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a journalist at The Independent got paid to write “heckin cute and valid” :marseyxd: Breaking: News org actually gets the r/TransParentTransKid story right

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/reddit-conservatives-post-trans-child-fake-b2060803.html

and I get another shoutout :marseylove:

Reuters responded to my request for correction but isn't keen on fixing the story, so I might write a whingepost about them later. But hey, The Independent got things right!

363
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why do I find it so absurd for this to hit mainstream media

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Nice article

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imagine a reddit post being fake making the news. Most reddit posts are fake

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Proud of u sis

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This might actually be the first time I've seen a msm article on internet subculture where a clueless wingcuck checkmark didn't get literally everything wrong

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@FunkyDuffy darn they deleted my back up lol

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@carpathianflorist I was subtweeted in the last sentence here. Can I be a jannie now?

![](/images/1650503350184376.webp)

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You can have a pat

:#marseycheerup:

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Reddit did not respond to a request for more details.

Loool oh no they'll be wondering how these chuds keep getting away with it.

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Why is this coming up now like 8 months later?

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The fake screenshot started recirculating among a bunch of right-wing culture warriors, politicians, and the like recently. The article's got a screenshot of one of them.

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You can practically hear the gears in that journo's head turning at max speed in order to try and figure out it's satire

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Ex-Mormon is that part true?

Otherwise I’m selling up with pride right now this is just awesome.


![](https://files.catbox.moe/y2zrro.png)

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Yeah, kinda a neat note for her to pick up on. It's not something I hide, but I don't think I specifically highlighted it in my Medium profile, so she must have poked around at my history a bit.

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a dedicated trolling community as “bait” for political partisans.

Is the website going to save humanity? "shit, I feel for something rdrama posted sarcastically, was I an idiot for awhile? Let me get closer to the Holy Centrism"

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This is an eternal lesson that no bait is too obvious to generate massive seethe.

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invented by members of a trolling community as ‘bait’ for political partisans

No you fricking r-slur. We did it cause it was funny. Politics isnt funny its boring and gay.

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It means the bait was supposed to catch political partisans your illiterate mong.

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Just cause I don't know what political partisans is doesn't mean I cant read.

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:marseyduncepat:

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Instead of Speaker for the Dead, you’re like Speaker for the R-slurs.

Thank you for your service.

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Another user, known as Tariq

:#marseytariq:

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2020? Fricking journos, proof read your shit!

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Did 2020 ever end though?

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Holy Shit we are pushing form 'being famous enough to bang d list celebrities' to ' being famous enough to bang c list celebrities'.

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Paywalled for me. Can you pastebin the full text?


https://i.rdrama.net/images/1707881499271494.webp https://i.rdrama.net/images/17101210991135056.webp

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A Reddit post shared by some conservatives as proof that liberal parents are pressuring their children to undergo gender transition has been revealed as a fake created by trolls.

More than 10,000 people retweeted a screenshot of the post shared by libertarian journ*list and former US Senate candidate Justin O'Donnell last week, on top of thousands more who shared it in other places.

The post, originally made last August, purported to be a plea for advice by a trans parent who was forcing their 14-year-old child to take estrogen, a key component of hormone therapy for transwomen.

Yet evidence compiled by Reuters and reviewed by The Independent shows that both the post and the Reddit board that hosted it were invented by members of a dedicated trolling community as “bait” for political partisans.

Some of that evidence was first archived last September by Trace Underwood, an ex-Mormon blogger, who also showed that the same forum was behind a supposed Reddit board for Texas abortion “bounty hunters” that fooled many progressives.

The trans child spoof echoed long-running claims by US conservatives and trans-exclusionary feminists that some trans children are being compelled or “groomed” by their parents to transition against their wishes, for which there is little evidence.

The governor of Texas has asked officials to treat transition healthcare for under-18s as child abuse, while Fox News pundits, Republican officials, and even members of Congress have sought to tie trans rights to paedophilia by referring to childhood transition as “grooming”.

