[https://www.wsj.com/tech/why-the-new-effort-to-ban-tiktok-caught-fire-with-lawmakers-7cd3f980](https://www.wsj.com/tech/why-the-new-effort-to-ban-tiktok-caught-fire-with-lawmakers-7cd3f980)?
* After the legislation passed, Senator Mitt Romney publicly connected its overwhelming support to the amount of Palestinian content on TikTok. He said people wondering why Congress strongly supported shutting down TikTok should look at the disproportionately high number of Palestinian mentions on the platform. [https://2021-2025.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-at-mccain-institutes-2024-sedona-forum-keynote-conversation-with-senator-mitt-romney/?safe=1](https://2021-2025.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-at-mccain-institutes-2024-sedona-forum-keynote-conversation-with-senator-mitt-romney/?safe=1)
So, how can we talk about Zionist influence in the media without as Contrapoints says, "swinging too far the other way"
https://redd.it/1uwpbgd
@r_ContraPoints
An interesting question from a Contrapoints interview
From the Bad Faith Podcast: (I cleaned up the transcript). In the clip, Natalie just finished describing how she thinks Tucker Carlson is going to move from his current anti-genocide rhetoric into antisemetic conspriacies.
https://youtu.be/mcter7NYMNM?si=FEm0EtxdPns96QvH&t=7408
>Brianna:
>I would I want to be clear, my disagreement is not that there's not risk about where Tucker is going to take this, but that if we start saying, "Oh my god, every time someone talks about Zionist media influence, that's Elder of Zion stuff." Well, then the only person who's going to be taken seriously, the only person who's going to talk about the true thing of Zionist media influence is going to be Tucker Carlson. And when he goes and takes it, if if he goes and takes it in a genuinely anti-Semitic direction, then everyone's going to go with him. So, what I'm saying is we have to be able to talk about Zionists are buying up the media to shut down people's support of Palestine. This is an explicit discussion that was had by people like Jonathan Greenblatt and the TikTok purchasing battles, right? This is happening and if we are willing to talk about that happening, then of course the only people who are going to talk about it are people who could weaponize it to bad ends.
>Contrapoints:
I accept the criticism that is that it is important not to overreact as someone coming from my position about anti-semitism accusations because the excessive anti-semitism accusations to shut down any criticism of Israel has given I think many people a fatigue when it comes to even discussing the concept of anti-semitism at all.
>Brianna:
>Because they're used to they they've become grown accustomed to it being used in this disingenuous way. This is how it's often used in is Israeli media to to describe any any opposition to anything that Israel does whatsoever is characterized as anti-semitism.
>Contrapoints:
>Yeah. So, I think that's a real problem, but the pendulum can in fact swing too far the other way. And I feel like I've seen that already happening in certain areas. I think that I'm I'm unable to suppress my knowledge about who Tucker Carlson is as a person and like what his the types of agendas that's tended to attach to. I do not trust him to be a voice for anti-Zionism that does not devolve into some kind of neo-Nazi nonsense.
Contrapoints is obviously correct about who Tucker Carlson is. But she did not address the point that Brianna talked about "Zionists buying up the media to shut down people's support of Palestine".
One side claims that such statements are anti-semetic conspiracies. From the ADL:
>Soon after the news broke about the House passage, influencers and extremists from across the political spectrum began framing the bill as an outright ban and speculating that the bill is a product of Jewish or Zionist influence, calling it an effort to infringe on free speech by limiting the reach of pro-Palestinian content. Conspiratorial claims about Jewish influence in the media are nothing new, dating back to the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, one of the most notorious and egregious antisemitic texts of the early 20th century
On the other hand, at least on the topic of the TikTok ban , what Brianna says is straight-forwardly true?
