Open-source intelligence analysts reported that Crooks didn’t appear to use mainstream social media channels such as Facebook or Instagram and had an almost negligible internet footprint, which is highly unusual for a 20-year-old. Instead, analysts said that Crooks corresponded with friends and associates on a Discord server that they were now trying to access.
Discord servers are restricted ring-fenced sections of the internet. They are often used by gaming groups and communities as secure chat rooms but are also used by fringe organisations to push their ideologies and discuss wild conspiracy theories and plots.
I understand the comparison there, but I gotta reject it based on the implied (or direct?) comparison between groypers, who explicitly want to do genocide, to “bernie bros” and further left who want crazy things like free healthcare for all, improved material conditions for the poor, ending or least heavily drawing down US imperialism, etc.
And with groypers, they are so comically “evil” in their espoused beliefs that it is pretty easy to just go “oh, no. No no no. Fuck that entire group.” And yeah yeah everyone is a product of their environment and material conditions, including those losers, but so were the Nazis. So I can simultaneously lament the fact they are lost to darkness, while also knowing their existence is a threat to the lives of a lot of people I care about and probably me too as a “traitor”
I just don’t like making these comparisons because you end up with like “so Stalin was like Hitler, but with a different ideology?” Ok. Maybe. But what were their ideologies? One was pure evil and one was good.
I’m not saying that was your intent, but that’s why I don’t accept those comparisons. “Somethings are good and somethings are bad” logic applies.
I was just thinking of a groyper posting “Trump was the compromise” and wasn’t sure how to get the idea across