A Conspiracy Against ATS?

reply to post by EvilBat


What would be the point of ATS having someone bad mouth something or someone, or use language that wouldn't be acceptable a maybe have to limit its content? Do you see what is happening with the talk of drugs, both legal and illegal?
Could their own people have contributed to the demise of this type of discussion on ATS, on purpose?

That would be a conspiracy and most of you apparently think that would be too much...

reply to post by neformore


(Reply to the OP)

How can I say this without being accused of popo kissing, I can't, therefore I will simply state:

You're absolutely correct!

There have been and continue to be external conspiracies against ATS by those whom for a myriad of reasons have a personal or ideological bone to pick with this site.

This ranges from ex-members, ex-staff, competing websites started by ex members and staff, competing conspiracy websites, political interest groups, etc, etc.

This is not simply my opinion mind you, this is proven fact.

The evidence of which is available to any ATS member with the search feature, member list, interest, and time.

Having the time and interest are the most important tools in this endeavor for if you possess them you will discover via the search feature and member histories that ATS has gone through this on many occasions and on multiple fronts.

I will not do the work for you, one has to care enough about ATS to learn its history before one screams "censorship" or believes that there are no conspiracies here. Keep in mind that with one major exception which the staff later regretted and learned much from, all the threads have never been removed and are still there for all to see. And even in that one exception there are still plenty of threads from which you can gleam the chain of events.

And let me tell you, some of it is painful to read, true friendships have been lost, waves of members have left at different junctures, yet ATS keep growing, getting stronger, and finds itself where it is today.

And this is the genius of the thing.

For every wave of attack that ATS has endured through the years, those who chose to undertake these attacks, have only succeeded in making ATS stronger at every turn.

This by the way why it is that they chose to tackle these matters head on soon after they begin, out in the open, and almost invite the situation to reach its lowest point, thus instigating a catharsis of consciousness and enabling us to all move forward.

Much like terrorist attacks, there is the initial painful fallout, but each time one of these events occurs the community becomes in fact stronger.

I expect this latest ordeal will yield the same result.

SD




[edit on 28 Feb 2009 by schrodingers dog]

If even a small fraction of the stories discussed here are true, it would be pretty naive to believe those who benefit from concealment of truth would not try to paint us as misguided fools, insecure nerds, or fringe radicals. I mean, if you were the bad guy, woudn't you want to mess with the enemy's intel and communications infrastructure?

The truth is, ATS is one the few credible web sites dedicated to investigating and discussing stuff that 98% of the world knows little or nothing about. That's a rarified atmosphere in which to move about. It stands to reason we may stumble across a cointelpro spook or two from time to time-- and when they're slinking about, you can be sure we're in the vicinity of enlightenment on some crucial subject.

For what it's worth, I've had half a dozen accounts blocked on ABCnews.com for simply speaking what I felt was the unvarnished truth about any particular story- without attacks, profanity or any other T & C violation whatsoever. When that happens, I can be pretty sure I hit a nerve with the puppet masters behind the curtain.

So bravo ATS for being right enough long enough that you're annoying the folks who prefer we all remain blissfully ignorant.

Originally posted by The Lass
I honestly don't see there being a deliberate campaign to disrupt ATS by those who feel that Management's recent decision is wrong. Any coordination, limited & such as it is ... on both sides ... and any new friends & foes made ... has simply come about in the same fashion as with any other contentious subject.
*snip*
But when the rules of the road change suddenly we do have the right to query that decision. That's reasonable.

I believe that what nefermore was referring to was not reaction to the very recent blanket ban on drug discussion – which does constitute a change in the guidelines for any of us who has been here more than five days – but a pattern over the past month or more that accelerated in the period between the announcement last week that the drug discussion rules would be stringently enforced again and the most recent announcement of the blanket ban.

