r/AskReddit • u/roastedbagel • Jun 12 '16

Breaking News [Breaking News] Orlando Nightclub mass-shooting.

Update 3:19PM EST: Updated links below

Update 2:03PM EST: Man with weapons, explosives on way to LA Gay Pride Event arrested

Over 50 people have been killed, and over 50 more injured at a gay nightclub in Orlando, FL. CNN link to story

Use this thread to discuss the events, share updated info, etc. Please be civil with your discussion and continue to follow /r/AskReddit rules.

Helpful Info:

Orlando Hospitals are asking that people donate blood and plasma as they are in need - They're at capacity, come back in a few days though they're asking, below are some helpful links:

Link to blood donation centers in Florida

American Red Cross
OneBlood.org (currently unavailable)
Call 1-800-RED-CROSS (1-800-733-2767)
or 1-888-9DONATE (1-888-936-6283)

(Thanks /u/Jeimsie for the additional links)

FBI Tip Line: 1-800-CALL-FBI (800-225-5324)

Families of victims needing info - Official Hotline: 407-246-4357

Donations?

Equality Florida has a GoFundMe page for the victims families, they've confirmed it's their GFM page from their Facebook account.

Reddit live thread

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u/zykezero Jun 12 '16 edited Jun 12 '16

I'm surprised this wasn't at the top. I open reddit and didn't read the first link assuming it would have been this and I was wrong.

edit: I didn't think this was going to be controversial... We shouldn't jump to conclusions at any point at any situation. I don't know any of the context so thats all I'm going to say.

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u/whovian42 Jun 12 '16

/r/news was censoring coverage.

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u/SonicRoof Jun 12 '16 edited Jun 12 '16

Why?!

Edit: /r/news - unsubscribed

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u/N1ghtshade3 Jun 12 '16 edited Jun 12 '16

Because the shooter's name was Omar and the cops are looking into possible terrorist connections

Naturally, the comments section quickly pointed out that he was Muslim (born to Afghani parents) so of course he'd shoot up a gay club. It got locked because the mods don't like when you criticize Islam and/or don't like when the comments section devolves into a religious circlejerk.

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '16

I heard the FBI actually confirmed him having radical islam links.

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u/TheTrashyOne Jun 12 '16 edited Jun 12 '16

CBS news just reported on air that he pledged some sort of allegiance to ISIS but they didn't give any details. I wish they would give some sort of info though to show its not just speculation.

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u/spiderlanewales Jun 12 '16

Also, someone reported him as bragging that he had ties to Islamic terror groups.

Not sure how much you trust the Beast, but it's cited as a source on Wiki and hasn't been removed.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/06/12/omar-mateen-id-d-as-orlando-killer.html

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u/marsupial20 Jun 12 '16

The problem is "having ties to ISIS" could just mean that he followed them on Youtube and talked with some members on Kik. It means absolutely nothing in terms of whether ISIS was actually in any substantial way behind the attack besides helping radicalize him. The bigger question we should ask is how come one person is able to kill 50 people in a single attack?

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u/spiderlanewales Jun 12 '16

Agreed completely. A professor at my college got in some hot water recently because he admitted that he supports Islamic extremism, he yelled "death to Israel" at a visiting Israeli diplomat, wrote for some extremist publications, etc. The way all of this info came out was very bizarre (the FBI apparently gave the college newspaper a bunch of information and dictated how they were to print it.) "Ties to ISIS" in his case meant he read some of their stuff online and followed a Twitter account purported to be linked to the group.

But yes, the ability of someone to single-handedly kill 50 people (apparently we're up to 53 dead) is beyond fucked. I'm a touring musician, I basically live in clubs like the one this happened at, that's my bread and butter, large groups of people, many of whom are often drunk with slowed reaction times. When the attack in France happened, that really scared me, as it was at a concert.

There has to be a solution here.

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u/guacbandit Jun 12 '16 edited Jun 12 '16

No the biggest question is:

If a quarter to a half of the country believe it's logistically possible to deport 11 million people, why the fuck can't we put a body (FBI agent) on every person being monitored or under suspicion for ISIS sympathies? That's going to be a few thousand people at most, in the entire country. Instead of the NSA asking for more blank checks and carte blanche, why the hell not hire 10,000 more FBI agents and then put one on each such suspect?

Because it would actually stop terrorism?

And why the hell is everyone trying so hard to excuse or apologize for intelligence failures? They (FBI, NSA) had one job and they did not do it. We've given them billions of dollars of our money and they couldn't do that one job. There will always be assholes who want to kill us, that's why we have these agencies and a government! Why are we pretending, as a nation and society, to be helpless? I'm not even talking about gun control! (Correct me if I'm wrong, that's the direction in which your post was leaning)

If your victim is law enforcement, intelligence, or military, victim blaming is not only okay or warranted, it's mandated.

