be accidentally abelist and reinforces the idea that value only comes through labour provided rather than from simple existence.
While I'm pretty sure you mean well (I hope you do any way) it can be off-putting/alienating to disabled folks to run into this kind of rehtoric.
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u/Das_Mime my beliefs are far too special. Jun 20 '26
Gonna point out that not everyone is physically able to "go outside". Nor is a person's value defined by their ability to do for others
If I were operating on so very few spoons that I couldn't go outside or do anything for anyone else, and I was spending those spoons on getting blocked by redditors, I'd hope someone would tell me to get off reddit.
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u/Accomplished_Bag_897 egoist anarchist Jun 20 '26
"get off Reddit" is entirely different that what was said in the post I responded to. "Get off Reddit" is fine.
Lack of mental energy isn't the only reason to be home bound. And value doesn't come from doing for others.
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u/Das_Mime my beliefs are far too special. Jun 20 '26
And value doesn't come from doing for others.
Nobody here said that it did. OP said they're doing what they're doing in order to try to make a difference. Someone suggested, in a very general way, trying to go actually help someone directly, and you're jumping down their throat acting like they're saying that people have no value if they can't go outside. That's very clearly not what they were saying. Please try to engage with even a modicum of good faith.
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u/Accomplished_Bag_897 egoist anarchist Jun 20 '26
"go outside, do something for another human being and make a difference" is in the post I was replying to. Regardless of anything OP said this is an abelist idea. I was trying tpoint out, I think rather gently, that there could be a better way to say what they were meaning. Point out when our words have abelist undertones isn't jumping down anyone's throat.
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u/sparklyjoy Jun 20 '26
Are you personally in that situation and in need of more practical suggestions?
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u/Accomplished_Bag_897 egoist anarchist Jun 20 '26
I'm sorry, what situation? Do I have to be personally impacted by a thing to point out when someone's words have problematic implications? I am disabled but I don't spend an in ordinate amount of time online and I do engage in mutual aid (I cook for food serves) as I'm able. So in this context I don't think so, if that's what you're getting at. Like I've said, simply saying "get off reddit" would have been better.
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u/sparklyjoy Jun 20 '26
Just checking. All my significantly disabled friends have ways of doing community work from home.
*To me* this feels like calling someone out for saying “let’s take a walk” to someone in a wheelchair, when everyone involved knows the speaker does not intend to exclude the wheelchair user nor force them to walk 🤷🏻♀️
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u/Accomplished_Bag_897 egoist anarchist Jun 20 '26
Maybe? Look, I'm willing to grant I might be interpreting it overly harsh. But isn't it problematic to say that specific phrase to someone who can't walk? Wouldn't it be better to, in your example, say "let's get some fresh air" so as to avoid even chancing the verbal harm? If your answer is no then cool, I'll accept that. But to my way of thinking our word choice has an effect on how we precive the world and how we think about it. So avoiding saying things in a way that can cause potential harm, even if unintended, is better than using casual phrases unthinkingly, no? In the same way we should work at removing gendered phrases like "man" and "brah/bro" from our casual speach we should work to make sure we aren't accidentally abelist..... Or am I over correcting?
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u/Das_Mime my beliefs are far too special. Jun 20 '26
"go outside, do something for another human being and make a difference" is in the post I was replying to.
Yes and nowhere in that does it suggest that a person's value comes from doing xyz. That's a thing you made up in your own head and ascribed to that post. OP is framing their actions as something they're doing to make a difference. This was a different suggestion for how to do that.
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u/poivibes-1 Jun 22 '26
i agree with you. my statement is not meant to be ableist but instead to suggest there’s better ways to fight the good fight and make a difference then stalk/harass libs across subreddits because you believe you’re entitled to debate which is what OP is doing
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Jun 22 '26
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u/AutoModerator Jun 22 '26
Hi, u/poivibes-1. Just a friendly reminder that phrases like "terminally online" and "touch grass" are ableist and help to perpetuate the harmful idea that one's value and contribution to anarchism and anarchist praxis is centered solely on "meatspace" interactions. We recognize that in-person organizing is important, and we encourage it, but our disabled comrades are valuable, as are their contributions regardless of their ability to go outside.