In other words, someone or some people seem to have reacted to the announcement that "personal use" stories would no longer be shuffled to RATS but that T&C about illegal activity would be enforced by:

increasing the number of new threads dealing with these topics

reactivating accounts that had lain dormant for years in order to either contribute to such threads or complain about the rules

And it was this process in part that led to the total ban on any discussion of any illegal substance in any context – because people had started to flood the site with posts that were designed to disrupt the flow of threads, and other disruptive behavior.

That's the potential conspiracy against ATS, as I saw it: that the reaction to the tightening down on enforcement of the rules somehow drew in new members and "sleeper" members apparently determined to cause havoc.

Originally posted by TheRandom1
Nope, never been warned, nice way to try and discredit me though, didn't know you were a celeb here, I've lurked for over a year and have'nt seen much of you.

Never? Not once Ive got to fire that publicist. No warns eh? Then how did them bees get in your bonnet.

Oh, hahahahaha, that is not funny, first of all, MASH sucks, second, I never said most of you are Disinfo agents, you're trying to demonize me, and third, I did not make a blanket statement that the entire site is disinfo, you lied there buddy.

Ring a bell?

I tell ya, I think there is no conspiracy against ATS, I think there is a conspiracy against the members here though, I think there is a massive amount of disinfo that gets pushed around here and the mods support it.

massive amount of disinfo. If its a massive amount most of must be posting No?

Really now, you made it easy no need to make stuff up. Thanks

If you are that fed up, why are still posting

[edit on 28/2/09 by Operation AJAX]

reply to post by AllTiedTogether


I see what your saying, but I got to ask again, why go all over the net.
And for a long time do this, just to get people to join?

I don't see ats planting people in other forums or in this forum to disrupt ATS.
I don't see the point. call me close-minded and or what ever but really there would be no point in to ATS disrupting its own forum.

reply to post by HulaAnglers


I'm sorry, I've been reading this thread, and I see no conspiracy here. It's like a bunch of wax lips at a butt-kissing competition. I don't need to be a mod or a member here to see that the moderators got sick of all the editing, and that a lot... And I mean a LOT of people don't like the smug attitudes that are encountered here at ATS.

Not to offent anyone here, but that's honestly how you guys come off to a lot of people. You don't need to rationalize why I may be wrong on this, or defend your actions here. I'm just saying, if you tick people off, you make enemies.

I drop by here alot to see what's shaking in these forums, see what the current conjecture is. SOmetimes I read some intersting posts, but for the most part, it's a bunch of arguing back and forth, and the discussions dont actually go anywhere.

Maybe ATS has ticked off so many people over the years it only seems like a conspiracy, when it's actually a lot of haters just trying to make life difficult for you.

Just thought an outside opinion might bring things into perspective. I'll shut my mouth now and go to prisonplanet or something.

Wow, some of the replies in this thread are just breathtaking.
I've not seen such a display of hubris and entitlement in a long time. Statements comparing the policies with government style censorship are just absurd. To give the concept an analogy: If I invite you into my home, I expect you to not scream profanity from the top of your lungs at 3am while urinating on my sofa. This is a reasonable expectation (for most people). If I punt your crazy keister out the door when you do it-I didn't 'censor your freedom of speech'. I protected my lease by not allowing a crazy moron to get his jollies on my throw-rug. You can shoot me all the evil-eye you want. You wont ever be invited in again.

The owners pay for the site-the servers and misc charges that might creep up. We squat on their rug-if you will. This means the users have obligations. Part of that in maintaining the peace. There have been incidents where people have been killed over posts in MySpace. ATS gets much more heated than that.

As for a conspiracy with it. I think it is more reasonable to say it's the entitlement. IP info might prove this wrong. But: People make an account-have certain associations with it which they want to shed. Presto: new account. They get snippy and pull the old account out of the bin for 'weight' in the post. Otherwise, many people have pet theories on things. The sense of entitlement seen more with some as 'I am right, you are NOT right because I am right, therefore I am right!' You challenge the notion of the 'correctness' and you get an internet flame war. A bunch of children throwing bricks in a glass house. Entertaining sometimes to watch-unless you are one of the people sweeping up the glass.

