DVDBeaver

[domino harvey]

They're continuing the discussion of DVDBeaver's capturing practices as evidenced by the screencap of this film's release, a conversation you yourself were just participating in

[Luke M]

If you check out who DVDBeaver follows on Twitter - https://twitter.com/DVDBeaver/following - you'll a lot of Trump and Fox accounts - Trump, Ann Coulter, Sarah Sanders, Tucker Carlson etc as well as a bunch of other MAGA stuff and anti-liberal accounts. He also follows Kanye (or Ye).

Also, notable he doesn't follow a single politically-minded person who could be deemed a centrist. Not even someone as vanilla as Jake Tapper. Though he does follow an account called "ProWhitesUnite" I appreciate his reviews and actually subscribe to his patreon but big yikes.

[spectre]

A good 40% (or thereabouts; I’m not sure of the precise current figure) of the American voting population support Trump (with all the nasty stuff that entails). I’m not saying that’s a particularly pleasant or edifying fact, but it does mean that there’s a solid chance the next person who scans your groceries, picks you up in a taxi or checks your ID at a bar is one of them. Why should the guy who reviews DVDs for a living be any different? And either way, why would it be important that he share our beliefs*?

Interestingly, I don’t source my political opinions from DVDBeaver, and I doubt that anybody else does either. So investigating Tooze’s Twitter followers for decisive evidence that he’s an evil right-winger just seems like an excuse for malicious gossip to me.

*Note: if he was actually using his site as a platform for right-wing rants, like that Bluray.com guy, then that would be a different matter – not because it’d make him an immoral subhuman, but just because he’d be a bore whose reviews would be a drag to read. But aspect ratios and transfer quality don’t have political affiliations, and Tooze has enough good sense – if the insinuations above are true – to keep his politics out of his professional work. All you can ask, really.

[dustybooks]

I'd say that following something called "ProWhitesUnite" goes a little beyond a traditional left-right divide.

[spectre]

So does Trump, though. And he still retains mainstream Republican voter support, even while employing open fascists like Bannon and publicly supporting white supremacist groups.

I’m not trying to minimise the danger of fascism here or apologise for its proponents – it’s obviously catastrophic that it’s seeing such a resurgence in the US at the moment, and I’m not saying that it’s ok that (what we might think of as) regular people are flirting with it (or with white-supremacist identity politics, or men’s rights activism, or anti-immigration sentiments, etc.). But if the goal is to shame any and all people we can find in that MAGA/alt-right morass and/or chase them out of the public square, then I don’t think that’s going to be a very effective remedy for any of this. (I’m not saying that’s necessarily what people are trying to do to Tooze here, but I do wonder what constructive purpose this gossip about his political leanings serves.)

[hearthesilence]

A good 40% (or thereabouts; I’m not sure of the precise current figure) of the American voting population support Trump (with all the nasty stuff that entails). I’m not saying that’s a particularly pleasant or edifying fact, but it does mean that there’s a solid chance the next person who scans your groceries, picks you up in a taxi or checks your ID at a bar is one of them.

Tell me about it. One of my own relatives, who never votes, is not shy about saying she likes Trump, much to the horror of her closest friends. The fact that she's been openly and virulently racist (mostly among family but she once told a neighbor in my presence she'd kill her own child if he married an African-American) as long as I've known her makes it less of a surprise. I know plenty of Trump voters too but to be blunt they tend to have flat out disgusting beliefs.

[tenia]

A good 40% (or thereabouts; I’m not sure of the precise current figure) of the American voting population support Trump (with all the nasty stuff that entails).

Yes and no.
He has a rather constant 41-42% approval rating, which is one of the lowest amongst POTUS (and the lowest since 1938). This however doesn't mean his supporting base is 41-42% of the voting population, but is said to more likely hover around 25%.

*Note: if he was actually using his site as a platform for right-wing rants, like that Bluray.com guy, then that would be a different matter – not because it’d make him an immoral subhuman, but just because he’d be a bore whose reviews would be a drag to read. But aspect ratios and transfer quality don’t have political affiliations, and Tooze has enough good sense – if the insinuations above are true – to keep his politics out of his professional work. All you can ask, really.

