Source
r/ireland•
LegitCockroach

Anyone else notice that anti-dissident Republican posts and comments suddenly go from relatively upvoted to massively downvoted after most of Ireland goes to sleep?

Used to be that r/Ireland was a hive of scum and villainy that thought Jean McConville probably deserved it or some BS, that's changed massively even in just two years but these late night brigades are a worrying trend.

Even seeing Mary Lou of all people getting shit for trying to move SF away from the toxic past despite clearly being a huge part of SF's recent surge, being probably the most well liked of all the political leaders.

Posted Dec 19, 2018, 4:58 PM UTC

026
DirtyNortherner•

Shinners work under cover of darkness.

15
Baldybogman•

I think you need to have a look back over developments in the republican movement. The "dissidents" are on the opposite side of the fence to the shinners.

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the_biscuit_monster•

Yeah the clue is in the word dissident...it isnt complicated

4
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
DirtyNortherner•

Honestly it gets confusing, I just lump them all under one heading and am done with it.

3†
PixelNotPolygon•

Cut from the same cloth

2
KnackersArmpit•

The posts are chidlish banter for the most part. I wouldn't be going into full conspiracy theory mode yet.

6
LegitCockroachOP•

I love a good meme like the rest of us so I've not too much issue with the auld me_ira stuff, my issue here is strictly with legitimate gripes with the IRA and/or SF being downvoted heavily in the middle of the night Irish time as if to bury any criticism of those organizations.

-1†
JohnRyan5326•

SFIDF

1
nkrera•

The main thing I've noticed is people purposefully and mistakenly conflating dissident republicans with Sinn Féin, and then using this false association to attack Sinn Féin as though they had anything to do with the vigilante attack.

Even in this thread, the current top comment is an attempt to blame Sinn Féin supporters for distorting discussion of the issue.

And, in case people try to accuse me of it, I say all of this as someone who is not a supporter of Sinn Féin. I'm just annoyed at the way people are twisting the facts of this incident to try and score cheap political points.

5
PixelNotPolygon•

Yes but let's also stop pretending that there are many SF supporters who are on a scale that ranges from sympathetic to the dissident cause to outright outspokenly supportive. And let's not pretend that there aren't SF TDs who have come out in support of those evicted while violence is taking place through vigilantism

5
nkrera•

Case in point.

Firstly, Sinn Féin expressed support for the evicted people, not the people who carried out the attack. It is widely accepted that those who were evicted were not involved in the attack.

Secondly, Pease Doherty explicitly stated that he did not condone the use of violence by the vigilantes.

I'm not a Sinn Féin supporter. In fact, as I stated earlier today in another thread, I don't think them fit to run the country. However, that doesn't mean we can or should go hurling around stupid allegations and misinformation for the sake of cheap political point-scoring.

1
LegitCockroachOP•

There's no mistake in conflating SF with dissident republicans. They haven't shed those ties. They stick by Dessie Ellis and Gerry Adams, even denying Adams' affiliation with the IRA to this day.

They haven't changed. Mary Lou might want to do so (and seems to be striving towards that goal as best as she can) but she hasn't gotten them to that stage yet.

0
nkrera•

There's no mistake in conflating SF with dissident republicans. They haven't shed those ties. They stick by Dessie Ellis and Gerry Adams, even denying Adams' affiliation with the IRA to this day.

You've just demonstrated that you don't know what/who dissident republicans are.

Dissident republicans are republican paramilitary groups who did not accept the Good Friday Agreement. Primarily this consists of the Continuity IRA and the Real IRA and their various factions, who respectively have the Republican Sinn Féin (not to be confused with Gerry Adams' Sinn Féin) and the 32 County Sovereignty Movement (or, more recently, Saoradh) as political wings.

The Provisional IRA - i.e. the IRA of whom Sinn Féin are the political wing - are explicitly not dissident republicans. Gerry Adams is a republican, not a dissident republican. This is a basic and well known distinction that you really should already be familiar with.

When the Gardaí and media refer to dissident republicans, they are referring to republican groups who are explicitly not linked to Sinn Féin. In fact, dissident republicans despise Sinn Féin for "selling out" by entering into the peace process and taking their seats in Leinster House and Stormont, and have made numerous threats against the lives of senior Sinn Féin and Provisional IRA figures since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement.

1
Fantastipotomus•

If it was an organised attempt to influence people, then surely they'd be doing that type of thing during the day so more eyes see it?

4
LegitCockroachOP•

Maybe they are, it's just getting cancelled out at that time of day by ordinary redditors going about their business. Once we go to bed, the effects can be seen.

Alternatively, these are ordinary 'Irish'-Americans or whatever who've been brainwashed into the cause because they've never seen the bad side of the Troubles and refuse to accept they've been swindled into financially supporting a bunch of criminals.

2†
Fantastipotomus•

Both of those points make sense.

2
Freetogoodowner•

When do you think these brigades sleep then?

1
Fuzzy974•

The sub is massively populated by yanks and trolls and possibly fake « russian » account, so what do you expect?!

3
IdealJerry•

Can you provide any evidence of this ?
Not having a go at you but I feel like some users on here are always saying the sub sways the opposite way to them.

2
LegitCockroachOP•

Honestly I can't because I don't have screenshots of posts that show this change and there's no way of ordinary redditors at least being able to see the trend of a post over time unfortunately. I'm just going on noticing posts that were pretty high up on a thread during the day suddenly being in <-5 territory come the morning.

This sub doesn't sway the opposite though. That's my point. Most people here are incredibly reasonable. Good posts generally do get to the top. Really this post is just to see if others are noticing this night-time trend (and to confirm I'm not just being paranoid to myself) which would suggest foreign influencers and/or political astroturfing.

-1
IdealJerry•

I've seen it happen to fairly innocuous posts to be fair. My thinking was that most (a handful) of the regular users on here during the day are able to take a joke but a lot of the people who check in after work etc take things a little too seriously.

6
LegitCockroachOP•

That'd make sense alright and is a lot less tin-foil hat than my own take lol.

1
theeglitz•

there's no way of ordinary redditors at least being able to see the trend of a post over time unfortunately.

Someone over on r/dataisbeautiful wrote a script that does this.

E: here it is

1
LegitCockroachOP•

Is there a way to apply this retrospectively?

1
theeglitz•

I doubt it, but I'm not the expert at all.

1
DirtyNortherner•

Shimmers work under cover of darkness.

1
themostuniquenameguy•

The Yank plastic paddies who think that the IRA were freedom fighters are the ones doing the downvoting.

1†