r/canadaleft • u/Xsythe • 2d ago
Concerning censorship in the NDP sub-reddit
This morning, I found a thread detailing criticism of the NDP's new shirts; which prominently feature a profile view of Jagmeet and the word "Resist".
The thread critiqued the lack of commitment to policy, the lack of even the word "NDP" on the shirt, and the vibe-election we find ourselves in.
And... instead of listening and allowing these very valid critiques, it was removed within an hour by the mods.
Thoughts?
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u/Sourdough85 2d ago
Yah Im assuming your post was about the new tshirts?
Jagmeet Sing's face on a shirt as a political stance is.... problematic. He's trying to out-trump Trump - cult of personality and populism works right now, he's trying the same thing but on the left.
Im with you, it's not good.
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u/Velocity-5348 LET'S GET UNIONIZED 2d ago edited 2d ago
On the other hand, the deleted posts look a lot like brigading. The poster posts a lot in American subs and I didn't see political comments after skimming their recent history. All of their action on the NDP sub seems to be this.
To be clear, I'm not big on the t-shirt (it's pretty cringe for the reasons you mentioned), but I don't think the poster was acting in good faith.
Edit: The poster does have a history of union and anti-capitalism stuff. They seem fine, though I do get why an unpaid mod might think this was brigading.
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u/mamadou-segpa 2d ago
I agree I don’t think deleting people posts is a bad thing when its obviously done in bad faith.
Now if they delete a post about someone genuinely concerned about the issue and willing to talk about it in good faith now thats concerning
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u/ComeGetYourOzymans 2d ago
It wasn't posted in bad faith, not sure what made it "obvious."
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u/mamadou-segpa 2d ago
Idk either im just responding to the poster before me saying it was.
I didnt get to see the post before it was deleted, wich is why I also said that if it was in good faith its concerning
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u/Velocity-5348 LET'S GET UNIONIZED 2d ago
You can check someone's profile to see their posting history. The body of the post isn't visible, but you can see the title and any comments.
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u/dasinternet 2d ago
Unless they keep it nice and clean.
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u/Velocity-5348 LET'S GET UNIONIZED 2d ago
Yep. I was talking about seeing a post deleted by mods though.
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u/ComeGetYourOzymans 2d ago edited 2d ago
Hi it me. I moved to Canada five years ago and became a citizen a few weeks ago. Excited to be voting in my first national election. Have supported NDP since I got here. I also post in union-focused subs and about unions and anti-capitalism in other subs (check my posts in r/YorkU, for instance, where I work very very hard to fight for my union). I'll be sure to post more rosy happy posts about how much I love the NDP before I post any more criticism.
Edit: I appreciate your edit. Solidarity!
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u/Velocity-5348 LET'S GET UNIONIZED 2d ago edited 2d ago
It'll probably be less of an issue after the election. I have my doubts that Singh is going to stick around as leader for four years, and very much want to ensure we don't pull a Mulcair.
Right now brigading is a pretty serious issue for anyone left of Carney. Things should calm down after the election.
At that point when we've (fingers crossed) ensured the banker doesn't get a majority I think productive conversations will be easier.
Edit: I've modified my original comment. My apologies.
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u/NotQute 2d ago edited 2d ago
Annoying, but not unexpected. I assume its run by some junior party members/employees who want it to stick to pro NDP talking points and messaging. I checked a discord posted there once and it was the same.
It wouldn't be so bad if there wasn't kinda political gulf for discourse between here and R/ongaurdforthee's centrist hawkish shit that i feels like the average NDP voters falls in
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u/Various_Fan_6811 2d ago
Concerning
Anyways the reality is that no open easy to access online forum will be on our side long term, as it encourages a cult of personality and lack of critique to foster and encourage the centralization needed for that level of control. Even on this sub, as great as the current mods are (assuming, idk them like that), there is nothing in place to prevent the same happening here.
So best to use such online posts as political theatre. You can make a fuss about being removed, question that sub why it was removed, use it to encourage people to seek NDP voices outside of Reddit, and so on.