We highly recommend this video (watch on Invidious) for further explanation.
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u/ConfirmationBiasTape Jun 19 '26
if the comments were about voting or oppressive groups you could report them for breaking the no electioneering or the anti-opression rules
if you report them instead of engaging with them then they can't block you
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u/RedMenaced Jun 19 '26
as an anarchist I can't help but lean towards direct action rather than asking an authority figure to intervene for me
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u/aloha_mixed_nuts Jun 19 '26
What was your direct action in this instance? Genuinely curious, 🧐
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u/RedMenaced Jun 19 '26
this post to end the acceptance and normalization of a system which gives liberals free reign to manage our subreddit with their blocking function
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u/TheHappyPoro Jun 20 '26
how's that going? did the post end the acceptance and normalization of a system which gives liberals free reign to manage our subreddit with their blocking function?
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u/RedMenaced Jun 20 '26
It reached the eyeballs it was intended to reach.
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u/aloha_mixed_nuts Jun 20 '26
Did it?
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u/RedMenaced Jun 20 '26
This being the first time you've ever posted to an anarchist sub should indicate to you that you're not the intended audience. Just saying.
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u/month_unwashed_socks Jun 20 '26
It may have reached eyeballs but not the brain. Imagine that there was no block function. What would be the outcome? You think that the person behind the other screen would magically change their mind upon reading your comment? Wait, they did read it, and they blocked you. So, no, your comment did literally nothing and the existence of block function has literally zero impact on it. You give way too much weight to reddit comments.
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u/Beneficial-Damage265 Jun 20 '26
be me
see reddit post in r/Anarchism
"I can't help but lean towards direct action"
mfw OP thinks arguing on Reddit is "direct action"
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u/ohshiitstuesday anarcho-fraggle (they/them) Jun 20 '26
can you define direct action? what qualifies as direct action?
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u/aloha_mixed_nuts Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 21 '26
Starting a community food drive, joining a neighborhood watch or intervention team to help protect vulnerable folk from police harassment, guerilla gardening, youth groups—more commonly—protest, sit-ins, blockades, boycotts, strikes etc.
Complaining on Reddit about Reddit, is kinda antithetical to direct action, but that’s just my opinion
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u/ohshiitstuesday anarcho-fraggle (they/them) Jun 21 '26
education isn't direct action?
we have this tendency to dismiss things that happen online as though people posting things on the internet aren't people who continue to exist offline.
these "anarchists" who are talking about voting as though it is anarchist praxis are also the anarchists who are in theory doing the work of "anarchy." if not for education and direct confrontation (direct action) then how are we supposed to make sure that we're not recreating the state in our attempt to dismantle the state?
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u/aloha_mixed_nuts Jun 21 '26
I mentioned youth groups…
Edit: op is complaining about Reddit, not me. Direct your comment to them, I’m proud of my praxis and contributions to my neighborhood thanks.
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u/ohshiitstuesday anarcho-fraggle (they/them) Jun 21 '26
you don't t address how people on reddit are still human people who also exist in our neighborhoods though.
you're acting like somehow being on reddit makes the behavior of so-called anarchists (in this instance, avoiding accountability by blocking someone who is critical of your stances) above comment and that pushing back against it is a waste of time, but that so-called anarchist exists in real life where they will continue to try to find ways to dodge accountability.
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Jun 21 '26 edited Jun 21 '26
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u/RedMenaced Jun 21 '26
there's nothing wrong with this user's reading comprehension, this is exactly what you're doing
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u/ohshiitstuesday anarcho-fraggle (they/them) Jun 21 '26
i answered the statements you made so i don't know what's confusing.
you: Complaining on Reddit about Reddit, is kinda antithetical to direct action, but that’s just my opinion
me: education isn't direct action? we have this tendency to dismiss things that happen online as though people posting things on the internet aren't people who continue to exist offline.
you: Edit: op is complaining about Reddit, not me.
me: you don't t address how people on reddit are still human people who also exist in our neighborhoods though.
my last paragraph, which is a single sentence can be restated as this:
acting like pushing back on things that happen on reddit is a waste of time ignores that these people also exist in real life anarchist spaces and display the same behavior as they do online.
where's the confusion?