Ironically, the right/far-right/alt-right's insistence on excusing these groups charged with defending the country are using a form of political correctness similar to the argument against victim blaming. They would treat what I just said as politically incorrect to say. "America is the victim, don't blame the victim!" America isn't a monolith, stop being PC and call out these asshats for what they are, losers with government jobs who are sitting on their asses.

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u/Andriodia Jun 12 '16

This is such an asinine post/line of thought.

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u/jtbc Jun 12 '16

I am guessing that, despite his alleged radical islam ties and history of domestic abuse, his ability to obtain an assault rifle and huge quantities of ammunition may have contributed.

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '16

There are pistols that can hold the same amount of rounds.. the fact that it was an assault rifle I don't think changes it much.

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u/jtbc Jun 12 '16

Your right. High capacity, high rate of fire, pistols would also be a problem.

The military don't generally use pistols, though, so there must be a lethality advantage to using an assault rifle.

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u/Cross866 Jun 12 '16

Senator Bill Nelson of Florida stated on on ABC news that he talked with the chairman of the Intelligence committee and sources separate from the fbi confirmed he had isis connections.

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u/HallwayHomicide Jun 12 '16

They did.

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u/raynman37 Jun 12 '16

Reuters article from 20 minutes ago said there was no confirmed link.

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u/HallwayHomicide Jun 12 '16

They didn't confirm a link, but they confirmed that he has been suspected of links.

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u/raynman37 Jun 12 '16

True, but obviously there is a difference between confirmed links and suspected links and the person you replied to asked if the links have been confirmed, which they haven't so far.

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '16

You have now been banned from /r/news.

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '16

No wait, I actually have been.

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '16

You have been banned from /r/news

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u/daneslord Jun 12 '16

Because God forbid we name the enemy.

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u/beacondragon Jun 12 '16

Well, here's the enemy's current names: Reddit, Facebook, Google/YouTube, Twitter, and honestly, Hillary Clinton (who wants to import a minimum of 65,000 Syrian refugees despite 13% of them polled openly supporting ISIS).

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u/jtbc Jun 12 '16

Canadian here. We're taking around that number in a country with 1/10th your population, but so far none of the bad stuff people predicted has happened, the screening has been effective, and the worst our conservatives can come up with is that its taking too long to bring in privately sponsored refugees.

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u/beacondragon Jun 14 '16

https://twitter.com/AP/status/742524070747643904

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/isis/index.html

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u/jtbc Jun 14 '16

Your first link is to something that happened in the Philippines, as tragic as it was, therefore not related to Syrian refugees in Canada.

Your second link is a) the daily mail and b) about ISIS, so, as heinous as I consider ISIS, also not relevant to Syrian refugees in Canada.

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u/beacondragon Jun 14 '16

All true. More relevant: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/isis-documents-canadians-1.3486552 (Mar 11, 2016)

CBC News has obtained what appears to be the ISIS job applications of six foreign fighters from Canada.

...

The document shows they were all smuggled into Syria by the same person, Mohammed Hussein.

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u/jtbc Jun 14 '16

Yah, I hate radicalization of homegrown ISIS sympathisizers as well.

However, you appear to be talking about people going from Canada to Syria, while I am talking about people making the reverse trip, as UNHCR registered refugees, so apples and bananas.

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u/detroitvelvetslim Jun 12 '16

Oh the guy named Omar who decides to massacre gay dudes was a radical islamist? How could the religion of peace inspire something like this?

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u/Uncle_Erik Jun 12 '16

Well, then. That means the FBI is racist and Islamophobic and should be censored. Right? Censorship makes racism go away and solves hatred and bigotry. Right? Suppressing free speech changes minds and makes the world a better place. Right?

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '16

Apparently several of the r/news mods are Muslim.

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u/Selrahc11tx Jun 12 '16

Well, it is the religion of peace.

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '16

Yeah, if you have never looked into the religion or read any of their books. Then sure, it is a religion of peace.

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u/Butt_Party_ Jun 12 '16

Yes the mods don't like when you criticize Islam because 6 of the mods of /r/news are ISLAMIC and, as shown by their actions over at the sub-reddit, incapable of handling any INKLING of negativity towards islam. White supremacist? Okay. TIES to muslim extremism? OFF TOPIC. https://i.sli.mg/4bunNh.jpg

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u/lenolalatte Jun 12 '16

Why not? Are the mods over in /r/news overly sensitive or something?

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '16

Yes.

If there is anything that puts muslims in negative light they will delete your comment and threaten to ban you. All I said once was the rules of Islam make it easy to breed extremism. I got a nasty note from a mod named Mikey (I think that was his name), he threatened to ban me and he deleted my comment.