“Anyone else have trouble convincing your teen kids to continue transitioning?” the fake post asked in its title. “My 14-year-old daughter (assigned male at birth) has started refusing her estradiol so I’ve been crushing the pills and putting it in her cereal in the morning.”

The post continued: “I’m just not sure why she doesn’t want to take her pills anymore.”

Other users chimed in supportively in the thread below, advising the poster to isolate their child from their friends and continue pushing them to transition against their will.

This discussion took place on a Reddit board or “subreddit” called /r/TransParentTransKid, ostensibly set up the very same day as a “safe and supportive space” for trans people with trans or potentially trans children to share “tips, tricks, and techniques”.

However, readers familiar with the language of trolling communities might have raised an eyebrow at the board rules’ repeated use of the phase “heckin’ cute and valid”, which is an internet meme often used to mock LGBT+ people.

Sure enough, a series of posts on the trolling forum RDrama.net from 5 August 2020, the same day /r/TransParentTransKids was created, show users discussing a plan to create the Reddit board and fill it with confected stories designed to generate outrage.

“Someone please snap up /r/TransParentTransKid so it can be filled with stories about how our real/adoptive children magically learned they were also trans after finding out about their parents,” said one RDrama user.

Another user, known as Tariq, replied “done”, shortly followed by a user named FunkyDuffy posting a link to the fake advice thread along with a gif that reads: “I’m doing my part!”

The author of the advice thread on Reddit was also called FunkyDuffy, and one of the top supportive comments was from a user with exactly the same username as Tariq.

On 6 August, another RDrama thread invited users to “come help turn /r/TransParentTransKid into a lolcow grazing ground”, using a slang term for gullible or highly reactive web users who can easily be farmed for laughs.

“Someone came up with this subreddit yesterday. Just need a dozen more posts in there and I can post about it in /r/cringetopia or something for a fresh flow of seethe,” said the thread creator.

“Don’t make the bait posts too obvious, but you don't have to try too hard either since Redditors will eat up anything that makes them mad.”

Other users protested that the trolling had been too obvious. “This is not good bait... no one cognisant enough to string a sentence together would fall for this.”

Reddit has now banned /r/TransParentTransKid for breaking its rules against “creating or repurposing a subreddit to reconstitute or serve the same objective as a previously banned or quarantined subreddit”.

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You sat down and wrote all this shit. You could have done so many other things with your life. What happened to your life that made you decide writing novels of bullshit on rdrama.net was the best option?

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At this rate the marsey sticker on my car might be recognised by someone soon :marseydespair:

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Reading jou*noid's summaries of our escapades is one of the few things that still warms my gay, black heart.

:#platyheart:

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Ok, maybe not all journos

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However, readers familiar with the language of trolling communities might have raised an eyebrow at the board rules’ repeated use of the phase “heckin’ cute and valid”, which is an internet meme often used to mock LGBT+ people.

Do they not see our banners? This is a pro trans website, there is no mocking here :marseytrans2:

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Sure enough, a series of posts on the trolling forum RDrama.net from 5 August 2020

close enough I guess

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LMFAOOOO this article was written by a train as well

https://twitter.com/iododds

:#marseyxd: :#marseyxd:

it was so well researched because of xirs neurodivergency, a normie journoid would never get things right like this

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No bully! She a real one for this

:marseytrans2: :marseylove:

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Ah, that explains why it was actually good. When was the last time legacy foods did anything notably good?

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Once again, neo women out performing legacy women.

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@TracingWoodgrains imagine if this gay dating site actually makes your career. You better not pretend like you had nothing to do with us when you're famous.

