/r/EnoughCommieSpam Rules:

Personally I think they are bullshitting but what do you guys think

I’m sure most of you have noticed that to an ever widening degree, our foreign adversaries and non state actors like Russia, China, Iran and their proxies have been waging a massive misinformation campaign across social media to manipulate US public opinion.

Please compile all evidence of this. In doing so we’ll be able to more effectively get the media to report on this and policy makers to act on it. It’s obviously not just tiktok. If you already have done so, please send it to me and additionally send it to every mainstream media site, including to your representatives.

If you have other ideas please share.

https://preview.redd.it/oawlu7wi6bzc1.png?width=1067&format=png&auto=webp&s=5650c25ac2865cdbb428f842aad29374efe02e71

What the hell just happened?

Around 3 days ago, in May 7th at evening (GMT+7 obviously), a majority of Vietnamese user in Steam has received an error on their store page as they were unable to access the store page. (Which is Steam's main section)

At first, one may though it was a possible server malfunction, but the very few investigations later found out that Steam has been IP blocked.

It is still possible to download, install and play any bought game and access to the other sectors just fine, but they can no longer access to the store section nor do buying any game anymore as all Vietnamese internet service provider has blocked Steam's IP.

There has been quite an outrage and freak out amongst Vietnamese gamer since then.

The ban? What? Why?

In accordance to some people's speculation, the sole reason why Steam is blocked is because Gabe Newell never paid any taxes to Vietnamese government. (Even though Steam has already been in taxation contract with a Vietnamese company through a 3rd party services)

Another speculated guesses is that Vietnamese game studios cannot compete against massive stream of foreign video games from Steam, and now they want to 'ban' it so that Vietnamese studio can have a chance to 'compete' and 'flourish'.

In accordance to very few people though, it is because Steam is the sole distributor of 'illegally ported games' that contains 'inappropriate contents' such as blood, gore, sexual contents, et cetera... And now the Vietnamese government are working to fight these 'illegally ported games', much like how China did before.

All of these speculations are based off on various response to the ban and as well as a state article where they tried discrediting steam 3 weeks ago. [1]

[1]: https://baoquangninh.vn/nen-tang-steam-phat-hanh-hon-100-000-game-khong-phep-vao-viet-nam-3295256.html - Title: Steam platform distributes over 100.000 unapproved games into Vietnam.

The response?

Since the banning of Steam, the Facebook page of VTC (And other state backed Vietnamese state studio) has received a massive backlash. Well, a nasty one also, as they receive constant insults and even threats to a point they have locked their comment section.

In addition, there are also discord amongst peoples on Vietnamese-used social media, as the supposed redbulls/IQ cow (Bò Đỏ) fight each others over the ban. The Vietnamese government has also tried to mobilize their internet task force (Ban Tuyên Giáo/Dư Luận Viên) to try diverting and justifying the problem by any means, but nothing can stop the wrath of gamers who have lost their bread after the IP ban.

On the aftermath, very few Vietnamese ISPs lifted the ban as a result of the outrage. (Even though not all ISPs has lifted it)

Unfortunately though, nothing much have really changed.

What will happen in the future?

Either way, Steam might goes back with few restrictions, or ISPs will eventually lift the ban from the continuous backlash.

But the worst situation is that Gabe Newell can ditch Vietnamese market and leave it in disarray, which would cause a deadly consequences to a handful of Vietnamese industry.

Related to the consequence, the Vietnamese government can also go as far as wanting a complete control of the whole populations by banning/restricting it at larger scale. But it will not stop at Steam: many other platforms will also face similar consequences, and any global websites, no matter its purposes, can become a next target for ban at any moment notice.

In the other side of the coin, some foreign websites has also been blocked from Vietnam such as Artstation, Medium and even website dedicated to help students like Studocu.

If my words come true, then that will also mean the very end of Vietnamese gaming industry.

Nobody would buy expensive hardware, as the banning of independent game platform made them as good as a paperweight.

The death of industry also means the breaking point for hardware selling industry as well.

The near absence of gaming industry means there would be no one who buy custom/expensive pre-built set to play high-end games.

Companies also won't made any profits from the cut-offs which would leads to layoff of many workers which also add more fuel to the already burning economy.

Video game streamers/reviewer would also be affected by it as well; If they can't catch up with the flow, they won't make a proper meals out of it.

And the rest goes by, but it is enough so I must stop for now.

The resolve?

Note: This is for those who can't still access the store.

For us Vietnamese, change the DNS your platforms settings, the link below will help you do so:
https://support.cyberghostvpn.com/hc/en-us/articles/10512734670620-Change-DNS-Settings-on-Windows

Using VPNs is also another way to bypass it, but I advise you not to buy video games while you are on a virtual IPs as you may face ban from Steam policy violations.

These are only temporary solutions for the current outrage by now, things may change in the future, for better or worse...

I honestly don’t understand ones like ADL, NPR and the Democrats.

Hey guys

Long story short, I am an Israeli, and a few years ago I have found out that I like fighting people on Reddit on the subject of am I allowed to live or not, and of course that since the war has that was ramped up 100 times more, and something I have noticed about Redditors is that, they are simply not unique.

From now and then there is a 'real' person (or at least, different enough from the herd), but most of the time, the people I talk to are a pretty consistent template, hardcore socialists/communists, they make the exact same argument, sometimes even the same text, their "debating" (or however you wanna call it) tactics are the same, which is, post a bad faith argument, and when countered either move the goalpost or make another bad faith argument,

The arguments also seem to repeat themselves quite exactly (I mean, there are a few routes a conversation can go, but it seems like that if the first argument is let's say the Nakba, in 2 different conversations, then the 2nd and 3rd and 4th arguments would be identical in both conversations, regardless of what refute I provide)

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So my question is are they all bots? or the average teenager today just lacks all sort of identity and ability to critically think beyond his identity politics?

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I've seen tankies connect "Global capitalism" to Israel and that never made that much sense outside an anti-Semitic context.