Innuendo Studios
4 HN recommenders · recommended in 8 months, 2020–2026
41:35 · 4.5M views · Oct 21, 2019
A video essay from the Alt-Right Playbook series that explains how extremist movements draw ordinary people in, using deniable rhetoric, bad-faith games, and gradual escalation. It draws on books about the alt-right, male radicalization, and cult-style brainwashing.
HN commenters cite it in moderation and politics threads as a clear account of why hard rules fail against dogwhistles and how isolated people get recruited.
8 comments from Hacker News
> What was a lot harder were the toxic users that just stuck around. Not doing anything bad enough to necessarily warrant a permanent ban, but just a constant stream of shitty behavior. Especially sometimes when the most toxic users were also some of the most popular users. This is the problem with community guidelines being the be-all and end-all. Hard rules are great for catching insults or slurs. They're not so great for dealing with actual abuse or inciting very bad ideas. I think Innuendo Studios' video on this problem is one of the best explanations: this video There's a reason white supremacists and literal nazis (yes, really with the salutes, genocide fantasies, Jewish conspiracy theory and all) have shifted from using obvious language to dogwhistles and "just asking questions". Erosion is a much more powerful force than a few direct impacts. If you want to moderate a community, you need to have a plan for dealing with toxic individuals, not just language. We tend to imagine "hackers" and (foul-mouthed) "trolls" but I find Molly's archetypes a lot more though-provoking: [LINK] I think community moderation is a problem we tend to run into the Dunning-Kruger effect with because it seems like something we have an intuitive understanding of even if we have zero experience actually doing it and having ever learned what works and what doesn't.
God, no. He is a far-right YouTuber who is known for his promotion of scientific racism and white supremacist views. His website is basically a cult with active use of cult indoctrination methods on Molyneux's side. Let's not pretend that the above poster doesn't know about that. He tries to bait you into watching Molyneux because he is "good on philosophy and parenting", who can slowly indoctrinate you into his far right views[1] (he doesn't try to be to open about them) For instance, this is his take on the Holocaust: > ...the Germans were in danger of being taken over by what they perceived as Jewish-led Communism. And Jewish-led Communism had wiped out tens of millions of white Christians in Russia and they were afraid of the same thing. And there was this wild overreaction and all this kind of stuff. If anyone wants to take a look at this track record, in his own words, check out the SPLC: [LINK] . (Also the source for the above quote) Otherwise, you can also take a look at the less trustable but far more comprehensive RationalWiki overview: [LINK] . And if anyone wants to learn about denial tactics when faced with an alt-right, misogynistic mass shooter, using the example of Molyneux, take a look here: [LINK] [1] An explanation of "the onion" can be found here: this video
> I bet a lot of those people on that site are completely lost when it comes to purpose or their place in life Which makes them a prime target for extremist thinking/alt-right groups. The alt-right playbook series goes into this rather well this video (video has content warning, ironically).
All unmoderated spaces have this problem. That's why the right wing grew so much on gaming forums, because they were extremely unmoderated. A great video on the topic from a few years ago (How to Radicalize a Normie): this video
>company-sponsored political struggle sessions This is a strawman. I was not advocating company-sponsored political struggle sessions. Does a company-sponsored presentation discouraging unionization count as a "political struggle session?" I have been subjected to that before, and the company would not describe that as political -- no, they're just protecting their investments. For the employees whose lives the question of unionizing actually impacts, unionization is a furiously political question. I wasn't saying we need more corporate presentations about LGBTQA+ pride or BLM. But minorities exist, they're people, and their normal lives will often be "political" to those who are able and willing to ignore the problems those minorities face. "NO POLITICS PLEASE!" will silence those whose ideas are considered "political" while implicitly endorsing ideas that have been promoted to "apolitical." Here's a quote from an Innuendo Studios video[1] which has some relevance here: >The adage about bros on the internet is “‘political’ means anything I disagree with,” but it’d be more accurate to say, here, “‘political’ means anything on which the community disagrees.” For instance, “Nazis are bad” is an apolitical statement because everyone in the community agrees. It’s common sense, and therefore neutral. But, paradoxically, “Nazis are good” is also apolitical; because “Nazis are bad” is the consensus, “Nazis are good” must be just an edgy joke, and, even if not, the community already