Hey guys, this one's a doozy! I thought this story was worthy of being told. I already feel better having written it all out.
But if long-winded diatribes aren't your cup of tea, I won't be offended if you skip this one. ngl though, it's got some juicy bits. I'd love to know how all of this jives with the experiences and observations of many of you out there.
On the Night of the Digital Long Knives, they came for me first. Before Trump was banned and before they Thanosed half of social media, they got me.
In the early hours of January 7, 2021, US Senator Tammy Duckworth emphatically declared in Congress that “reddit conspiracy theories” were in part to blame for the “violent insurrection” alleged to have occurred just hours earlier at the US Capitol.
No further clarification was provided as to which conspiracies from the popular social media site were responsible, nor how this conclusion was reached within hours of such an historically unprecedented and controversial event.
The administrators of reddit acted swiftly. The admins traditionally only “spring” into action when confronted with negative PR. Getting publicly called out in Congress after an alleged “coup” was about as high profile as it gets. Within hours, they removed and permanently banned the head moderator of the “subreddit” devoted to conspiracy theories…yours truly.
While the admins are actual employees of reddit, moderators are unpaid volunteers who focus on specific “sub”-reddits. Moderators are a crucial component of how the site functions. They hold no power outside their respective communities and are beholden to the whims of the admins. A case can be made that the sweeping censorship that reached a fever pitch in January was coordinated between rogue elements of multiple world governments and the Big Tech juggernaut. On reddit, I was one of many targeted in this technological purge.
Reddit wasn’t always a vapid repository for propaganda amplification. Once a pioneer of counter-culture and niche interests, reddit has long since devolved into the same cliche caricature of an echo chamber currently engulfing the “mainstream” web under the ruthless dominance of Big Tech. But it wasn’t always like that.
The very first threads on reddit were 9/11 conspiracy theories and challenged the status quo. And yet, 15 years later, the front page of reddit consists of vacuous corporatist and statist propaganda, with the vast majority of unique subreddits having long since been compromised or banned by the “narrative managers” tasked with homogenizing these once vibrant and diverse forums.
I joined reddit in its early days. I enjoyed the anonymity and the ability to create novelty accounts for memes and other silly interests. In 2007, the pro-libertarian bent on reddit introduced me to Ron Paul, and the enthusiasm to “Audit the Fed!” and hold the financial institutions accountable resonated strongly. I grew up marveling at the mindless stupidity of US disasters in Vietnam and elsewhere. I thought similar mistakes wouldn’t be made again. But then I lost friends in Iraq & Afghanistan, and the red-pilling that began on 9/11 proceeded in earnest.
I was the “perfect” age for 9/11. I was old enough to think for myself but not too old that indoctrination prevented the red flags from going off in my skeptical and developing mind. I saw the Bush/Cheney neocons as the heart of the corruption of that era, but soon became wary of the progressive “saviors” in Obama/Biden. This concern played out on reddit in a very dramatic and informative way.
The support I saw for Ron Paul was inspiring and genuine. The “movement” for Obama appeared hollow and manufactured. This was the first time I noticed that much of the activity on reddit, especially politically, was starting to become inorganic. I soon suspected that Obama was being propped up to win, and reddit was being used in the massive effort to re-enforce the two party false dichotomy. This requires constant political ping-ponging of the balance of power to maintain the optics that the public still picks the POTUS.
After the orchestrated financial debacle of 2008, I began focusing my attention on sharing more “conspiratorial” content on reddit. By 2010 I discovered a small subreddit devoted to speculation about conspiracy theories (reddit.com/r/conspiracy). I decided to make an account (u/axolotl_peyotl) devoted exclusively to this type of content.
I began sharing as much fringe and speculative material as I could muster. At one point, I was the third most prolific contributor in the history of r/conspiracy. I even had threads calling out the “banksters” hit the front page of reddit. Amusingly enough, this usually was via the politics subreddit (r/politics), which today is notorious for exclusively broadcasting state-sponsored propaganda.
I didn’t even believe a lot of the conspiracies I was sharing. That’s what made the early iterations of sites like reddit so popular in the first place. We were free to speculate about whatever we wanted without fear of getting mocked or doxxed. I was thoroughly enjoying the stimulating topics and interaction on r/conspiracy. I looked forward to the “debunking” as much as the “high octane” speculation. But the more I posted, the more I began to notice unmistakable patterns in the comment sections of certain threads.
Most wacky conspiracy theories would produce a completely innocuous and frequently constructive response on the forum. For example, you could speculate about aliens and ancient civilizations without being given too much grief. You could also call out events like the JFK assassination and CIA coups without much resistance. In other words, subjects that were both “far out there” and clearly valid and therefore impossible to “debunk” were generally left alone.
Other conspiracies, however, seemed to poke a proverbial digital hornet’s nest. It happened so consistently with these “trigger” topics that it was difficult to miss. This handful of seemingly unrelated issues would consistently bring out reddit accounts that were not frequent r/conspiracy contributors. They also seemed to be almost entirely devoted to spreading FUD and engaging in a wide array of forum sliding tactics and logical fallacies.
While there were undoubtedly others, the following issues would often elicit the most dramatic and artificial reactions: 9/11, Israel, Russia, GMOs/Monsanto, and vaccines. Later, staged shootings like Sandy Hook were added to the fray, while botched cover-ups like the Las Vegas Shooting were generally ignored completely. When the staged event goes awry, they often opt to memory-hole it instead.
Over time, the energy spent obfuscating these various topics was diverted almost entirely to the subject of defending scientism, Big Pharma, and the vaccine paradigm. Certain keywords in titles would bring out a combination of shills (digital provocateurs) and bots (fake accounts with automated replies) to derail the thread and often attack the OP (original poster). For example, the pro-Monsanto/GMO shill squad on reddit used to be as dedicated as it was pervasive, with some accounts boasting a history of thousands of comments defending these mega corporations.
Before the social justice warrior PC police fully infested social media, reddit was more than happy to allow subs devoted to racism, sexism, and even the use of slurs in the titles of the forums themselves. Eventually, the corporate overlords and the MSM would force reddit to “clean” up its act, but its “unsavory” past is a matter of record.