Considering how short most of his reviews are, it most likely would be hard to find thorough movie analysis containing a political stance.

[domino harvey]

I'd say that following something called "ProWhitesUnite" goes a little beyond a traditional left-right divide.

Yeah, I have zero patience for engaging with the fake moral quandary of whether it’s okay to defend someone who supports literal white supremacy. As HJackson pointed out when I brought this up previously, I have no problem with Gary being right wing (and a few prominent members are too, which you may not have noticed either, but something to keep in mind when demonizing political beliefs wholecloth on this forum...), but this is something else

[DarkImbecile]

So investigating Tooze’s Twitter followers for decisive evidence that he’s an evil right-winger just seems like an excuse for malicious gossip to me.

This would apply if he were just a mainstream conservative (though what that means in America is certainly in a state of flux these days), but I think it is totally appropriate for people to feel uncomfortable with providing financial support (whether through Patreon or just regularly visiting the site) for someone openly engaging with — even if not currently vocally supporting — white supremacist ideologies. I wouldn't shop at a grocery store that sold neo-Nazi merchandise or ride in a cab with a Stormfront bumper sticker either.

I know plenty of people who support Trump and the modern Republican party without endorsing the darker elements of the discourse he's empowered, and while I fundamentally disagree with them and think they're conveniently ignoring the causal relationship between his takeover of the Republican party and the rise of white nationalism, I can still have professional or transactional relationships with these people in a way that I wouldn't be willing to with someone who openly crosses that line.

But if the goal is to shame any and all people we can find in that MAGA/alt-right morass and/or chase them out of the public square, then I don’t think that’s going to be a very effective remedy for any of this. (I’m not saying that’s necessarily what people are trying to do to Tooze here, but I do wonder what constructive purpose this gossip about his political leanings serves.)

I'm personally not looking to remedy the root causes of white nationalism by finding somewhere else to look at screencaps and bad grammar, just using this new-to-me information to exercise my freedom of association to avoid supporting people who openly associate themselves with white supremacists.

[HJackson]

We have a reference guide for a reason

I'll stop calling you Dom!

[spectre]

This would apply if he were just a mainstream conservative (though what that means in America is certainly in a state of flux these days), but I think it is totally appropriate for people to feel uncomfortable with providing financial support (whether through Patreon or just regularly visiting the site) for someone openly engaging with — even if not currently vocally supporting — white supremacist ideologies. I wouldn't shop at a grocery store that sold neo-Nazi merchandise or ride in a cab with a Stormfront bumper sticker either.

Fair enough, and perhaps the comparative example here would be if DVDBeaver had white-supremacist logos or links on its website. But snooping on someone’s Twitter follows seems more in the realm of looking at brain scans for far-right activity (in a hypothetical world where such technology were available).

The explosion of information brought about by the internet and social media gives us insights to people’s thoughts in a way that just wasn’t possible even ten years ago. I get that some see that as a positive development in that it allows us to make informed decisions; but it also gives us more of a warts-and-all view of humanity. I just wonder if we’re coping with that information healthily.

(And no matter how much we might like playing detective and drawing conclusions, we can’t know on the basis of one Twitter follow that Tooze is actually a white supremacist sympathiser as opposed to a standard-issue Trump-era right-winger. I respect that others feel it’s something worth investigating nonetheless and that it’ll affect their decision to visit/support the site, but I still question whether that’s actually a politically meaningful decision.)

[fiddlesticks]

Regarding Gary's interest in Trump and Fox News, and leaving aside the white supremacist angle, I thought he was Canadian. Does he also follow, say, Doug Ford?

[Rayon Vert]

Fair enough, and perhaps the comparative example here would be if DVDBeaver had white-supremacist logos or links on its website. But snooping on someone’s Twitter follows seems more in the realm of looking at brain scans for far-right activity (in a hypothetical world where such technology were available).

The explosion of information brought about by the internet and social media gives us insights to people’s thoughts in a way that just wasn’t possible even ten years ago. I get that some see that as a positive development in that it allows us to make informed decisions; but it also gives us more of a warts-and-all view of humanity. I just wonder if we’re coping with that information healthily.

