What exactly is meant by the above? How can anything less like a topographical landscape actually resemble such a very specific terrain? Anyone who has ever been on an internet discussion forum will be familiar with the general lay-out. You have the general index that will refer you to the various ‘boards’ which will then list the various ‘active’ topics under discussion.
Something like:
(From: Oxfordshireforums.com)
This above is a typical active topics page where the far right in its various guises has taken over a public discussion forum. No mention of issues that are of national relevance such as the proposed take over of ‘Northern Rock’. No discussion regarding the post code lottery and the provision of care by the NHS – the only time the NHS warrants a discussion it is in relation to Muslim medical students seemingly refusing to ‘scrub up’.
On the principle of ‘flood and deluge’, pejorative threads multiply. Very few of the far-right posters have actually anything to bring to the debate as such. So generally speaking apart from a quick ‘cut and paste’ more often then not direct from the BNP owned Regional News there is very little else. If flaws are pointed out or inconsistencies highlighted or alternative views offered it quickly descends into a raving attack on the various individual posters.
So in essence reasoned debate is caught in a cleft hook. You either ignore the threads hoping that they will fall off the ‘active post’ threads – in which case there are apparently plenty more ‘topics’ that can be raised regarding ‘filthy foreigners’, their criminal ways, their abuse of the benefit system, etcetera and so forth. Alternatively you try and address the ‘concerns’ and the topic is kept active primarily by seemingly semi literate keyboard activists who ‘ladder’ quote.
Even when a very brave poster manages to get a thread of topical interest posted and where the issue of race or ethnicity has no real bearing on the matter, they will bring race and immigration in. Ignoring the posts is an option that will only work to some extent because before you know where you are, the actual thread becomes impossible to read and the real debate impossible to follow.
On our forums, the late and sincerely lamented ‘Evening Argus’ we fought back. We continued posting, refusing to be over-run. One or more of the more pernicious far-right posters then decided to ‘advertise’ for fellow xenophobic White Nationalists and racialist far-right BNP keyboard activists to join the fray:
and beat the 'lefties' - which not all of us were. I am not, a couple of posters were and at least one of our posters was extremely conservative in his view.
The long and the short of it is that we ended up with discussing nothing. The Forums got spammed, time and again and eventually the ‘lamentables’ managed to find a way of overloading the servers; which effectively resulted in the forums being locked down, causing hours of work for the forum hosts.
(From: Stormfront Britain)
As you can see, it even annoyed some of the seriously minded right wingers.
But not before Byron Boy above managed to drag in some re-enforcements.