The subreddit “r/conspiratard” was one such hotbed for the corporatist hacks tasked with correcting the record on reddit. It was largely comprised of useful unpaid idiots as well as actual sponsored actors for these predatory conglomerates and state agencies.
With the blatantly suspicious “suicide” of reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz in early 2013, and long-standing rumors of connections between reddit’s owners and unsavory government agencies, the site was targeted for transformation into a massive narrative-management machine to be integrated into Big Tech’s burgeoning monopoly.
r/conspiratard was one of many subs that existed primarily to orchestrate the manipulation of the votes and comments of threads on r/conspiracy and elsewhere on reddit. This practice is known as “brigading” and almost always is in direct violation of reddit’s user agreement. These brigades would often initiate ruthless targeted harassment towards many accounts that shared information that was deemed “inconvenient.” r/conspiratard was also ground zero for the most prolific Monsanto shills on reddit, as well as the most fervently pro-Israel.
A frequent meme employed on r/conspiratard was a mocking reference to “pancakes” which symbolized the death of Rachel Corrie, an Israeli activist for Palestinian rights who was brutally murdered. The “pancakes” meme often littered the front page of r/conspiratard, a fairly blunt indication of the degree of perversion festering within their ranks.
Whenever a topic on r/conspiracy arose that these shills were tasked with “debunking,” they would quickly swarm the relevant threads, often engaging in substantial and extremely aggressive abuse against specific users. While explicitly in violation of the user agreement, this type of coordinated harassment has historically been condoned and even encouraged by the reddit admins. There are countless cases of the admins outright ignoring extreme threats and other offenses if they originate from these “approved” digital henchmen.
Although they were aggressive, they were sloppy. If you were paying attention, you could find out which narratives were being systematically curated. For example, initially the complaints about Israel were simply not on my radar. It seemed to me that the tired “teh jews did it!” trope was almost always a a myopic misdirection.
But then I shared a thread about the USS Liberty incident, an event that was completely unknown to me at the time. The degree of vitriol and harassment hurled my way for simply posting about the 1967 tragedy that saw three dozen Americans murdered by Israel was beyond excessive and extremely thought-provoking. Not only that, the same accounts that would crucify you for questioning Monsanto seemed to be tasked with making sure no one discussed the USS Liberty and similar staged events. And those same accounts would flood your thread with “jet fuel can’t melt steel beams” if you tried to have an honest discussion about 9/11.
Eventually, they gave up on Monsanto when it was blisteringly obvious the “science” they were tasked to defend was actually genocidal. They also largely moved on from protecting Israel when it was no longer as politically expedient. And 9/11 was being memory-holed faster every day, so less effort was spent there. After all, an entire generation had emerged in its wake, and most have no idea just how bad that particular deception truly was.
Where did the shill energy go on reddit? It went almost entirely to prop up the next phase of social engineering. This was primarily centered around unquestioning devotion to Big Pharma and the vaccine industry.
By 2012 it was clear that the neocons were old news, and that neoliberalism was the new weapon du jour for the oligarchical sociopaths. I watched, stunned, as the so-called “leftists” that once denounced the illegal and immoral Iraq and Afghanistan wars did a clown-world-worthy about-face and ignored or even cheered on further US coups and coup attempts in Libya, Syria and elsewhere abroad.
While the Ron Paul movement was still present in 2012, I realized Obama would be chosen again. The sheer amount of pro-Obama propaganda littering the front page of reddit made it even more obvious. The effort to sway public opinion was relentless. It had begun to consume the digital landscape.
By the “re-election” of Obama, I was largely disinterested in politics. Instead, I was fully submerged in the most “fringe” conspiracies I could find. I preferred reading about high ancient civilizations and exotic technology like anti-gravity. I didn’t necessarily believe in all of this speculation but I sure loved talking about it. After all, the discussions they generated could be as informative as the linked information itself.
In December 2012, I composed a thread on r/conspiracy discussing the “occult” numerology used on 9/11 and how it could be used to predict the next major staged or “false flag” event. I had just read a book that focused on manipulated school shootings as false flags, with the author arguing that Christmastime of 2012 was a strong possibility for the next major staged event in the US.
Using what I was learning about numerology, I considered that the number “11” might be relevant to a potential 9/11 “ritual” and it wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect another false flag 11 years after 9/11, in 2012. I realize this might sound utterly fantastical to the vast majority of the population, but that’s just the kind of stuff we loved to speculate about on r/conspiracy.
Following the Christmas angle, I specifically chose December 14 as the day to write my warning. Within hours, the news of Sandy Hook broke, prompting me to proclaim, “I find it extremely unnerving that a sacrificial attack was carried out today in Connecticut, 11 days before this hypothetical Black Christmas.”
Just a coincidence? Probably. But one thing is clear: Sandy Hook was not orchestrated to “get our guns.” Sandy Hook was extreme state-sponsored terrorism and emotional manipulation, and a weaponized assault on the conspiracy theory and alternative research community. The saga of Alex Jones with respect to Sandy Hook speaks volumes. For many years all conspiracy theorists were equated with “Sandy Hook deniers” and the shill army on reddit responded accordingly.
Sandy Hook wasn’t my only “prediction.” I learned from r/occult that mid-April to May was an ancient pagan season of sacrifice by fire and that many false flags and other staged tragedies occur during this time. I used my developing pattern-recognition tactics on reddit to determine that a major event was being planned in April, 2013. As a result, I warned that a “fiery” false flag may be imminent. Two days later, the Boston Bombing occurred.
Years later, when I realized this season begins in earnest on April 15, I gave this warning on April 14, predicting an occult sacrifice by fire. The following day saw the near destruction of Notre Dame in Paris, one of the single most occult symbolism-ridden buildings ever constructed.
Early on, I noticed my account started to attract considerably more attention. Although I got a great deal of positive encouragement from r/conspiracy, I also began routinely receiving threats in my private messages, and the brigades against my account picked up in earnest. They started ranting and raving that we were even daring to mention topics like “numerology” and the occult...and on a conspiracy forum of all places!