(And no matter how much we might like playing detective and drawing conclusions, we can’t know on the basis of one Twitter follow that Tooze is actually a white supremacist sympathiser as opposed to a standard-issue Trump-era right-winger. I respect that others feel it’s something worth investigating nonetheless and that it’ll affect their decision to visit/support the site, but I still question whether that’s actually a politically meaningful decision.)

Fully agree with this.

[Michael Kerpan]

Once upon a time his Facebook feed reflected some very far right leanings -- but so far as I can tell he now avoids such stuff on Facebook (and I avoid Twitter).

[Magic Hate Ball]

Fair enough, and perhaps the comparative example here would be if DVDBeaver had white-supremacist logos or links on its website. But snooping on someone’s Twitter follows seems more in the realm of looking at brain scans for far-right activity (in a hypothetical world where such technology were available).

I feel like this is more like overhearing someone saying awful at a party. There have definitely been times I've peeped a follow list because I want more similar accounts and stumbled across something embarrassing. Twitter follows are definitely pertinent information in this regard - it's kind of like finding out who someone's friends are.

[Cremildo]

Unless Tooze himself has posted hateful things on his Twitter feed, I fail to see how it's fair to cast suspicion on his character based solely on the fact that he follows accounts of a different political stance from yours.

I've never unfollowed movie-related Twitter accounts just because they, in turn, followed left-wing accounts (and lots of them do); I've stopped following them when they posted something I found indefensible.

[domino harvey]

He follows a literal white supremacy Twitter account. There is no nuance here. I am flabbergasted at the responses of some of you— I’m the one that always gets flack for being skeptical or laissez-faire, but there’s no ambiguity here. He follows an account that advocates for the superiority of the white race and that posts/retweets nothing but tweets to that effect. Did none of you bother to visit the account before defending his choice here? Guess you’re okay with supporting someone who supports

Life was nice before diversity arrived

[MichaelB]

I follow lots of people whose views I disagree with, sometimes profoundly - indeed, two people I follow have just expressed directly contradictory opinions, and I obviously can't agree with both.

Has there been any evidence of Gary actually expressing approval of this account - for instance, by approvingly or neutrally retweeting inflammatory content?

[domino harvey]

This isn’t a public figure or a provocative comedian. This is an account called ProWhitesUnite...

[Rayon Vert]

He follows a literal white supremacy Twitter account. There is no nuance here. I am flabbergasted at the responses of some of you— I’m the one that always gets flack for being skeptical or laissez-faire, but there’s no ambiguity here. He follows an account that advocates for the superiority of the white race and that posts/retweets nothing but tweets to that effect. Did none of you bother to visit the account before defending his choice here?

I'm guilty of not having bothered, although just by the name of the account of course I find it completely reprehensible.

However my approval of furbicide’s post expressed my wariness in jumping to serious, character-defining, publicly-shared conclusions about an individual merely based on his or her Twitter account-follows.

[Big Ben]

domino is on the money here. ProWhitesUnite is an actively pro white nationalist account. It peddles in all manner of conspiracies ranging from everything from Racial IQ Science to Antisemitic Paranoia. The banner on the Twitter account has a link to a Youtube video praising Adolf Hitler.

[MichaelB]

I'm not disputing any of this - but I note that my specific question has yet to be answered.

Following ≠ endorsement.

(Christ, if that was the case, I'd be tying myself up in knots every time I went on Twitter!)

[domino harvey]

Because it’s not a meaningful distinction? Unless you’re monitoring for Southern Poverty Law et al (and in which case you still wouldn’t use your public account or do so without some kind of public caveat), by following a white supremacy account you are either a white supremicist or don’t mind being thought of as one.

There’s no need for hypotheticals or parallels to things that are not this. The actual scenario here is Gary follows an account solely devoted to supporting white supremacy.

[The Narrator Returns]

I'm 100% with domino here, and some of the other responses are getting pretty close to this territory;

[tenia]

Guess I'll be the one dropping Gary an email to know what's what instead of trying to get into his brain by Twitter's feed procuration.