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Comment by pjc50 | Hacker News Reader

"Antifa" is more of a self applied label; you can certainly see antifa logos at demos.

The SWP are Trotskyist, in the sense of "March through the institutions". If you're doing anything left wing they will turn up and try to make it about them, take over organization positions, etc. The SWP are mostly your boring old lefty uncle, with a side of institutional rape apologia: https://www.gender-agenda.org.uk/not-my-comrades-on-dealing-... (this is not only their problem, it can happen in any organization that doesn't take active steps to avoid it)

I suppose the canary for partisan moderation should be Sinn Fein; they were banned from television in the 90s.

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Sinn Fein had literal terrorists as members and were proscribed by government. This is the exact opposite of what has been seen in relation to the deplatforming on social media sites.

Sinn Fein were never proscribed, they were the political wing of the Provisional IRA (which very-much was proscribed), but were never illegal themselves. This makes sense for both sides, to keep lines of communication open.

The UK Govt at one point passed legislation that meant Sinn Fein voices could not be broadcast. This was circumvented by having the words repeated exactly in sync with the vision by a voice actor.

You have to wonder if the current BBC would have the gumption to circumvent it.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988%E2%80%931994_British_br...

Gerry Adams claimed he was first arrested for selling the party newspaper. There was a strange, not illegal but harassed anyway, sort of relationship between Sinn Fein and the authorities.

I didn't mean to make a strong Antifa link, I just thought it's something non-Brits would understand as a point of comparison in terms of general activities rather than specific tactics or aggressiveness. e.g. SWP was heavily involved in the Ant-Nazi League in the 70s back when the National Front was more of a thing in the UK.

The SWP types I knew back in the 80s probably are your boring old lefty uncle these days. That's how out of date I am, although there were still excited young SWP activists pushing leaflets and selling the paper on Deptford High Street in the early 2000s. That's well before the rape crisis though.

Ironically SF were banned from the media in Ireland, but not in the UK. There was a ban that involved a specific wording that was construed to mean that recordings of their voices could not be played. So, IIRC video was played of their spokespeople with actors dubbing over their voices. EDIT: I see angry_octet supplied the same information below.

>>I suppose the canary for partisan moderation should be Sinn Fein; they were banned from television in the 90s.

Their elected MP's were also banned from travelling to Britain, effectively preventing them from taking their seats in Parliament. Not that they planned on doing that mind.

The people that hold the antifa flags are almost always the ones that also let of fireworks and start fires at protests.

Which is always fun, unless its your protest.

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