Why not just let us be? Why not just let us talk about silly things like numbers on a fringe forum? Why did our wide-eyed speculation even matter to them? Ironically, if they’d just left us alone I might never have discovered their “sore” subjects, so to speak.
By 2013 I had established a well-earned reputation as one of the most prolific contributors of original content on r/conspiracy. I was optimistic, ambitious, and felt like the community I’d found was a true light in the otherwise dimming mainstream reddit rigamarole. As r/conspiracy steadily grew, so did the need for more mods.
I should briefly mention that the r/conspiracy mod team has understandably attracted a wide variety of colorful characters over the years. Many have come and gone as curious oddities, while others have been significant movers and shakers over the course of the forum’s history. Their story is for another time, and shouldn’t come from me. I can only share my own experience.
When it came time for nominations, I was delighted to receive enthusiastic and broad support as a strong favorite, and I was soon added to the team. Despite the reputation I would eventually develop, I feel like I was always viewed as a positive and constructive force on the sub, and I continued spending hours devoted to original content for r/conspiracy even after attaining moderator status.
I pledged not to let my new position interfere with my love of posting “high octane” speculation on the forum. Unfortunately, this was overly optimistic. The moment I became a mod, everything I said was used by the narrative managers as an “official” statement of r/conspiracy, despite the forum demonstrably consisting of a fantastically diverse range of opinions and ideas.
In one dramatic example, I created a “mega-thread” for r/conspiracy to discuss the bizarre MH370 disappearance in 2014. In addition to citing MSM sources (who, if you recall, had their own bizarre conspiracy theories about the incident), I also included, as an afterthought, some of the numerological patterns concerning the event, particularly the number 37.
I attributed no significance to these observations. Rather, I was including them in the megathread because it was yet another conspiratorial angle to the MH370 disappearance, and therefore was qualified to be included in the discussion. To my legitimate surprise, my words were first quoted by Time.com and CNN, and then broadcast on an episode of The Colbert Report on Comedy Central. I was mocked as a crazy “reddit conspiracy theorist” who apparently believed the numbers were “cosmically” chosen. Oh, really now? I don’t recall them ever asking.
I couldn’t help but feel bemused that Stephen Colbert had joked about me on national television for engaging in harmless speculation on a silly internet forum. Little did I know the event would foreshadow being called out in Congress in a much graver setting.
At this point, r/conspiracy was becoming large enough to warrant inviting guests for the well-known “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) Q&A sessions that are popular on mainstream reddit. I thought it would be fantastic to host AMAs specifically geared towards those with a conspiratorial bent. The opportunity would soon present itself after I shared some research I was conducting on the American inventor Thomas Townsend Brown, who had discovered and documented an unusual anti-gravitic force using electricity and magnets starting in the 1920’s.
The mystery of Brown’s work for the US Government and his travels around the world culminated in the 1950’s when the then publicly-touted anti-gravity experiments being run by multiple corporations and government agencies went irrevocably black, and to this day have yet to emerge.
A biographer of T. T. Brown, known for his previous work on the equally enigmatic inventor of television, Philo Farnsworth, had abandoned his manuscript and years of work in a dramatic and sudden way. Linda Brown, the only surviving daughter of T. T., believes her father’s biographer was “coerced” into giving up the project after so much time and energy had been invested.
Incredibly, Linda found the research I shared with r/conspiracy about her father. She reached out and we soon developed a budding friendship. It occurred to me that Linda would be the perfect candidate for an AMA, and she agreed. She also asked if I was interested in completing her father’s biography. Flattered, I respectfully declined, as my hands were full with reddit and life. Perhaps I’ll revisit T. T. Brown someday! Here’s Linda’s AMA.
After the success of our first official AMA, I realized the potential for r/conspiracy to give a voice to the marginalized. While the rest of reddit was degenerating into rehashed memes and propaganda, we fiercely maintained our independence and dedication to preserving our space as an open forum. Because our community remained committed to this cause, we were targeted by the rest of reddit, which refused to grant us our independence and insisted we join their obnoxiously redundant conformity.
It began to dawn on me that r/conspiracy’s greatest defense is semantic. It’s well known that there exists a decades-long effort to linguistically discredit uncomfortable truths and deviations from sanctioned narratives as being “conspiracy theories.” This effort is often traced back to the JFK assassination, and this indoctrination has been so effective that it literally warped the definition of the word “conspiracy” itself in the public consciousness. Now merely the word “conspiracy” evokes fanciful nonsense despite the glaring absence of the “theory” modifier to complete the phrase.
This is a type of “spell” (spelling) that’s been cast with language for ages. But over time even the most pernicious semantic spell starts to weaken. So too is the term “conspiracy” quickly reaching that point of semantic satiation. We live in a time when the “conspiracies” are practically writing themselves, and the continued monotonous attempts to dismiss all conspiracies as nonsense is becoming as comical as it is cacophonous.
That being said, throughout the 2010’s, r/conspiracy was consistently the only place on reddit were any theory could be discussed without too much concern of censorship or ridicule. Although we were increasingly ostracized by the rest of reddit, the admins tended to keep a decidedly hands-off approach when it came to managing content on our forum, and initially they rarely would intervene. It was as if the very stigma surrounding the word “conspiracy” gave us more freedom. They would simply dismiss everything we talked about as mere “conspiracy,” an attempt at slander that instead became almost beneficial.
However, coordinated attacks and harassment campaigns from outside r/conspiracy began to steadily increase. Veteran and “controversial” contributors on our forum were given the most negative attention. The harassment was so severe that it would ultimately cause many of our quality members to leave the site completely. The admins did nothing to prevent this documented, coordinated abuse, and they almost assuredly were contributing to it themselves.
Conversely, a new “abrasive” conspiracy theorist was born, and this one was usually aggressively fixated on a small handful of topics, which more often than not were red herrings. They would only appear to proselytize whenever their pet conspiracy was being discussed. For example, I noticed this behavior from a pattern of suspicious accounts concerning the “thermite” theory of 9/11, namely that industrial grade thermite was used to bring down the towers.