In November 2023, Senator Josh Hawley explicitly renewed his push to ban TikTok because of what he described as an increase in “anti-Israel, pro-Hamas content.” That wording comes from his own Senate office. [https://www.hawley.senate.gov/hawley-renews-effort-ban-tiktok-following-rise-pro-hamas-content](https://www.hawley.senate.gov/hawley-renews-effort-ban-tiktok-following-rise-pro-hamas-content)
The Wall Street Journal reported in March 2024 that the renewed legislative push gained momentum after lawmakers alleged TikTok was favouring pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel material.
Video on love
I was rewatching Envy recently and caught a line I previously passed over. Natalie was talking about MLK’s call for a balance between love and power, and the need for an emotional or spiritual value like love for humanity to counter our innate tendency for envy and retribution and keep humanity from snowballing into destruction (paraphrasing).
She then says “maybe I’ll do another video about love, when I’m in a better mood”.
This really struck a chord with me. In my professional life I do a lot of work at a fairly senior level trying to promote pro-social values and build coalition based on mutual understanding to prevent gender based violence .
I’ve often felt that the movement that I am part of sometimes focussed too much on the drivers of violence, and not enough on identifying and strengthening the drivers of love, respect and peace. The notion of power is also so closely associated with violence that power in our movement is commonly disavowed, which prevents love and power from being held together in balance and undermines our effectiveness in a range of ways.
It would be so amazing to hear Natalie’s deeper perspective on how the role of values like love for humanity (and perhaps other prosocial values) and embracing our own power (not just how much we are powerless) could help us work together and build something meaningful, rather than this constant fixation on “burning it all down”.
https://redd.it/1uvutd9
@r_ContraPoints
Biblically accurate odysseus
https://redd.it/1uu0jk3
@r_ContraPoints
nominating populism as a possible video or tangent topic
In light of Platner's rapid rise and fall, I'd like to nominate populism as a candidate for a video or tangent topic. I don't think any 'side' is immune to the drive for populism, nor is it an issue remotely limited to the US. Boris Johnson, Duterte, Modi, Meloni, Orbán, and Trump are obvious examples.
But lefties also long for a leftist with the charisma and following of Obama (even though he wasn't very left-wing by today's standards). Mamdani is an obvious example, but though he can't run for President, he may end up as kingmaker whose thumbs up/down determines who progressives will turn out for. But that too is limiting, because "charisma" (and him just being hot, obviously) aren't really trustworthy or scalable.
To be perfectly honest I distrust populism and the focus on charisma. Populism is all about vibes and enthusiasm and the feels, not about careful deliberation, vetting, or expertise. But this is the environment we have. If this is what the "kids today" want, then this is what we get, at least until they're my age and wondering where it all went wrong, just like everyone else finds themselves doing as they get older.
https://redd.it/1urmvp5
@r_ContraPoints
What's your favourite Contapoints video?
https://redd.it/1uqtxcv
@r_ContraPoints
Is the Patreon worth it? (Crying in BRL 😭)
Hey gorgs! 💖
I really wanna support Mother on Patreon, but I need y'all's honest opinion tbh. I earn in BRL (Brazilian Reais), which means the tier prices are literally 5x more expensive for me bc of the brutal exchange rate. 💀
I’d absolutely love to throw my money at Natalie and support her work, but I gotta know: are the exclusive content and Patreon perks worth the heavy investment rn? Do you guys feel like you get a lot out of it?
P.S.: I’ve binged her free vids multiple times and absolutely adore her. Just asking in good faith as a broke PhD student who really wants to support our queen!
https://redd.it/1up1912
@r_ContraPoints
Wrote a prose poem that’s a bit inspired by and exploring Cringe’s mentioning of narcissism in self loathing. Cringe is probably the video I think about most also largely tbh talked about how the internet hates disabled/mentally ill people
CW: extreme ableism, needles, and details about blood donation
DONATION
I think about this every time I let a syringe be inserted inside my left arm,
allowing a pint of myself to be rid of
and placed into a sterile bag
for someone else that needs it to maintain their corporeal self.
When I was 13, I wanted to try and accept this thing about me.
So I guess I wanted to learn more.
