The Campaign to 'End' Richard Stallman - Part III - The Reddit Mob (Social Control Media Controlled, Steered or Commandeered by Wall Street)
Image credit: RMS, Kimiko Ishizaka, and Robert Douglass at the RMLL free software festival in France. Photo by Julie Cotinaud.
IN the first and second parts (the latter was published last night) we showed an effort to prevent Richard Stallman from speaking in public and a simultaneous attempt to prevent Richard Stallman's supporters from criticising this. Basically, it sometimes feels like the anti-Richard Stallman campaigners launched a campaign to also silence anyone who 'sympathises' with Richard Stallman. This is totally reminiscent of what authoritarian regimes do, e.g. in Belarus.
One person who expressed support for Richard Stallman told me:
You are more fully aware of the issues than others I have dealt with. In fact, most people do not see as clearly as you do what the real problem is.I am conflicted about being involved in this issue and was blindsided when I did the video, not expecting to become a target myself. Put that down to naivite [sic], I suppose. The vast majority of viewers liked the video. It was only a handful (five) who disliked it, but as you say, there are forces at play beyond what one imagines.
I myself did not post the video to Reddit and it was there that things went awry. Though I asked them to take the post down, so far, they have ignored my requests. I have also received emails and several people have left the channel.
I prefer not to get embroiled in this matter because it has taken me a long time to build up my YouTube channel and I don't want to compromise it. I am fighting on many personal fronts at the moment.
The most disturbing outtake from the article you wrote is that you and your family have been targetted. I can only imagine how aweful [sic] this must be for you. So sorry to hear about that.
Richard Stallman has angered some very powerful people and institutions, and I believe they are paying him back behind a veneer of false accusations. I noted that things with the FSF took a turn for the worse shortly after Stallman had delivered a lecture at Google. The timing of events took me by surprise.
He probably refers to a talk he gave at Microsoft, not Google. Only days after that talk (or a couple of weeks later) the war on his image took a turn for the worse, spinning a Bill Gates-Jeffrey Epstein MIT scandal as some kind of Stallman scandal.
Regardless, notice how his real subscribers liked and appreciated the video. It was Reddit that brought in the venom and the nasty comments.
We wrote a great deal in the past about what Reddit actually is and what Reddit does.
"Conde Nast's Reddit is a hive of anti-FOSS astroturfers and shills," an associate reminded me the other week, "especially in the in-house moderation now that they've kicked most (all) of the original people off of their own subreddits."
"The kicking people off of their own subreddits is documented heavily but only (AFAIK) in individual blogs as the victims can complain only there."
Even the RMSWasRight (or Stallman Was Right) "sub" seems RMS-hostile and it rejects sites that are pro-RMS. I have this documented. This is just despicable. So there's a section devoted there to Stallman and that too is tastelessly hostile towards Stallman (it wasn't always that way!) because this is how Reddit tries to make money.
"Yes," the associate assured me, "it has all been subverted. Only the foolish and naive did not see Conde Nast's Reddit for what it is. That much was visible from day one. However many wished for a continuation of the late FOSS-oriented Slashdot. Wishes are not facts though."
"Also, Conde Nast outright lied about Aaron Swartz' involvement. Link to his blog where he wrote about just walking away from that pile of shit after his company got bought out by them."
Quoting Swartz:
he first day I showed up here, I simply couldn’t take it. By lunch time I had literally locked myself in a bathroom stall and started crying.[...]
The company laptop is necessary to read our company email which, being on a Microsoft Exchange server, requires a special Microsoft email client to read.
Reddit even lies about its origins, posthumously trying to connect itself to the late Swartz.
In the next part we'll talk about "The Legitimate Concerns". RMS is an imperfect person (who isn't?), but trying to cancel the father and creator of GNU/Linux isn't about "perfection", it's about orphaning what he created. █