As with any disinfo operation, many well-meaning conspiracy theorists will undoubtedly get swept up in the fray, so not every account arguing for the thermite hypothesis was inorganic, but most were. When I discovered that the main proponent of thermite, Steven Jones, was instrumental in the cold fusion cover-up a decade earlier, my suspicions were confirmed.
Instead of exclusively debunking, the shills were increasingly pushing certain explanations for valid conspiracies that were either partially or completely untrue. In addition, if you didn’t agree with their interpretation of the narrative, you weren’t a “real” conspiracy theorist. We saw this phenomenon explode on a global scale with Russiagate. Before Russiagate, I was documenting the shill behavior and used my observations of their chatter and activity to predict events like Sandy Hook and the Boston Bombing. When I became a r/conspiracy mod, I then had access to many more metrics than regular users, and I used that to my advantage when scanning for patterns to predict future events.
Shortly after the success of our first AMA with Linda Brown, and right around when I was noticing that the thermite theory for 9/11 was largely inorganic, r/conspiracy hosted a notorious second AMA with Richard Gage, an engineer who embraces the thermite theory. When the perhaps unexpectedly educated and erudite members of r/conspiracy began holding Gage’s feet to the fire about the improbability of his theory, he abruptly abandoned the Q&A session. Gage would later claim the account was an “impostor” all along, despite considerable evidence to the contrary.
It stands to reason that if the thermite theory was an “officially” sanctioned misdirection, then r/conspiracy would be used to amplify the disinfo to confuse genuine conspiracy theorists and researchers. The Gage debacle also attempted to derail our nascent AMA program, but we continued undeterred and proceeded to be more discerning with our guests.
By 2016 there was a dramatic shift and uptick in shill activity. This was directly correlated with the infamous “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory surrounding the Podesta emails that leaked in March of that year. This shift was mostly with respect to any discussion of elite pedophilia and global child trafficking rings. Before pizzagate, these threads were generally left unperturbed by the narrative managers. It was still too unbelievable in the public’s eye for our discussions to be considered worthy of derailment. In truth, they were considered “fringe” even by most conspiracy theorists.
But with pizzagate breaking into the mainstream, the shill army descended. One arm attacked any user who dared post about pizzagate, and the other inorganically pushed every insane interpretation of pizzagate imaginable to discredit the very valid discussion of global pedophilia and human trafficking rings.
By the end of 2016, the activity I was observing led me to prepare for a Trump upset, but even I was surprised to see it actually materialize. I had initially considered Trump to be a “fall guy” to ensure a Hillary Clinton victory, but the immediate and categorical descent into madness I witnessed as a result of his election was stunning to behold.
The world was flipped on its head when Trump became POTUS. The conspiracy theorists became the true skeptics, while the narrative consumers and the MSM became wide-eyed conspiracy theorists. As of 2021, these roles have yet to revert back. Every single conspiracy theorist began to be lambasted as “Russian agents.” This schizophrenic episode descended practically overnight in a stunningly coordinated fashion.
The traditional conspiracy theorists were being expected to believe the Steele Dossier and similar delusions verbatim. After all, we were conspiracy theorists, right? Aren’t we supposed to believe in all conspiracy theories? Hundreds of thousands of users on our forum were immediately cast as Trump supporters and/or Putin puppets for merely expressing skepticism that the historically corrupt MSM just might be unanimously propagating the same propaganda as before.
And yet, Trump bombed Syria over a literal false flag and the same cancerous MSM lauded him as “presidential” in a surreal moment of rare transparency. I repeatedly criticized Trump for playing the buffoon. While the media erupted in masturbatory ecstasy at the revenue and relevancy generated by his crass irregularities, the criminal US military and corporate juggernaut appeared to churn on, largely unabated.
Despite my regular vocal condemnation of Trump for playing the fool while he continued to drone strike innocent human beings, I started to notice that the narrative managers were at it again: “the r/conspiracy forum has been commandeered by Trump/Putin spies!” The same accounts that had engaged in sustained abuse of our community for years began claiming that we posed a legitimate existential threat. Go figure.
Since the neocons had largely been abandoned for the neolibs as the preferred mechanism of control, they needed to appeal to this woke new breed of malleable minds. The “conspiratard” forum at this point had rebranded itself as “topmindsofreddit” (TMOR), a reference to the “top men” tasked to investigate the Ark of the Covenant in Indiana Jones lore.
Despite having a comparably low number of subscribers, r/topmindsofreddit was routinely featured on the front page of r/all (the most publicly visible and coveted spot on reddit). The vast majority of content featured on TMOR was specifically from the r/conspiracy sub, but they also targeted any forum that didn’t espouse an anti-Trump or far-left political paradigm.
Because reddit was quickly devolving into a self-congratulatory echo chamber, communities like TMOR really took off. They target any user, comment or thread they deem unsavory. They also directly link this “offending” content to their sub, and the same circle jerk cycle churns on with malevolent regularity. Although reddit has traditionally discouraged and disallowed communities from actively linking and participating in threads on other subs, when directed at r/conspiracy and other “inconvenient” spaces this behavior is encouraged and rewarded by the hivemind.
Although I started receiving threats before even becoming a r/conspiracy mod back when I was butting heads with the Monsanto bullies, the volume and severity of this rhetoric that I received in the aftermath of “Russiagate” was simply off the charts. At the height of the Russiagate furor it wasn’t uncommon for me to be sent up to a dozen threats per day, if not more. These came in the form of private messages, custom reports on my threads, and calls for doxxing and violence directed at me on other subreddits like TMOR.
I reported much of this filth to the admins, especially the death threats, but action was rarely taken against the offending accounts. It wasn’t uncommon for the users I reported to receive a brief 3-day suspension, only for them to get right back at it when they returned. It was more common for no action to be taken at all. Threads from many of these narrative management subs that linked to my content would even occasionally reach the front page of reddit. Each time this happened, it would result in more of this behavior. The admins repeatedly allowed this cycle to perpetuate.
The admins couldn’t ban us. The only thing we were doing “wrong” was doubting insane MSM conspiracy theories like Russiagate. So they opted to harass us until we quit. Needless to say, I continued sharing conspiracies and moderating the forum with even more zeal. After all, I had taught myself how to spot disinfo campaigns by observing the patterns on r/conspiracy.