Ended up watching a video
of an autistic kid having a meltdown.
There was a comment venting about an unpleasant experience they had
with an autistic person they knew,
which made them conclude that
autistic people are animals and
their only use is organ donation.
It had a few likes.
I think about this all the time when I abstain from another tattoo,
trying to not go broke,
Attending The Financial Audit sermons,
When I keep my flesh barer for longer,
I also have more opportunities to give away a pint of myself more often.
My blood type’s B positive,
which seems ironic given at least some of my motives
that leave me penitent about my narcissism
even in self loathing
that’s never fully compelled me enough to not drink long enough
to fully become my apparent purpose in life.
Would I have been any kind of donor if I never read that comment?
https://redd.it/1uoga5y
@r_ContraPoints
Unlimited
https://redd.it/1unvgtw
@r_ContraPoints
Climate Change occasionally takes us in some wholly-unexpected directions
https://redd.it/1undydj
@r_ContraPoints
Can we talk about the fixation on Israel in this subreddit?
I know this is a little messed up of me, but I’ve reached the point where I check this subreddit out of a morbid curiosity to see how long I can scroll before another discussion about Israel, Palestine, Zionists, or Jews appears.
I keep hoping one day I’ll make it through more than a handful of posts before the topic comes up again. Instead, it seems to find its way into conversations that have little or nothing to do with ContraPoints or her work. As a Jew, I find that exhausting.
More than that, I find the disproportionate fixation unsettling. This is a subreddit for a trans intellectual YouTube creator not for geopolitical conflicts in a country the size of New Jersey. If geopolitics and human rights were truly the overriding purpose of this focus, we would discuss the world at large: the forced sterilization and mass detention of Uyghurs in China, the Russian abduction and rehoming of tens of thousands of Ukrainian children, the civil war in Sudan, the crisis in Myanmar, tensions over Taiwan, or countless other international conflicts. Instead, Israel repeatedly becomes the sole subject imported into conversations where it has little or no relevance.
The longer this goes on, the more I see antisemitic tropes and rhetoric rendered socially acceptable by replacing “Jew” with “Israel.” Whether people recognize it or not, ideas that would immediately be recognized as antisemitic when directed at Jews are often treated as acceptable once they’re reframed as being about Israel. That pattern is difficult not to notice.
People are free to criticize Israel. My concern isn’t criticism; it’s fixation. When a community with no inherent connection to Israel or Jews repeatedly circles back to them often in overwhelmingly negative ways it feels less like ordinary political discussion and more like an unhealthy obsession, and we have a term for that.
As a Jew - a member of a people comprising roughly 0.2% of the world’s population - the degree of hostility directed toward Israel today is staggering to experience. It is profoundly isolating to watch so many spaces, even ones that have nothing to do with Israel or Judaism, repeatedly return to Jews and the Jewish state as objects of exceptional scrutiny.
https://redd.it/1umyu1o
@r_ContraPoints
Heaven is a time today
https://redd.it/1ulcqb5
@r_ContraPoints
JK Rowling-esque videos that address the concerns™️ that people have around trans people.
I’m thinking of sending a family member JK Rowling to watch. Natalie does a great job of engaging with the motte and bailey ’concerns™️’ that ignorant cis people often have around trans people. I just wonder if it’s a bit outdated and if anyone knows any other videos that similarly handholds people into understanding trans people as not something that out to get women’s rights.
This family member would definitely not call themselves transphobic…idk if they are but they’re certainly uneducated, and have the concerns™️ over sports and women’s spaces, not in an intelligent or nuanced way, my view on these things as a trans fem person is complex and nuanced, but in a ’they are dangerous and putting women at risk and are ruining women’s achievements in sports’ way; the concerns™️ have entered mythology territory, trans people (well, trans women, this person forgets about trans men existing) are just viewed as an antagonist to women’s rights.