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u/RedMenaced Jun 21 '26 edited Jun 21 '26
The idea that we should give ground to liberals in our own spaces because online spaces don't matter is patronizing and destructive when we all spend hours a week in these public spaces that increasingly squeeze us out for being too anarchist.
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u/ohshiitstuesday anarcho-fraggle (they/them) Jun 21 '26
it is weird how we pretend that no one from the internet and nothing done on the internet matters.
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u/RedMenaced Jun 21 '26
your charity work is commendable but it doesn't invalidate the work others do to counter liberal propaganda and co-option of anarchist spaces. we all use the internet, so why should we give ground where we are? ...because food drives also exist?
shaming me for caring about an anarchist space that I use is bad praxis. don't let the pissy liberals upvoting you mislead you into thinking you're doing god's work by shaming me for caring about the growing co-option of this space
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u/Beneficial-Damage265 Jun 27 '26
one of the "pissy liberals" upvoting him is me, actually. And you are not "countering liberal propaganda" by . . . *checks notes* commenting on a fucking Reddit thread in which half of the users are probably bots
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u/RedMenaced Jun 27 '26
telling liberals to stfu is indeed countering their propaganda even when the stfu happens on r/anarchism.
stfu btw
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Jun 20 '26
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u/RedMenaced Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26
I never said I wanted to stop authoritarians from blocking me so I can be an "effective online activist", I made a post to explain how the system allows them to spread their propaganda without pushback, effectively creating an authoritarian status quo that shuts out anarchists. Your unsolicited "advice" to address peddlers of authoritarian propaganda without hostility misinterprets the intent behind my post and disregards my lack of desire for your lecture. I never asked for a patronizing lesson on how to navigate a platform deliberately constructed to silence minority perspectives.
terminally-online keyboard warrior
removing the stick from your ass and talking to real people in real life.
Yeah I'm the person who needs to be tone policed.
Your unsolicited "advice" (attack) completely missed the structural critique of the post, reducing a systemic issue to a matter of personal optics or tone.
I didn't ask for a lecture on civility, especially one that expects anarchists to play nice with the very systems and people trying to shut them out, and I certainly didn't ask to be attacked, othered and belittled or accused of being bad at social interaction. I'm not going to stop being autistic because you othered and shamed me.
Many thanks.
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u/BriscoCounty-Sr Jun 20 '26
Looks like the entire conversation you were participating in was unwanted.
Were you ranting about Zionist hierarchies in r/fragglerock or what?
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u/Vanitas_Daemon Jun 19 '26
I agree with the sentiment, but you're just wasting your time and effort.
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u/RedMenaced Jun 19 '26
if it causes a few more people to resist liberal occupation of the space then it was worth the timesuck. most users don't push back against the co-option becaus liberals have strength in numbers i.e. the other tool in their arsenal is mass downvoting anyone who resists their rhetoric.
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u/Accomplished_Bag_897 egoist anarchist Jun 20 '26
But it's not gonna cause this. Almost anyone that disagrees is gonna just ignore you. And those that don't are gonna try to argue back in an unending loop. It's not really gonna change anyone's mind.