Russiagate was as blatant a psyop as I had yet seen. As with most effective psyops, “Russiagate” undoubtedly contained kernels of truth. The Russian government is not a benevolent actor by any stretch of the imagination. But the vast majority of this phobia was pure nonsense, and the trained conspiracy theorist recognized this immediately. I started spending so much time trying to explain that questioning Russiagate didn’t make you a Trump supporter that I began to think making us waste our breath on this fallacy was part of the plan.
The effect made by pizzagate was somewhat analogous. Although conspiracy theorists had been attempting to shed light on elite pedophilia for years, all of the sudden we became those silly “pizzagaters” for discussing valid topics like the Dutroux Affair, Jimmy Savile and Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein and his “Lolita Express” in particular were hot topics on r/conspiracy for years before the story blew up internationally.
With Russiagate, the conspiracy was aimed at the mainstream instead, while the conspiracy theorists were gaslit to the max with the same tired divisive political false dichotomy. It was baffling how firmly the propaganda had rooted itself. I lost track of the times I was told I was a Trump supporter only to have the conversation abandoned when I requested proof. The “proof” often given was that r/conspiracy was creating a “safe space” for Trump. In actuality, reddit had begun its systematic purge of anything remotely right of center.
Other than r/conspiracy, the one large sub that maintained its independence from the corporate homogenization of reddit was r/the_donald (T_D). T_D was so effective at maintaining its own echo chamber (which it undoubtedly was), that it exposed the hypocrisy of the rest of reddit by routinely reaching the front page of r/all. T_D demonstrated that there were other opinions about Trump that weren’t “orange man bad,” which at the time was the only one sanctioned by reddit.
To deal with these regular deviations from the narrative, the admins at first throttled, and then ultimately banned, T_D and its community of millions of users. It was becoming too powerful of a force. Many of them abandoned reddit completely. The rest of the “deplorables” were consolidated onto a handful of subs such as r/conservative and r/conspiracy. After all, It’s easier to censor and coordinate the harassment of just a couple forums.
Obviously, many of the “refugees” from the T_D ban found their way onto r/conspiracy, which further contributed to the collective tantrum of TMOR and the other narrative managers that r/conspiracy was subservient to Trump. In reality, we were welcoming them in not because of their political beliefs, but simply because they were silenced. Conspiracy theorists traditionally back those who are being censored. We would’ve extended the same welcome had the politics been completely reversed.
The r/conspiracy mod team was well known to consist of a wide range of political beliefs, and we historically have called out both political parties in the US and abroad. The only thing r/conspiracy was “guilty” of was not getting swept up by officially mandated conspiracy theories like Russiagate. Apparently, the same Mockingbird Media that spent decades denying every “inconvenient” conspiracy imaginable suddenly became experts on what constitutes a conspiracy theory worthy of discussion.
I watched in disturbed fascination as violent rhetoric against Trump and Trump supporters littered the front page of r/all. Whenever I had to clean up blatant rule-breaking content on r/conspiracy from brigades originating from elsewhere on reddit, it almost always was from violent and aggressive anti-Trump posters from subs like r/politics. Whenever we removed these personal attacks (clear violations of our rules), the r/conspiracy mods found ourselves being routinely excoriated as “defending” Trump, when we were just doing our job.
When the Nicholas Sandmann debacle hit, I realized that society had reached an horrific turning point. The brainwashed masses showed their true colors when they collectively called for the head of a minor for no tangible reason other than they were told to do so. I watched multiple calls for Sandmann’s beating and death go unmoderated across reddit. Even worse, I was attacked for removing this reprehensible content on my own forum. The degeneracy I witnessed in the 24 hours or so following that disgusting episode was beyond the pale.
I had spent years investigating credible proof of topics like elite pedophilia. I thought I’d seen it all. But the potentially disastrous repercussions I envisioned from the ease in which the state-sponsored two minutes of hate against Sandmann was implemented was an entirely new beast.
The reddit admins were allowing violent threats against a minor to proliferate, and it was up to the moderators of the conspiracy forum on their website to attempt to undo some of the damage. I had no allegiance to Trump and yet I was deeply sickened by this unhinged spectacle. The conspiratorial delusions were continuing in the mainstream media, and the public kept lapping it up at a prodigious rate.
Concomitant with the widespread condoning of violent rhetoric towards Trump and his supports, I noticed a profound uptick in similarly violent rhetoric towards any semblance of a skeptical conversation on vaccines. Having spent over a decade analyzing many tens of thousands of threads of r/conspiracy, I can say with full confidence that no subject elicits more backlash and more of a coordinated shill response than calling into question the vaccine narrative.
In fact, when I started delving into conspiracy theories in the mid-2000’s, the vaccine issue wasn’t even on my radar. I watched Alex Jones rant about vaccines and responded like most people when exposed to Jones: with baffled amusement. It wasn’t until I started receiving unprecedented backlash from the same coterie of shills that aggressively defended Monsanto and the like that I started to have my interest in vaccines piqued.
After all, I was well-versed at analyzing the reaction to certain themes as a gauge for their validity. Don’t get me wrong, this does not mean every topic that attracts “debunkers” must therefore be true, a contrarian viewpoint that’s logically unsound. But if you carefully review the style and method of the debunkers, it can often give you profound clues as to their motives and the overall veracity of the conspiracy theory in question.
The vaccine issue was the big one, and clearly not much has changed. I just happened to notice it earlier than most because the shills gave it away. In addition to continuing with my regular moderator duties, I spent more time and effort investigating the vaccine issue than any other subject. I produced two considerable mega-threads called the Skeptic’s Guide to Vaccines Parts 1 & 2.
I routinely updated r/conspiracy with my observations on the scope of pro-vaccine propaganda that was a daily occurrence for many years on reddit. I explained that this activity wasn’t only inorganic, but it was also increasing at a rate that left essentially all other propaganda efforts in the dust. Here’s one of my many pre-COVID warnings:
“The Pro-Vaccine Propaganda on Reddit Has Reached Unprecedented Levels: Blind, unquestioning subservience to the criminal Medical Cartel is a major aspect of their control grid, and complete trust in vaccines represents one of the pillars of this tyranny.”
