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1 year agoYeah, even when I’ve had the urge to check Reddit for something I’m trying to figure out, I will do everything I can to avoid it. And if I can’t, I try to determine how much I care about what I’m searching before I even give them a single click. It’s a small, insignificant protest, but it’s a forever protest, for me. I’m happy on lemmy, I don’t browse as much, I interqct with more of the community and want to help build it. On Reddit, I felt dirty because of everything they’ve been doing the last 5 or so years. Tencent, killing third party apps slowly and then in one fell swoop, etc. fuck ‘em
I mean, I get what both of you are saying, but I’d argue that the phrase “power corrupts” still applies here.
It’s a feedback loop of being above the law that feeds into these police gangs (like the one in Texas, I believe, that were called because “two black men are staying with a white woman.” The gang went over and sexually assaulted and then pulled the trigger of a gun they shoved in one of the two guys’ mouth. They literally pulled the “let’s sprinkle a little crack on ‘em and get out of here” move. They said it was a drug deal gone wrong—yes, they planted drugs.)
These guys push each other to test the limits of their power abuse further and further. Just like 4chan users tried to one-up each other’s shocking memes and shit, these groups of cops try to out-“badass” each other.
So I do think that their power plays a part in this. Of course the power didn’t make them racist pedophiles, but—especially in Germany, they got a taste of getting away with things people never get away with, and they explore those things. In Germany, sharing and displaying swastikas is illegal. So, I think the taste of untouchability that comes with being a cop definitely fed into their sharing and espousing these views.