Efforts to portray Boards as a "far-right" platform

Invidious

It has become commonplace for certain posters to claim repeatedly that Boards is a far-right platform, or, at very least, allows people to spread far-right ideology unchecked.

Just this morning, for instance, we have a poster in Current Affairs claiming that between 20 and 40 percent of Boards posters are on the far right.

Such defamatory and damaging claims will hurt the site if they are left unchecked. Let the belief that Boards offers free rein to the far right continue to gain currency, and the site won't have an advertiser left.

To protect the integrity of Boards, its mods/admins should be actively counteracting these baseless claims that the forums are infested by the far-right and being used to promote far-right ideology.

its not a far right platform,nor is a anything close to a majority of its posters far-right

But it is happy to accomandate a cohort of posters,whom post what are effectively copy & paste of far right parties policies/ manifesto


And what harm of it,as easy to ignore it,as get worked up by it,if their points cant be rebutted,are they wrong??

Ronald Franz

You need to have atl east 100 posts and three months on teh site to be allowed post in Feedback, Ronald Franz.

Boards is neither far left nor far right tbh

But any deviation from a given poster's opinion can leave anyone open to accusations that they are on an extreme fringe.

Most people aren't anywhere near an extreme fringe

Discussion on the internet shouldn't always be linked immediately to dire real world action either.

breezy1985

It's happening both ways. Loads of threads derailed by people spouting mad crap about RTE or Fine Gael being far left too.

An awful lot of posters on certain areas of the site who set up threads or make posts that are trying to goad people into arguments which ape US politics using terms like Alt right or Antifa and coming up with mad stuff read off US sites and trying to import that stupid type of politics into Ireland.

It's not hard to find examples just look to any thread about Gemma O Doherty, race or any event involving black people that goes up in IMHO or after hours instead of the politics section

Invidious

Deleted User wrote: »

its not a far right platform,nor is a anything close to a majority of its posters far-right

I agree.

That said, there's an ongoing effort to characterize Boards as a platform used by far-right extremists to spread their ideology while the mods and admins allegedly look the other way. That is a defamatory accusation, pure and simple.

"Far left" and "far right" are not analogous. In Ireland, the far left means the Socialist Party, People Before Profit, RISE, etc. The far right means racists, white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and their ilk.

The insinuation in today's world that one is associated with far-right ideology can have highly damaging consequences.

Annasopra

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Boards is neither far left nor far right tbh

As a whole no Boards isnt far right but there is definitely a contingent of far right posters.

Of course, that's built in to the statement joey

There is also a contingent of far-left posters

Anyone, imo, who only wants to talk about one of those extremes is, imo, engaging in an agenda

Which is fine but the vast majority of irish ppl and boards posters react negatively to such efforts to steer them in conversation

Gatling

[Deleted User] wrote: »

its not a far right platform,nor is a anything close to a majority of its posters far-right

It's just another buzz word used by a cohort to shut down discussions or label people who don't agree with them ,

But it's definitely not far right , just people looking for a little attention by post ****e to get a reaction

Gatling

Gatling wrote: »

But it's definitely not far right , just people looking for a little attention by post ****e to get a reaction

I think these posters,have posted it/same stuff so often now,its safe to say its no longer attention seeking and infact its their beliefs




What of it,if it is,takes all sorts to make the world....plenty probably extremely dislike what i say too,(i apoligise,for any offence!)

CtevenSrowder

Invidious wrote: »

It has become commonplace for certain posters to claim repeatedly that Boards is a far-right platform, or, at very least, allows people to spread far-right ideology unchecked.

Just this morning, for instance, we have a poster in Current Affairs claiming that between 20 and 40 percent of Boards posters are on the far right.

Such defamatory and damaging claims will hurt the site if they are left unchecked. Let the belief that Boards offers free rein to the far right continue to gain currency, and the site won't have an advertiser left.

To protect the integrity of Boards, its mods/admins should be actively counteracting these baseless claims that the forums are infested by the far-right and being used to promote far-right ideology.

To be fair the mod did pick up on that in the thread, and ask the poster in question to give some evidence. He gave his flimsy articles as his evidence and as such got away with it. Certainly one of the more outrageous claims that been made on boards, up their with the Amish comment from a few years ago and the claim that settled people are dumping their rubbish on Travellers halting sites.

Invidious

CtevenSrowder wrote: »

To be fair the mod did pick up on that in the thread, and ask the poster in question to give some evidence. He gave his flimsy articles as his evidence and as such got away with it.

Well, that's just the problem. He and others routinely get away with repeating this defamatory allegation that Boards has become "the new online home for Ireland's far right" (as a different poster put it), and so it gets repeated and amplified.

Boards.ie: Niamh

Invidious, if you have any real examples of defamatory posts I'd ask you to report them mentioning your concerns or email them to hello@boards.ie. This vague thread is about as much use as a chocolate teapot in managing as yet unspecified defamatory claims so time to close.