It didn’t go unnoticed.
The pandemic narrative is integral to this propaganda effort, as it also amplifies the concerns of the conspiracy theorists themselves. We know they play god with pathogens. We’re aware that monkey “parts” had contaminated the polio vaccines for decades and there was a causal link between this disaster and the current soft tissue cancer epidemic. We know that this same pathogen, SV-40, is a co-carcinogen with asbestos which contaminated J&J baby powder for decades.
We know about the polio vaccine trials in Africa in the 1950’s where the “HIV” epidemic emerged soon after. We know that Bayer and other companies had dumped contaminated blood products resulting in the poisoning of tens of thousands worldwide and the jump-starting of the “AIDS” narrative.
We saw through the pathetic post-9/11 anthrax theater. We’re well-versed on the diseased happenings at Fort Detrick and Plum Island, and their plans for future “dark winters.” After all, the archaic ruling class requires an ever-evolving invisible “enemy” to maintain their ill-gotten hegemony. The phantom “terrorist” was the preferred boogeyman when the neocons were being used while the amorphous “virus” has become the go-to for the neolibs. Either way, they are merely different implementations of the same anti-human tyranny.
The unmatched propaganda effort towards vaccine compliance couldn’t simply be explained away by the machinations of a for-profit pharmaceutical industry, although that undoubtedly was a driving factor. The pro-vaccine propaganda on reddit was unparalleled, and this was on a website that had become a literal tool of propaganda amplification.
You don’t put that much effort into something on that scale to make sure a few Big Pharma conglomerates sell all their measles shots. You do it to condition the public for future events concerning vaccines and pandemics.
This plan started to come into disturbing focus when “ebola” and “zika” were briefly touted in the hysterical MSM news cycle. I had been following Jon Rappoport at the time, an investigative reporter who began his career unraveling the HIV/AIDS deception. Rappoport routinely called out “pandemics” as being attributable to other factors like environmental toxins, pollution, poisonous pharmaceuticals, and medical malpractice.
Very interesting. I read up on your thread and the other disasters that have happened in April.
The days don't line up exactly but the worst coal mining disaster in history happened 26 April 1942 (in China). Coal mines either burn or go boom.
If you're doing what I think you are going to do, God bless you man! Not many travel the road of the righteous but it is certainly a path towards a respectable position in the afterlife. I took some time to consider the challenges that you have and will likely face and I'm sure it will be a daunting task. Take it slow and consult with God in every decision that you make because they will be trying to trick you and throw stones in your path every step of the way as I'm certain you have already realized. I pray for you to keep up your strength so that you may recover with grace if you should ever stumble.
What if there is no afterlife and the kingdom of god you’re hoping to enter is within?
What if this physical incarnation is the real gift and you throw it away hoping for something better when this is over?
What if the ones who sew doubt are punished significantly harder than the ones who commit a sin of passion?
Life is a paradox. "The more you take the less you have." These words are true. "He who seeks his life shall lose it. He who gives his life (in the service of others) will find it." This is true whether there is an afterlife or not.
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
Kipling is referring to something unseen - something worth infinitely more than being "King of the World."
Thanks for sharing, this is an extremely interesting tale. I did a little digging into some of the Reddit links you posted along the way, and I was legitimately shocked even as a long time truth seeker myself. I knew the ratioing was a thing, because you see good examples all the time, even on platforms like Bitchute and Odysee get brigaded regularly now. To see a post that is only +2 rating… yet the top comment (by the OP, you) is -100… that’s one of the more blatant examples I’ve seen for sure. Anyway thanks again for sharing your story, I have been a pretty active member of the win network since it’s inception and I think I’ll be visiting this conspiracies page more regularly after discovering it.
sir, you are a machine.
i appreciate you. no homo.
Any way to you will use to survive in the big day like: when the current US government collapses, mass genocides and FEMA Camps start raging every square mile of a state, blue helmets start looking out for people in death lists to kill etc?
Maybe I am not u/axolotl_peyotl but I know the answer: answer that there is no miraculous recipe. If they will come for us - they will come. Maybe we will die.But for some of them also that will be their last mistake.What dead man would have to lose ? What dead man would have to lose ?
Some people think they may hide in forrest or so - but have you heard about Ruby Ridge ? In normal times it would be easier to hide in plain sight - but no when big government is getting more power. There would be no "US government collapse", "US government" would instead betray Americans and invite blue helmets (including Chinese occupants of course) if globalist are going to win.
"Dude, just don't think the government is coming to get you and the government won't come and get you"
They are not, they are preparing to abolish themselves. Go check Imperial France before the Illuminati (Yes you read the name of that Revolutionary group right) starts taking over completely or Tsarist Russia before the Communists start taking over. It's the exact same thing.
There is always a government even when it comes to a group of Somalian-esque Warlords or Nazis. However, I am more inclined into thinking that the UN will be coming on their own volition under the premise of crises happening in Crimea and Taiwan that are instigated by a far-right Dictatorship in the USA, a certain move to mobilize China and Russia completely. The goal of this is to reverse-psyop and deliberately throw up war efforts in favor of any occupation forces like Hitler, so you might be correct in a sense.
That's not abolishment.That's takeover and rebranding.
Thanks for taking the time to write this. Fascinating internet history right here. I wasn't on reddit in the early years, and even then had a couple of long periods of inactivity - there are interesting things here that I didn't know and it's good to have your perspective.
Give it 5 more years. You will be sent to a fun camp and never be heard of again or found dead in your house by bloody execution.
By fun I'm sure you mean FEMA
If you’re truly worried about people being raped, especially children, stop supporting the church and start investigating.
I have a theory that we will eventually come to realize about half of Reddit and twatter are bots. And that these sites control most of them. Your “advertising” dollars buy narrative managers and comments to build your chosen narrative.
One thing that I’m not certain of - does buying this digital reality manifest into a similar reality?