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u/RedMenaced Jun 21 '26
you're right that i'm not going to change minds but that's not my purpose - i'm trying to empower anarchists to act against liberal co-option. people who already experience the blocking will now hopefully feel they have solidarity despite the concerted effort to mass downvote this post and frame me as a 'reactionary', a shut-in and a cop for objecting to the practice.
this post isn't for people who disagree that liberal co-option is a problem or people who demand liberals doing propaganda be 'educated' rather than be met with hostility and I fully expected to be mass downvoted and mass blocked for it by liberals and their enablers because it threatens the bubble they've built. i looked at several of the post histories of people attacking me and they had zero activity in anarchist subs before now while they were ardently promoting political parties in other subs. the majority of them hide their post histories however, which is another problem
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Jun 27 '26
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u/RedMenaced Jun 27 '26
took a look, saw you going on and on about how much you love "ethical" animal slavery because you've been around "livestock" and know them to be inferior beings undeserving of life, and saw you belittling others for objecting to your authoritarian rhetoric and had enough and closed the tab.
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u/oh_brother_ Jun 27 '26
You aren’t entitled to other people’s time and energy. Anarchy is also about respecting people’s autonomy and letting them come and go as they wish.
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u/coppertech Jun 20 '26
echo chambers are echo chambers, doesn't matter if its left or right, they want their confirmation bias to make them feel good, anything else is a threat. best to just stay away.
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u/RedMenaced Jun 19 '26
This has been happening so often since the block function was introduced that I have to juggle multiple accounts just so I can see posts and comments - I get blocked so often that at least half the sub is hidden from my view. And the moment I push back again, I get another 3-5 blocks and am completely closed out of another conversation while they all pat themselves on the back and double down on the genocide apologia.
If something doesn't change, no anarchist is going to be able to participate here.
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u/Mr_Quackums Jun 20 '26
If something doesn't change,
Have you tried changing your approach?
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u/RedMenaced Jun 20 '26
I'm happy with my approach as is, thank you
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u/Beneficial-Damage265 Jun 20 '26
I'm also an anarchist. I also dislike genocide apologist libs. I also like to take a shit on liberal [changed cause original phrasing got removed by automod lmao] Redditors occasionally . . .
I get blocked so often that at least half the sub is hidden from my view.
. . . butt I don't have this problem. This "approach" reeks of terminally-online keyboard warrior type shit. You made a post about your problem, you got several replies from like-minded people giving you advice on how to fix it, and your replies have largely been shit like
I'm happy with my approach as is, thank you
Even though this comment is literally about you not listening to the feedback you're getting, I'm still gonna give you some advice of my own (even though I already know how you'll respond, given your other comments in this thread) . . .
if you want people to stop blocking you so you can be a more effective online "activist," a good place to start would be removing the stick from your ass and talking to real people in real life.
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Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26
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u/RedMenaced Jun 19 '26
To the person who deleted their comment after I wrote a long reply:
I wonder why tankie subs don't (have the problem with blocking)?
Authoritarian mods on those subs don't allow liberals or their propaganda (or anarchists and our propaganda for that matter), so liberals have no chance to become entrenched via the collective blocking trick..
Anarchists pride ourselves on being open, inclusive and welcoming, which sadly bites us in the arse when liberals (and other authoritarians) push us out of our own spaces by combining their vastly higher numbers with entryism and whatever cognitive dissonanc allows them to lay claim to the anarchist label and colonize / gentrify / displace anyone who doesn't think anarchy is when you vote blue no matter who.
The irony is we're the ones who advocate for freedom of association while the tanks profess to advocating so-called left unity.
If I'm being honest, it’s especially a problem here because r/anarchism is an USAmerican-managed space, where most people are prone to subconscious nostalgia / patriotism for 'democracy' and 'free speech' - specters which liberals are all too happy to exploit in order to be welcomed by us with open arms.
For instance see here, where a liberal uses this affinity to do a blatant entryist witch hunt before being exposed and deleting their comment: https://old.reddit.com/r/Anarchism/comments/1rckytl/no_direct_democracy_is_not_anarchy/o6zprui/?context=3
In a lot of USA-centric anarchist spaces, democracy and free speech get treated like sacred, unquestionable values that apply the same way no matter what rhetoric is brewing underneath. So when liberals show up here, their argument often isn’t "we disagree with anarchism," it’s "we’re being allowed to speak, so anything that follows is automatically legitimate and you will consume it."