Some threads fill me with pity. Some with rage. Some make me giggle like a schoolgirl (creepy scene if you knew me). Ultimately, we are just squatters on someone elses rug and probably bruising someones ego. Remember that before 'contributing' to threads please.

reply to post by americandingbat


Okay. I understand your point.

I just want to make it abundantly clear that I never once participated in a deliberate attempt to disrupt this board. My concerns over the last few days were those of free speech and, well, of that election. That's my motivation for taking an extended chill out.

Well, I believe I got a rather unwarranted ban from the media. Not that its a big deal to me or anything.

reply to post by lordtyp0


Wow dude, while I agree with most of your post (I believe in censorship of offensive material), I think you went a bit over the top with your example, in fact you went so over the top, your point became sorta mute.

I think that a great contribution to this site is for members to be able to see the offensive stuff if they want to, make it an option you can choose from, but have the text in some sorta format to where you can distinguish between the offensive and the non-offensive, but mod it to where the offensive cannot be quoted for commenting purposes.

-Lahara

Bring it on baby - we need all the conspiracies we can get!

Originally posted by TheRandom1
reply to post by lordtyp0

 

Wow dude, while I agree with most of your post (I believe in censorship of offensive material), I think you went a bit over the top with your example, in fact you went so over the top, your point became sorta mute.

I think that a great contribution to this site is for members to be able to see the offensive stuff if they want to, make it an option you can choose from, but have the text in some sorta format to where you can distinguish between the offensive and the non-offensive, but mod it to where the offensive cannot be quoted for commenting purposes.

-Lahara

Lol, I was being reserved. Some posts are so vitriolic that as to be cancerous-there only to cause drama and hate. I was not referring to posts some deem offensive as it is a fact that to an Atheist many religious posts are offensive-and vice versa. To a die hard right winger anything remotely left wing is offensive, and again, vice versa.

Dialog should be encouraged. But some posts are not there for any semblance of dialog. Everyone on here knows that and can prob cite several examples especially with the recent elections. Those are the posts I am referring to. Not the occasional heated argument. But the posts that are there for the purpose of fighting-everyone knows the topics of flame wars... Anything religious, anything political etc. has that possibility.

Tread lightly in the hallways of glass when wearing steel boots. If you stomp like a child and crack the floor-expect to be spanked.

reply to post by EvilBat


Do you really think this is disrupting for them? Look at the activity in the last week. This one thread generated quite the controversy and I believe had their membership up... I think a lot a people signed up just to get on the band wagon. Free speech is a lot to lose and this along with a few other things that have happened make the ATS forums come alive.

Pretty good advertising to me. Like one mod said to me awhile back when I complained about the gory trailer for a movie

The irony of the whole issue is that these marketing people (Mirror's marketing people) have done exactly what they wanted to do. They got you talking about their movie.

Source

This, and other comments lead me to believe that their marketing people talked to ATSs marketing and had this little scenario planned. Have people complaining about he graphic gore and do little while numerous members complain. This is why I don't believe the OP is correct.

ATS creates their own problems and its to their benefit. They reap the rewards. It's a business. We are workers and will get canned or banned if we don't follow the bosses rules.

A good post, I can see what you are talking about. I have been a moderator in several different places during 15 years and I have seen this same trend that you are talking about. It is not a conspiracy, it is a personality type that you will have to learn how to deal with. I'm sure you moderators know what you are doing, but I want to state my opinion anyway.

Only possible way to deal with these kind of personalities, and they are on every single forum and every big irc channel, is to put a hard offence and ban _everybody_ who seems to be of that personality type.

It sounds harsh, and is harsh, but the word quickly spreads that you simply cannot do that in that particular place. I have no idea how they communicate with eachother, but they apparently do because soon enough those trolls stop appearing. In all places I have been, it has taken about six months to achieve it but it is possible to do.