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in all seriousness, my article about you guys is what put me on the radar of Blocked & Reported and was my first article to really break seriously out of my own comfortable rationalist-adjacent bubble, so I really do owe you guys one

I'm sure at some point if my profile keeps rising people will dig through my past and Hold Me To Account for all my time in the wild west of the internet. not sure whether people would treat my extensive motte history or my comments here as more darning, but I've been on the record for ages about being happy to talk to whoever and about what my own views are. if someone wants to take me to task for spending time with various ruffians, I figure it can only really expand my audience; I don't have any commentary I'm ashamed of. I don't see any reason to hide my internet history.

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Wtf is motte?

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I seriousposted about it once:

https://tracingwoodgrains.medium.com/on-mottes-and-mythologies-an-introduction-to-the-motte-3562ee45da34

rationalist-descended culture war forum full of longposts, basically. very self-serious, strict rules about courtesy etc, similar political sympathies to rdrama. hub for a lot of smart people with weird politics. not everyone's cup of tea by any means but it gave me a great spot to practice my writing and meet interesting people I wouldn't have come across otherwise.

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words words words: the subreddit

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You're part of the Motte? What's your ban total? I think I got like three or four before they kicked me out entirely. The sad thing (for them) is that I wasn't even trying to generate seethe, it was just my residual aura. Rationalists get very nervous and jittery when you suggest to them that they embrace their anger and use it to gain power.

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What’s your ban total?

I’ve lost count at this point. Might have got you once or twice :marseysmug:

oh, or did you mean the number of times I’ve been banned? Zero. I’m a rule-following goodthinker :marseyangel:

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I’ve lost count at this point. Might have got you once or twice :marseysmug:

![](https://media.giphy.com/media/MwtjauC5lamQM/giphy.webp)

oh, or did you mean the number of times I’ve been banned? Zero. I’m a rule-following goodthinker :marseyangel:

For real? Come on, I thought you were cool, man. What even is the point of rationality if you can't weaponize it?

![](https://media.giphy.com/media/kd8RWRGhB0UuuWhBsv/giphy.webp) ![](https://media.giphy.com/media/zWgLf0zKdLTnW/giphy.webp)

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if I got banned how could I make them read all my longposts?

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![](https://media.giphy.com/media/R2nvBkAW7XIRy/giphy.webp)

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If you wanna draw attn away from how reprehensible you are after you’ve landed a gig with a MSM institution, just take me to lunch and give me a mic :star:


https://i.rdrama.net/images/1707881499271494.webp https://i.rdrama.net/images/17101210991135056.webp

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:marseynotes: cheers, I'll keep that in mind

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Just do the whole "I spent 2 years undercover in the dark underbelly of the far right web" story and talk about how it traumatized you.

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:#gigachad2:

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I don't have any commentary I'm ashamed of. I don't see any reason to hide my internet history.

Not all of us are so fortunate lol

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I'm sure at some point if my profile keeps rising people will dig through my past and Hold Me To Account for all my time in the wild west of the internet.

Can I be your Judas?

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only if you split the 30 pieces of silver with me 50/50

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I call part of it. Not because I did anything, but toasting in epic bread or some other terminal redditor phrase

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They'll irradiate all history of Motte posting out of existence before this becomes a problem for you.


:#marseytwerking:

:marseycoin::marseycoin::marseycoin:
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a report about a site of gay r-slur rejects trolling gay r-slur wingnuts with obvious brain dead bait, journ*lism is about to enter a new golden age

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:marseyoctopus2:

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At least they didn't go the lazy route describe us as alt right nazis. Still sad I missed out on abortion bounty hunters :marseysob:

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Abortion bounty hunters happened over a weekend I when I was touching grass, and by the time I got back it was all over :marseysad:

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Iirc the sub was only up for like 6 hours. Most of us slept through it lol

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It lasted 6 hours lmao. There was barely any time to catch anything.

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It was legit a seethe speedrun. I'm pretty sure it was banned in less than 24 hours, yet got national coverage online.

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Every j*urno that writes about it openly says it had 68 members at the time of banning. I don’t think any of our colonies have ever proven the internet isn’t serious better.

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