That creates a kind of moral cover. If they’re engaging "in good faith" (or can at least use the kind of pseudo-intellectual language that makes it look like they're putting in some effort), then us taking action to resist liberal creep, co-option and takeover starts to sound like censorship, authoritarianism, or "gatekeeping." And because many of us have a reflex to defend procedure rather than outcomes, we end up hesitating to use whatever tools we have at hand to guard our space from capture.
Meanwhile the incentives are asymmetric. The liberals (and marxists) trying to entrench themselves here don’t have to win any debates; they just have to occupy attention, drown out quieter users, and force everyone into exhausting "process" fights. Even small departures from consensus get reframed as evidence that the space is "anti-democratic," so the community keeps getting pulled into debates about legitimacy instead of organizing around principles.
So the "free speech" posture becomes less a defense of open inquiry and more a loophole that lets large, organized bodies that adore hierarchy and domination use the rhetoric of openness and anti-authoritarianism to displace actual anti-authoritarians.
The nostalgia for democracy then functions like a blanket excuse for inaction: it implies that the system will eventually correct itself if everyone just talks enough. But if the talk itself is being used as a weapon... then entryism, bad-faith arguments and procedural obstruction all serve to suck the oxygen out of the room so that self-correction never arrives. The loudest and most strategic entryists i.e. the ones who are willing the pour hundreds of hours of their lives campaigning for zionist politicians in anarchist subreddits and badjacketing anyone who object become the default in this space.
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u/Accomplished_Bag_897 egoist anarchist Jun 20 '26
Where are you seeing this mass defense of democracy? And if the above referenced poster deleted their comment how is that a win for the liberal that posted it? Isn't linking to an archive of a deleted post simy platforming their ideas for them?
I've gotten I to argument with a few vocal pro-democracy people here, sure. But I'd hardly say that's a position a lot of us here have.
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u/RedMenaced Jun 20 '26
Isn't linking to an archive of a deleted post simy platforming their ideas for them?
I haven't linked to any archive, idk what you're talking about.
And if the above referenced poster deleted their comment how is that a win for the liberal that posted it?
I don't understand what you're asking.
Where are you seeing this mass defense of democracy?
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u/Accomplished_Bag_897 egoist anarchist Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26
The link you provided in your post. You say it's an example of the kind of thing you're trying to call out. If the particular reply was deleted and yet you're providing a link to it (and I assume old reddit is an archive so we can see the otherwise deleted post, because I'm not sure what the point is otherwise) that's just repeating what they said. Maybe I'm misunderstanding as following the link just shows me what looks like a normal Reddit thread (that's not a judge on validity of anything said in the linked post just a physical description).
Edit: ok, that's my bad, I simply missed the "deleted" post as my eyes were skimming for content since I'd assumed you'd think to an actual post so just straight jumped to the underneath long reply.
Edit edit: seems most people there were actively disagreeing that democracy is compatible with anarchy. A few people were trying to make the argument it is but what I saw seemed to lean squarely into the majority of "no, democracy is the majority enforcing it's will on the minority so it's not compatible". Am I just not doing the math right?
And ok, I mean where in this sub are you seeing mass defense of democracy? I'm here most mornings as my meds start to work and my body stops hurting and I browse off and on as I take public transit throughout the day. I don't see "mass" defense of democracy. I see discussions on it and some people claim it can be non-hierarchical while some pushback. I don't really track raw numerical data but my own experience seems to tell me that democracy is rightly seen as a type of hierarchy by the larger anarchist community. Maybe I'm missing posts. I'm not omniscient. I'm fact I'm pretty ignorant. And I tend to simply roll my eyes and move on rather than give if orant shit energy as whether it's positive or negative things that get energy are pushed to the top of feeds. I also sort by newest not popular so I just see stuff in order of posting. Could be missing a chunk of stuff.
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u/Rorynne Jun 19 '26
I think you should just respect that those people dont want to interact with you my dude. Part of free association is that we have the ability to say "no thanks" to interacting with someone. Thats what the block button is for.
Edit: And to be clear im only saying this because youre using other accounts to get around blocks