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u/ComeGetYourOzymans 2d ago edited 2d ago
The explanation they gave me over here is that there are too many attacks from Libs and Cons in the sub and that using the term "cult of personality" was too bait-y. So I guess we have to be super careful about the way we critique our own party ¯_(ツ)_/¯
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u/FrmrPresJamesTaylor 2d ago edited 2d ago
I can kind of see both sides of it, not that I am endorsing the heavy-handed moderation.
On the one hand, the NDP needs to (ugh) "market" its leader to people, and it's undoubtedly true that people's voting choices are less sober and considered and objective than many like to think so playing up the vibes angle makes a certain amount of sense.
Even more on that hand, "cult of personality" usually refers to parties in power that and has a sinister association with (obviously) cults, plus control of the mass media (and other things the NDP doesn't have a hope in hell of doing), so it is kind of bait-y. Which I find is pretty common with dialog on the left, for better or worse.
On the other hand, it's friggin' reddit and people should be allowed to casually discuss things, and the extent to which the NDP should be running on vibes, or whether Jagmeet is the guy to lead, or whatever else, should absolutely be on the table.
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u/Thordros 2d ago
Look, now is not the time to be divisive! It's election season!
And it's not time to be divisive after. We're recovering from our election losses!
And it's not the time to be divisive after that. We're trying to get the Liberals to do something they're definitely going to do!
And it's not the time to be divisive after that. We need to hold the Liberals' feet to the fire!
Look, now is not the time to be divisive! It's election season!
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u/leftwingmememachine 2d ago
Hi, moderator here, there is a meta thread in the NDP subreddit here about this removal, where we do our best to explain ourselves
https://reddit.com/r/ndp/comments/1jreotx/could_the_mods_please_better_define_baseless/
agree the shirts are bad
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2d ago
[deleted]
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u/leftwingmememachine 2d ago
Look if that's your take on the NDP, that they're a far-right neoliberal/fascist NATO party, then /r/NDP is probably not the subreddit for you. The party was founded as an alliance of socialists, social democrats, and trade unionists. If that's not your thing that's fine
The NDP has some socialist MPs and I volunteer for the party to elect more of them. If you think that's a fool's errand that's your right
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u/jvstnmh Tommy Douglas is my Dad 2d ago
The NDP sub is a joke.
I got banned for critiquing party leadership…
It’s just a bunch of people in a bubble and they don’t want you to say anything that could burst it.
They would rather sniff their own farts than have discussion that could potentially improve what they want to achieve politically.
Ideologues are dangerous.
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u/SteelToeSnow 2d ago
it's their sub, they can do whatever they want. even if it's shitty or petty.
it's just the mods who mod the sub doing what they want with the power they have as mods. they have the power to remove posts and ban people and whatnot if they want, in the subs they mod. so sometimes they do.
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u/whathapp3ned 2d ago
I love this sub…
One post: look at me being critical of the ndp and them removing my comment! It’s censorship!
Another post: why is there so much lib posting? We gotta remove that!
lol.
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u/shwaramaandhummus 2d ago
They’re not serious people in that sr. We need to a have a serious convo about Jagmeet’s failure as a leader
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u/FarAd2857 2d ago
I got permabanned for saying I’ll support ndp after this election. I got a good response from a mod where they talked about an influx in bad faith commenters, but still… really weird
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u/forestgeist 2d ago
Yeah my comment on that post got deleted, because I asked if we could be done with him after they get 5 seats, like how is stating seat projections and calling for the removal of a leader who has overseen a massive seat decline baseless, it's full of bass Maxim bass.
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u/illfrigo 2d ago
The mods of that sub are some little bitches for real and they're making the party look bad by doing shit like this relentlessly. fuck those clowns
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u/FrankensteinsBong 22h ago
Surely the party is getting ready to dump him? Surely they won't keep him after this? what is going on
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u/Awesome_Power_Action 2d ago
Hah, I commented on that thread before it was removed. The NDP subreddit moderators seem to delete many interesting threads that discuss the party's various problems/issues and/or about how it's missing the mark either tactically or platform-wise. I get it that they're getting brigaded with Liberal trolls because of the election, but I think turning off actual leftists or people who want the party to have more substance is not a wise move.