This was a thoughtful, well written thread Axo. I just wanted to drop a small comment to let you you know how much I, and assuredly this community, truly appreciate you and all that you do for us. Thank you❤️
That's really sweet. I'm really glad I could share this with you. This community means a great deal to me.
Wow this was a fantastic read and a nice history of what happened to reddit.
Thank you for taking the time to put this together. It is much appreciated.
This is a good post and illustrates a true account of the reality of censorship. Unfortunately, this account and others like it, will be swept away and forgotten as censors write this history out of existence.
As such, axolotl_peyotl, I urge you to compile these accounts into a book for future generations (to be disseminated on archive.org, published or whatever). Compiling your account for a single post is useful for today, but it will not survive the test of time and will soon be forgotten and replaced with whatever narrative the censors decide.
I went off grid to train/prepare for stage 2 of the scamdemic (schwab's "cyber pandemic"').
I might have missed this if it wasn't pinned.
Tagged for reading when I get home.
Wow. What an incredible read. Thank you for posting this.
I started browsing r/conspiracy before the 2016 election, not necessarily because I believed everything everyone posted, but because the sub had spirited debate and often posed great questions aimed at narratives that were just largely accepted. For some time I even bought into the idea that Trump was a plant. I still voted for him in 16 but the thought was on my mind. However, with the media’s rarely transparent praise when he acted in accordance to the neocons (ie his call to MOAB that base in Syria shortly after being elected) only to do an about-face immediately after and harpoon him on a daily basis did that opinion change.
I truly think Trump was an oddity, and after seeing the plandemic + election coup play out in real time, it makes me wonder if we even have free will in this country, let alone the rest of the world? If Trump truly was an oddity and not a plant, and he wasn’t “meant” to happen in 2016, how long has this actually been the case? How long have the people been largely unable to pick their president? Will a future Trump-like figure be a genuine win for the people, or will he/she be a deep state pick to give us a false sense of free will?
The idea of lack of free will extends beyond politics too. 2016-2020 saw a dramatic paradigm shift, with the tactics becoming more obvious and more public. It scares me to see how few people actually recognize it. If you question the narrative, you get cast out of society. Run against it and they ruin your family, fire you from your job. The true conspiracy theorists, the ones who take a nuanced approach to a question and consider the possibilities of something being a propaganda fueled lie, are lambasted as “neo nazis”, “fascists”, “racists”, other “-ists” and a plethora of other horrible labels that are simply just untrue (for most of us anyway).
There is now one narrative, the Sacred Narrative, and it is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. Question it and you die. The left and it’s deep state acolytes have created a digital God to keep people in line. Honestly it makes me wonder if the damage can ever be undone? The brigading, the disinfo, the make-everything-into-a-conspiracy-so-nothing-is-a-conspiracy movement… all of it? With technology so pervasive and social media at the bedrock of modern life, where do we even begin? Big tech can oust the sitting US President, the most powerful person in the world… supposedly. If it can happen to a world leader, and they face no consequences, this even a fight that can be won?
I believe that the end is coming sooner or later.
And I meant people literally being rounded up in Fema Camps or murdered by machete wielding conduct patrols for wrongthink or crimespeech, previously widely accessible technology such as video streaming and website creation being patented by the UN and Big Tech (converted into subsidiaries of the United Nations) and people will actually snitch you and get you killed when you show signs of "racism" or "insanity" (including God or Allah worship).
It is not difficult to see the promised end of all of us, and you do not need to be a prophet to see it.
Maybe,but even if we are unable to stop this we still can in such case take down so many bastards as possible with us.Better for those idiots they would not try to cause REAL storm they couldn't stop,or they will meet the consequences of their stupidity.
Very interesting thank you for the insight. 15 years is no small dip of time. I never got into reddit, and only ever briefly visited a page or two if a google search for something dragged me there looking for obscure info. But even keeping away I heard from other sources how it was being pushed left and that an echo chamber was forming. I try not to give it any traffic that I can and I’m waiting to see what the next iteration of that part of the web is going to be called.
I read your entire chain last night. It's a great history piece of the reddit propaganda over time. I didn't really get into reddit much until The_Donald became a thing. I also enjoyed the conspiracy subreddit as well but wasn't full blown red pilled at the time. Then they nuked The_Donald and conspiracy became my home. There was a thread that changed everything for me and it was the one that laid out Kennedy's speech about vaccines in NY: https://tgrule.com/2019/06/30/on-vaccines-big-pharma-fda-and-cdc-robert-kennedy-jr-transcript-from-may-2019-speech-in-ny/
Once I read that I became full blown red pilled. I was eventually banned from conspiracy for calling out shills and new accounts. I've been banned from so many subreddits and I can't even keep count, and I was temporarily banned from The Great Awakening here on win for calling out a post that was subtly trying to make the vaccine seem legitimate (they reinstated me after I posted about it here). There are so many different tactics of propaganda and it's so easy to spot, which is why I called it out notoriously, and subsequently got banned for doing so. When you are persuasive in red pilling others they find a way to silence you, and they did.
I broke this down into a few reading sessions. Thanks for putting it all together. Very well-written and interesting. Additionally I appreciate a veteran conspiracy theorist who sees the glass full, with your tidbit at the end there.
Wow... I started using reddit in 2011 or so when I was in high school. At that point used it for memes and r/nosleep. I'm sure I occasionally read r/conspiracies as well. All that was years before I followed any politics or had my antennas up for propaganda. I thought the most shocking parts of united states history and coverups were behind us... MK Ultra, JFK, 9/11, etc. Never would have imagined I would live to experience the weirdness and nonsense of this pandemic! What a time to be alive. Amazing to get your perspective on how things have escalated over the years, prior to when I started paying attention during the 2016 elections. I do hope you revisit TT Brown. I had never heard of him. Immediately brings to mind the tic tac ufo. fascinating.
The moderators of r/axolotl_peyotl have set this community to private. Only approved members can view and take part in its discussions.
That’s what I get when trying the links for the vaccine stuff on Reddit.