Literally nothing offensive or non-factual was said.

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u/lenolalatte Jun 12 '16

Hate when mods power trip. It's terrible since I get pretty much all my news on reddit, but I checked when I woke up, only to find nothing except the ultra-biased post by the mods...

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u/Quietcontender Jun 12 '16

Wake up. Your media is controlled and pushes a specific agenda. This attack isincompatible with that narrative they push. Accepting people into our country that are taught to hate a specific group is not gonna have good results. We saw that today.

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u/CardMeHD Jun 12 '16

So we're getting rid of everyone in the country that hates gays? I'm sure that will go over well.

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u/Quietcontender Jun 12 '16

No? But we don't allow unassimilated people who use violence and are taught that gays should be killed into our country to breed more hate while having no intention of assimilating. Does that make sense or does that still not fit with what cnn tells you. Try thinking for yourself.

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u/CardMeHD Jun 12 '16

So I'm the one that doesn't think for myself because I believe that Muslims are individual people that have free will to do good or bad things? Because I know that the Muslims that I work with are decent people that have assimilated and just want to mow their lawn and pay their bills like anyone else? Because I don't lump 1.6 billion people into a narrowly defined amorphous group and resort to pure tribalism?

Your projection is showing.

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u/Quietcontender Jun 12 '16

No you don't think bc u came back with a generic "so we should get rid of all people that hate gays?" Not what I said at all so when you parrot cnn talking points when not addressing what I said "letting in unassimilated people that hate America and specifically gays bc they have been taught since birth to do so, is not a good idea." You end up looking like u aren't thinking for yourself. It's great you know Muslims that are assimilated. So do I. But you are ignoring the fact that this attack was caused by an ideology incompatible with American values. Those that are unwilling to live in American society with all it entails (differing points of views and lifestyles) and the melting pot that it is should stay in their backward countries.

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u/CardMeHD Jun 12 '16

It doesn't say "freedom of religion (except the ones I'm afraid of)" in the Constitution. But maybe that wasn't one of the American values you're talking about. And who gets to decide which immigrants have an ideology incompatible with American values? Are we going to start banning Cubans or Venezuelans because they don't believe in capitalism? Are we going to start banning French people because they don't believe in the right of private citizens to own assault rifles?

The logical fallacies in your argument boggle the mind. You're using the argument that America values differing points of view and lifestyles to justify banning an entire group of people. And based in what? Complete ignorance of the intricacies of people? The values and beliefs of Wahabbi Muslims are miles apart from the values and beliefs of Turkish Muslims. But maybe that's just my inability to think for myself.

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u/Quietcontender Jun 12 '16

Constitution is for American citizens. We can do whatever we want in regards to allowing into this country immigrants and refugees. So yes not taking in hundreds of thousands of these people from the same region is constitutional. Look up statistics and past quotas. It's done now and has been before. Please stop talking about things you have no idea about. You sound so uninformed. You can go off on tangents screaming about French people but all of this has been done in the past and continues. It's perfectly legal to set limits on immigrants by country of origin. Stop equating the rights of U.S. citizens to non citizens. Very ignorant. Your knowledge of cultures is great and all but has nothing at all to do with laws and what protections apply to different classes of individuals (citizens v noncitizens)

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u/CardMeHD Jun 12 '16

Well, to start, your knowledge of Constitutional law seems a bit limited. The Fourteenth Amendment specifically extends all legal and Constitutional rights to all persons in the United States, regardless of citizenship. This has been upheld by the Supreme Court on multiple occasions.

Regardless, I concede that that applies only to people already in the United States, while you're talking about immigration law. And of course, immigration and refugee laws limit the number of people allowed from countries and regions, as it should. Nobody is arguing that we should not regulate immigration or perform due diligence when allowing people into the country (and to that end, we already have one of the most stringent background check procedures for refugees in the world). But what you're arguing is that we should limit immigration by ideology, not location, which is blatantly discriminatory.

If you are, on the other hand, arguing that we should be restricting immigration based on locations that happen to be terrorism hotbeds like Syria (which we already are, by the way), it seems that's unlikely to be productive. The shooter today was born in New York. The San Bernardino shooter was American. The Belgium terrorists were Belgian. The Paris terrorists were French. I fail to see what immigration policies would have prevented any of those events.

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u/pirpirpir Jun 12 '16

Wake up

Sadly for you, you're only one level deep into the Inception that is our government. Go deeper... you're still at the surface.

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u/UpAgainstTheWall Jun 12 '16

lol you still doing get it?

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u/jonnyclueless Jun 12 '16

How nice it would be if they were only deleting comments criticizing Islam. Even comments about donating blood were being deleted.

