The Politicization of Letsrun

seattle prattle wrote:

rojo wrote:

I find politics interesting. I have no problem starting an occasional thread on an important topic of the day as to me it's fun to debate. I 've always thought of the forum as a place where people posts things they would talk about on a long run with their teammates.

But what I think is absurd is I can't even use an app like Strava any more without making some sort of political statement.

I hope you see that by starting a discussion on this on YOUR website, you are doing exactly the same thing.

You are absolutely wrong here. Letsrun has always been a discuss everything forum; that is the primary business you could say and has been from the start. Strava was a benign set-up for sharing runs, routes, times, training, not an open ended forum. Strava is taking one side, Letsrun allows idiots on the left and right, such as yourself, to post opinions all day long. I find it funny that you are here complaining about politics on Letsrun while you yourself spend all day every day commenting on political threads on Letsrun like people actually care to hear your opinion. It is like a smoker criticizing the existence of cigarettes while in the act of smoking. At least here you can pretty much say what you want about just about anything as long as you keep out the vulgarity, violence, sex, blood and magic.

I first came to Letsrun a couple of years ago because it was an interesting running site with social threads that also had a quirky side. But it changed quite a bit over the last year, with the pandemic and the election campaign. There were more and more overtly political threads, as well as threads denying the pandemic. Under the banner of "free speech" I saw a proliferation of Covid denial threads, the promotion of falsehoods and conspiracy theories - such as about election fraud - and the frequent rehearsal of racist views following the killing of George Floyd and the BLM protests. Politically, the site became a forum for every kind of right wing prejudice - "liberals" and Democrats were a popular target - and at times a virtual echo-chamber for that repellent world view. I was happy to not let them have it all their own way, as unpopular as it has made me. Fortunately, the eviction of Trump from the White House has taken some of the wind out of their sails here.

As I said above, this site has come to reflect the extreme polarization of opinions and values that characterises American culture today, but it has leaned heavily in favour of one side, through what it has permitted and what it has banned.

I am not an American but I am like many around the world who have long followed American politics and culture, because your nation is still the most dominant force in the world today. But it has lost its way. Like so many in other countries, I have been dismayed at America's descent into ugly tribalism.

Letsrun, once predominantly a sports site, has become a microcosm of that feature in American culture. While it allows and even encourages political threads, that will continue. Despite the comment above that I have contributed little to running topics, that may be because the pandemic put paid to much international sport but also, on a scale of values, the Covid crisis and a democracy in peril have seemed just a little bit more important than races and records.

I agree with your point about the bias in terms of what is permitted and what it banned, but I'd quibble with your point that the site "reflects" the extreme polarization of American culture. I say that in the sense that this site is so heavily dominated by right wing moderators and so heavily censored in that direction that it creates an impression that there is a lot more support for this nutty anti-science, anti-facts worldview than actually exists in the country and certainly on this site. Based on Rojo's comments about their (admittedly-unscientific) election survey but based also what we know about the demographics of distance runners in the US, the average LRC visitor believes in science, isn't a covid conspiracy theorist and voted for Biden. But you wouldn't know it if you look at the forums every day because the Brojos are extremely conservative (though to their credit are at least anti-Trump republicans) and several of their moderators are in fact right wing conspiracy theorists who appear to have free rein to do whatever they want.

Armstronglivs wrote:

As I said above, this site has come to reflect the extreme polarization of opinions and values that characterises American culture today, but it has leaned heavily in favour of one side, through what it has permitted and what it has banned.

*HERES A BROTHER THAT'LL SMOTHER YOUR MOTHER*

Why was my post deleted? There was no profanity. I did not personally attack anyone. All I did was ask why, on a website that professes to host free speech, is every thread written from a Democratic or anti-Republican perspective taken down, while the board is crowded with far right threads. I am also sending this via email to the Brojos, so that the moderator doesn't simply delete all evidence that this was posted.

I see just as many on the Alt Left attacking those on the Right as vise versa. It's a fairly good balance actually. Many Leftists are not used to seeing so many opposing voices because those voices are being silenced practically everywhere else. Funny, how the Right wing posters are not constantly crying about the Left's posting on LRC, though it's often very vile. As others have stated, if you don't want to see political threads and dissenting views don't Look at them. I more surprised that Rojo actually puts up with the personal attacks against him. Trump lost. The White House, Congress, Senate, MSM, all of the school systems, and most of social media is under control of the Left. Use this to make our country a better place . We are watching and waiting. By the way, I, personally, have had several pro right wing - anti left threads deleted.

Or...right-wing posters are not constantly crying because the right-wing moderators much more rarely delete their posts. It's undeniable that high-profile moderators on this site are overtly right-wing. Rojo has been asked to look at the data on how moderation is conducted and apparently is too lazy to do so, or knows the answer and prefers to sit on it so that he can continue a false narrative that LRC is not right-wing biased in its moderation activity.

dazed wrote:

Funny, how the Right wing posters are not constantly crying about the Left's posting on LRC, though it's often very vile.

Good luck getting a response that doesn't deny responsibility and claim free speech. My posts have been deleted that have simply asked about how they train their staff to moderate the boards and if they send staff to any third party diversity trainings. Despite free speech, LRC can moderate things how they want & they do that. The owners lean right and this place has become comfortable for the running alt-right. It's fine for business in the short term but the things people rip on are going to drive away younger folks who overwhelmingly disagree with a lot of the nonsense on here and are sick of correcting people.

I mean, Rojo chimed in on the Strava thread to raise up a comment saying BLM protests and domestic terrorists are the same. This website has been heading down a dangerous path for years, and shows zero ability to handle sensitive topics.

this place is a cesspool, has been for years and it has only gotten worse

This is intersectionality at work. It by nature insidiously divides people into opposing groups to set them at odds with one another. It is therefore inherently destructive and will ultimately destroy letsrun.com if left unopposed and unchecked

dazed wrote:

Funny, how the Right wing posters are not constantly crying about the Left's posting on LRC, though it's often very vile.

In one of the moderation threads from a few months back, one of the BroJos said they get more moderation complaints from right wing posters than left wing posters.

I understand he presented this as evidence that the moderation was striking a balance that was even or biased to the left. I'd submit that an equally viable explanation is that alt-right posters are simply more invested in projecting an alternate reality via social media. Steve Bannon has stated that flooding social media with talking points is a conscious tactic of the alt-right.

I've stated before that limiting hot-button political topics to a single topical thread ala the Trump thread is an easily moderated approach to reducing thread clutter. I can't imagine how they've rationalized 4 years of a single Trump thread and not automatically done the same with Biden to at least pretend to be neutral.

Way back early in the first wave of Covid last spring I asked if they could combine all the threads. But that was a no go.

You could separate Covid out for a while through the summer. But their model is to have as much controversy and clicks as possible, not to make the site readable, let alone truthful.

No, it isn't. Another alt right mantra. White privilege defending itself from imaginary foes.

The solution is super simple.

If they want to keep having open uncensored speech, just make a political subforum and require any and all political comments to be in that subforum.

Then make the subforum not show up in the main results by default, where you have to opt-in, not opt-out to see.

Those that want to see it will see it, those that do not will not.

If you post political in any other forum, it's deleted or moved.

I appreciate your comments but would point out that the right wing anti-science Q'Anon people were well represented amongst the 74 million who voted for the most divisive leader since Jefferson Davis. They have their proponents here, too.

Remember in the early 2000s when people would just come here to chat about running and break news and swear and insult one another? That was magical.

Yes the forum has spam problems.

But also if you’re a grown ass adult and you’re bothered by politics being everywhere then you need to grow up