Hey man, thanks for the story. I was there, researching all those events over the last 15 years as well, just on different web sites, and I can corroborate these findings 99%, even the initial skepticism of Trump. I came to Reddit later but I did witness it's devolution
hey thanks for reading and for fighting for truth!!
Thank you very much for taking the time to write up such a detailed reflection.
I haven't given up hope on reddit, but experiences like yours remind us how problematic that platform can be.
It seems to me to be no coincidence that the Donald sub was banned and so many of their regulars migrated to r/conspiracy
At that point, what could you or any of the other mods do?
It was a shit tsunami, Randy, and that sub was stranded on shit beach.
I'm glad this alternative exists, thanks to those of you who created / run it.
Those wanting to thwart learning by discussion are everywhere, including here. I t is relentless and we (humanity) haven't yet developed the tools to make it difficult for them to do so.
Cannot find the article. Every time I click on it, just brings me back to this exact same post.
As a former, & current occasional lurker, on reddit, very curious about this one.
Had my reddit account for a dozen years, literally have wiped every single post & comment from my profile.
The "article" is literally here, in this thread. It's almost 15,000 words, buckle up!
Clicked on one of these links and found every post I ever deleted over the years....hundreds of them.
b.s.
Might just delete that account after this last Secret Santa.
No other Christmas present in my life so I have enjoyed it immensely. reddit is ending it after this year.
Got so sick of IMGUR circle jerk, cancelled that account after 9 years on there. Can't stand the leftism b.s. there!
/u/axolotl_peyotl/
PLEASE PIN THE LINK BELOW.
VERY IMPORTANT
MASSIVE CYBER ATTACK IMMINENT
THIS FRIDAY JULY 9, 2021
https://conspiracies.win/p/12jJUbjyvH/cybersecurity-framework-profile-/c/
TLDR: World Economic Forum (WEF) partnered with Bill Gates, Code Named Cyber Polygon.
the best way to handle a massive cyber attack, is to arrest bill gates ASAP
i want to read both parts 1 & 2 on the vaccinations but reddit has closed the forum those were posted in to "moderators only", and who knows who those people are so i ain't messaging them for admission.
are they anywhere else?
yes! on .win!
https://conspiracies.win/p/11ROC4yBZp/the-skeptics-guide-to-vaccines--/c/
https://conspiracies.win/p/11ROC4ySpA/the-skeptics-guide-to-vaccines--/c/
I dunno about all of this, but one thing you left out on the Donald being on the front page is they started maliciously gaming the systems. The mods started stickying posts getting everyone to vote for the post, then unstickying it and putting up another, rinse and repeat. They were getting 4-5K upvotes in a small amount of time and flooded r/all when it existed with Donald posts. It was coordinated, planned and called for by them.
Now, can you say in good faith that there should have been no repercussions for this? Forget the other shit. Whatever. Just this scenario, which you left out. It's well documented.
Holy shit, this is really what mental illness looks like. Axolotl is even more of a narcissistic egomaniac than ever before, it's almost unreal.
projection much
That was extremely well-written and actually inspired me to sign up for this site which I literally just did. I would honestly be tempted to steal this and pass it off as my own to break things down to friends except they know I cannot express my thoughts as clearly concisely and accurately as you have so theres no point. lol
Odd first comment on a new social media site for me as I generally don't kiss anyone's ass in my comments. But moving on from that part.....I am curious as to why this person is making these claims and looking at the log he provided, which I am not familiar with but i does give me some concern. I was banned on /r/conspiracy very early on in my reddit account and never got an explanation other than "trolling" which I honestly didn't even know what that was at the time lol. No further clarification and over the years I have messaged asking for reinstatement or explaination or something and never got a response. Still bugs me not knowing why, coulda just been a mistake. I ask this cause I do not wanted t get invested in this sub and get banned from commenting like in /r/conspiracy.
Anyhow TLDR: Can you provide some rebuttal or something for a person that is not familiar with you other than just reading this? Or maybe others will chime in and point me in the right direction.
Thank you so much and welcome!
There are no permanent bans being given out here. Several "TMOR" (top minds of reddit) regulars cycle through accounts on here, and we often will hand them temp bans when they get unruly.
This thread was linked by TMOR and they sent their minions so we responded accordingly.
I'm sorry this happened. I would hope this occurred before I became a /r/conspiracy mod, or at least I wasn't involved in that decision.
The only people that receive temp bans here are the ones who constantly and aggressively shit on the user base here, that's it.
You can count the # of users currently on temp bans here on one hand.
Hey, Thanks for the reply!
Not sure if it happened before or afer you, but at one point I did get one of the mods to respond and he was unfamiliar with why I was banned and said he would look into it with the other mods and get back to me. He seemed genuine but also seemed busy and that was the last I heard. For some reason I think it may have been you, but I don't know for sure. But wtf knows lol
That is good to hear about the bans. I am certainly not worried if that is the criteria. I am too old for that kinda silliness lol.
So far so good on the site! Thanks again for the response.
Take it easy
I did some digging in my reddit messages:
Hello,
I was banned a month or so ago for "trolling" no further explanation was given. I sent probably 3 messages to the mods and i did not get a response.
I believes it to be a mistake, cause i am not a troll, not very controversial basically a nobody.
Can this be fixed so i can come back? Or at least a response.
Thanks
permalinkreply [–]from axolotl_peyotl
[M] via /r/conspiracy sent 2 years ago
Hey there! Do you mind tracking down your original ban message and responding to that? Thanks!
It was you that tried to help!! lol
nice. the narrative is that I banned lots of peeps, but actually I unbanned many hundreds if they just asked nicely.
Yeah there seems to be a lot of misinformation out there about you. At least I hope it is lol. But from what I have seen so far and after talking to you my instinct tells me they are full of shit.
Let me guess, "This is Donald 2.0, where are the bigfoot stories, this sub used to be cool."
Comments like yours is reddit in a nutshell. QED
I see some of the trolls from Reddit come over here to harass people they have a grudge about.
Axolotl tried to keep alligators out of the swamp over there, and the alligators didn't like that.
Mods aren't kings.
Probably. The dude has a bad habit of banning people he disagrees with.
In point of fact, he just gave me a 7-day ban for this comment.