I have nothing against lawyers, but some of them have tactics that resemble this kind of behaviour. They utter something completely unreasonable crap from their mouths, and then fight with rules to get people to accept their point of view as reality. If that doesn't work, they go on and attack an institution instead, which would be analogized with ad hominem attack. They have a clear and certain route of action that they use, it is always the same. Every single time.

So.

1. say something extremely stupid or unreasonable. Break the rules to cause stirr.
2. Continue this until somebody cracks, then attack the one who lost his nerve to cover your tactic.
3. If rules are taken into account, start using those rules as a loophole with some hilarious seemingly logical argument that can be attacked only by very inteligent people.
4. By now you have split group to half against the other half.
5. After awhile of senseless argumentation, attack insitution in question that has put up those rules.
6. get banned, and be happy that the chaos you caused still continues although you have been banned.

Come back after a month to make it nonstop.

Most of you moderator have propably noticed that most of these people are actually very intelligent, and therefore extremely difficult to get caught.

My best advice would be to not go into debate with any of them, those debates quickly become endless fruitless conversations that are so complex in nature that 3/4 cannot really grasp all routes of conversation as a whole. This divides people, people just take easiest stance and believe the one who lays layman arguments. This is exactly why these succeed in their trolling.

based on 15 years of researching a bit on this subject, only thing I can say from their origin is that they usually come from a single another forum, or an irc channel. Basically there is some social place that for some reason gets a thrill on trolling people who are easily driven into debates. ATS is exactly that kind of place, and they enjoy getting people cracked so that they can turn conversation so that they gain edge.

This usually happens so fast that nobody is able to notice what kind of tactic is being used, and original trolling is left unnoticed, except for the fact that there are 200 insane posts in a 250 post thread. It is intentional all the way down, and usually includes several people. Sometimes, one human can cause this but it is very rare. They learn quickly who reacts into what and are well versed in reading people's emotions from text. If you get angry about one thing, they notice it immediately and for the next forever posts concencrate on that thing alone.


[edit on 28/2/09 by rawsom]

[edit on 28/2/09 by rawsom]

Originally posted by enigmania
Apparently it's easier than closely moderating those forbidden subjects that alledgedly always take a turn for the worse.

You're simply refusing to be reasonable in the face of logic and common sense, aren't you?

The banning of subjects has no direct relation to those rules.

Just because you say (or type) something that is false, does not increase the chances it'll no longer be false. The omission of a three topics have a direct relationship to the civility and decorum of the participations contributing to the thousands of other wide-open topics.

You guys seem to be completely unable to grasp the concept. (of censorship)

Again, see my commentary on false statements. Repeating a false statement doesn't make it less false.

Would you shout about murder, terrorism, conspiracy in that mall.

We're advocating murder, terrorism and conspiracy? Really. My analogy was comparing the advocacy of personal use of narcotics. Perhaps you should read it again? Or, do you wish to keep ignoring common sense and continue to publicly piss on our living room carpet?

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord

We're advocating murder, terrorism and conspiracy? Really. My analogy was comparing the advocacy of personal use of narcotics. Perhaps you should read it again? Or, do you wish to keep ignoring common sense and continue to publicly piss on our living room carpet?

Here's a quote from someone in a thread about the Gitmo terrorists possibly being set free. These people in gitmo, apparently all of them, have yet to be convicted of anything. Therefore they are innocent prisoners awaiting trial.

So what. KS Muhammed is a terrorist. I would torture him myself, if given the chance- real torture too, not just making him uncomfortable. As President Bush said, he was told KSM had information vital to protecting Americans.

Source

Is this guy making statement that condones an illegal activity? Is torture illegal in the US?

I admit I have not read T & C in it's entirety, and I rarely check U2U.
My Bad...

With that said, I am in an interesting position of late, finding much time for Arm Chair research and tend to imbibe information, which I enjoy especially here at ATS.

I appreciate the time you and other moderators spend in this capacity while using fair tactics performing some unforgoable, yet vital tasks.