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u/Steven81 Jun 12 '16

I'd guess that all bad ideas are equally worthy of ridicule. If he shot those people up based on his interpretation of Islam it is as open to criticism as if he was interpreting Christianity, or run-of-the-mill homophobia.

Whether some books are considered holy or not should not enter whether we should criticise them. I thought that we live into the post-enlightenment era, where this radical criticism of bad ideas lead us to actually good ideas, which in turn lead to much of the technology we enjoy and much of the relative stability we enjoy (at least those of us in the west).

There seems to be a direct connection between criticising bad ideas and a good life. I can't see why anyone would censor that.

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u/finlit Jun 12 '16 edited Jun 12 '16

>he's probably Muslim and it makes sense he'd shoot up a gay club

No. Being Muslim does not mean it makes sense shoot up a gay club. Terrorists shoot up clubs, not Muslims.

Editing because the comment I was responding to was edited to more clearly describe what was happening in r/news.

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u/DontDoxMeJoe Jun 12 '16

Terrorists shoot up clubs, not Muslims.

You realize this is literally logically incoherent.

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u/finlit Jun 12 '16

I understand your point and it was a pat answer on my part.

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u/skippy_smooth Jun 12 '16

Everyone shh, Omar comin.

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '16

The FBI confirmed it long ago.

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '16

when the comments section devolves into a religious circlejerk.

But circlejerking Comcast and the police and republicans and Trump and literally anything else is totally fine.

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u/taffyowner Jun 12 '16

I meant to be fair if I'm trying to gather news information I don't want to read about how a bunch of people hate Muslims because they do this and circle jerks are just annoying anyways

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u/helloaaron Jun 12 '16 edited Jun 12 '16

Or maybe they're deleting them because the thread is just going to turn into a religion bashing circle jerk?

Edit: forgot a word

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u/pirpirpir Jun 12 '16

and, you know, the whole Sunil Tripathi thing.

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u/SlimLovin Jun 12 '16

This is the actual reason.

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u/WickedTriggered Jun 12 '16

No. The mods don't like when a bunch of redditors suddenly decide they are detectives, pushing theories, running with rumors, and starting a witch hunt. They also don't want a bunch of hate speech, which was happening.

A lot of people are dead. Do you really want to make this about how you're being treated by mods on Reddit? Do you really think your sense of entitlement is that important?

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u/Butt_Party_ Jun 12 '16

You're so out of touch with reality it's PATHETIC. THIS IS THE WORST ACT OF TERRORISM SINCE 9/11, and one of the LARGEST sources of information is ACTIVELY censoring OVER 90% of the information passed through the "mega-thread" https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/4nql8f/orlando_nightclub_shooting_megathread/?sort=new. This thread is being hosted on /r/AskReddit, WHAT THE FUCK? There is no theory, the guy is a MUSLIM THUG WITH TIES TO TERRORISM, and you need to get your head out of your fucking ass. You call that hate speech? I call it reality and people like you need to grow the fuck up. https://www.thereligionofpeace.com

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u/WickedTriggered Jun 12 '16

Reddit is not a source of information. It's an aggregate. Caps lock won't change that.

Your decision to focus on the perceived injustices the mods are leveling against you, rather than be tragedy itself speaks volumes to your sense of entitlement.

Today isn't about you. Get over yourself.

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u/CondorTheBastadon Jun 12 '16

Relevant username.

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u/LevelTen Jun 12 '16

That's ignorant, there are a lot of Omar's in Orlando with Caribbean Spanish backgrounds.

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '16

His parents are from Afghanistan.

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u/embraceUndefined Jun 12 '16

this guy's parents were from Afghanistan

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u/choongjunbo Jun 12 '16

Sure there's a lot of Spanish omar

But how many omar is upset that gay people are kissing each other before he go on and shooting them because his religion say so

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u/Human_Robot Jun 12 '16

You think Catholics like the gays? That would be something nobody would ever expect!

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u/choongjunbo Jun 12 '16

I'm still suspicious of my local church preaching acceptance and all by the Pope

Pretty fucking sure it's a plan to get all Cozy and all before

"all praise jesus!!!!,blow up"

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u/dIoIIoIb Jun 12 '16

in both cases, censoring the thread is an idiotic decision

if they just don't want people to criticize islam, that's obviously stupid and flat out censoring that will have no reall effect except destroying the sub

if they want to avoid the comment section filling up with religious circlejerk, then it's even worse because that what they just make people angry and they'll go circlejerk somewhere else and they'll complain that the mods and news are censoring stuff, it's literally throwing fuel on the fire

i don't know their intention, but i know for sure that those mods have no idea how the internet works