I once was an administrator on a certain site and for some reason became the "go to guy" at request of the other four administrators when it came time to adjudicate between disputes between members or interpretation of rules, etc.. and sometimes this included a brief to explain how and why a ruling was made.
So I have some Idea of what you have to deal with. Some present themselves in a demeanor as though the event and their participation in general were a matter of life and death. Astonishingly at times.

At one point, another administrator submitted his resignation and a meeting was held to discuss possible nominees, then inquire if the desired person would accept the position.

At this particular meeting, the three remaining admins, were all in favor of a long-time participant who had been an asset and desperately wanted the promotion for quite some time. I however thought he was always a bit abrasive in his conduct toward members at times, and suggested another that I felt was more suitable for the task, and with little persuasion had convinced the three others to abandon their candidate and we agreed on the alternate nominee, who accepted the position with surprise, but also with enthusiasm and commitment.

When the announcement was posted, evidently the person who had been passed over was infuriated, to understate his now rabid rage.

As the other three who's votes in part made the decision unanimous, as was the rule side-stepped their role and confessed that they all were ready to vote him in and I was the one that had convinced them otherwise. (I guess I had a compelling presentation)

At this point, I was now the focus of all this guy's anger and he promptly began proclaiming me as...you name it and it was said...
Finally, and again in a unanimous vote, he was to be banned, forever.

Needless to say, I was once again appointed the task of the bad news bearer.

After the ban, threats heightened and he stated he was one of those computer gurus and worked for a provider in real life, and that he was going to hack my PC and i would reget doing these things to him, etc...

I basically said good luck, and purchased an additional firewall and detector that was the only one I had found (including all the well and less well known brands such as McC...., Nor..., pretty much any one you name)
that was able to find a RAT file that infected my PC prior.

I could post a short novel of a thread just on what I went through finding the RAT and where it was stashed.

So, now I was running two firewalls and this amazing detector.

To get to the meat and potatoes,
This guy, for the next 114 days, must have spent every waking moment attempting to breach my PC. And finally, he did. I was amazed, but more amazed that such misguided effort would be spent over a virtual world event.

So I can see how some of these things you put up with are so irritating and attacking the heart of what you maintain as far as ATS goes.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot...
you misspelled defense.

An appreciative ATS member
IMD

reply to post by AllTiedTogether


Sorry skeptic (for line jumping).

Hypotheticals are a tad different than statements of fact. I work an an internet service provider. We have certain requirements. If we get a DMCA takedown notice-we have to pass a request to halt to the end user. If in the course of work we run across illegal activity-be it in the form of illegal pornography or .. I dont know say two people are discussing a contract killing in an email-or far more mundane like arranging to buy a bag of weed. We are required to report it. Otherwise we share some liability if the authorities find out-possibly even criminal charges to the person who found it and did nothing.

Something said in a hypothetical manner is freedom of speech. Saying something as a statement is a confession that could potentially lead to the law enforcement coming in and taking servers off shelves. Shutting down business and leading to all sorts of legal hassles that nobody wants.

I can pull up court cases where that very thing happened from RIAA lawsuits to divorces that get ugly.

reply to post by AllTiedTogether


well ok, that sounds reasonable.

But some reason I don't think that would really work. I would think the bad mouthing and such would actually push members away then bring them in.
If I'm told a site banned someone because of what ever, doesn't make me want to go join up to that site. Most I would think is so you got banned.

I think the membership went up for the drug talk because people wanted to jump on the Free speech bandwagon, you know "fight the authority because we want to be hip and cool." Not realizing they are just hurting their membership and the forums here. I would say that 70% of the memberships that joined during that will most likely be forgotten about. But I say hurt the forums because well whats it doing to it its not helping buy members complaining that they want to talk about something when they were asked not to.

Just look at this topic alone, it was disrupted buy people back and forth over T&C, censorship, nothing to do with the topic They might not think is disruptive but I do, I'm a member here and I don't like the "We can say anything we want because of free speech", why not make a topic for it?

So yes, since there is more then one person out there purposely going against the T&C, or purposely ruining a thread or two making ATS uneasy then there is a conspiracy.