So if you know any videos that are good at explaining why trans people should (shocker) have rights, please suggest them. If in doubt, I’ll send this person JK Rowling to watch, I think it would still do an amazing job.
https://redd.it/1ukh8t1
@r_ContraPoints
Reading recommendations for feminist & queer theory of love (beyond romantic love)
Hi friends!
I am working on my Masters (community development & adult education) dissertation on the topic of love, specifically exploring what bell hook's proposed "schools for love" could maybe look like in practice.
I've been reading a lot of bell hooks and while I am a fan of her, I have found myself connecting a bit more with Erich Fromm and Thomas Merton's writings on the topic, but I am very keen on exploring more authors that aren't mid-century white western men, so I would really welcome any and all recommendations from more feminist and queer lineages (particularly non-Americans as I am not American and find myself increasingly exhasperated with American defaultism and cultural imperialism in academia) (Extra points also for non-Christian explorations of love too!)
I'm rewatching Twilight (aw shucks I guess I gotta rewatch it!) and looking through the works she referenced in the video, but as is expected with the topic, they tend more towards the Eros and romantic love and I'm hoping to explore love more in an Agape-adjacent transformative social force kind of way.
Thanks in advance for any recs!!
https://redd.it/1uixelq
@r_ContraPoints
An interesting question from a Contrapoints interview
From the Bad Faith Podcast: (I cleaned up the transcript). In the clip, Natalie just finished describing how she thinks Tucker Carlson is going to move from his current anti-genocide rhetoric into antisemetic conspriacies.
[https://youtu.be/mcter7NYMNM?si=FEm0EtxdPns96QvH&t=7408](https://youtu.be/mcter7NYMNM?si=FEm0EtxdPns96QvH&t=7408)
>**Brianna**:
>I would I want to be clear, my disagreement is not that there's not risk about where Tucker is going to take this, but that if we start saying, **"Oh my god, every time someone talks about Zionist media influence, that's Elder of Zion stuff." Well, then the only person who's going to be taken seriously, the only person who's going to talk about the true thing of Zionist media influence is going to be Tucker Carlson. And when he goes and takes it, if if he goes and takes it in a genuinely anti-Semitic direction, then everyone's going to go with him. So, what I'm saying is we have to be able to talk about Zionists are buying up the media to shut down people's support of Palestine. This is an explicit discussion that was had by people like Jonathan Greenblatt and the TikTok purchasing battles, right?** This is happening and if we are willing to talk about that happening, then of course the only people who are going to talk about it are people who could weaponize it to bad ends.
>**Contrapoints**:
I accept the criticism that is that it is important not to overreact as someone coming from my position about anti-semitism accusations because **the excessive anti-semitism accusations to shut down any criticism of Israel has given I think many people a fatigue when it comes to even discussing the concept of anti-semitism at all**.
>**Brianna:**
>Because they're used to they they've become grown accustomed to it being used in this disingenuous way. This is how it's often used in is Israeli media to to describe any any opposition to anything that Israel does whatsoever is characterized as anti-semitism.
>**Contrapoints:**
>Yeah. So, I think that's a real problem, but the pendulum can in fact swing too far the other way. And I feel like I've seen that already happening in certain areas. I think that I'm I'm unable to suppress my knowledge about who Tucker Carlson is as a person and like what his the types of agendas that's tended to attach to. I do not trust him to be a voice for anti-Zionism that does not devolve into some kind of neo-Nazi nonsense.
Contrapoints is obviously correct about who Tucker Carlson is. But she did not address the point that Brianna talked about "Zionists buying up the media to shut down people's support of Palestine".
One side claims that such statements are anti-semetic conspiracies. From the ADL:
>Soon after the news broke about the House passage, influencers and extremists from across the political spectrum began framing the bill as an outright ban and speculating that the bill is a product of Jewish or Zionist influence, calling it an effort to infringe on free speech by limiting the reach of pro-Palestinian content. Conspiratorial claims about Jewish influence in the media are [nothing new](https://antisemitism.adl.org/power/), dating back to the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, one of the most notorious and egregious antisemitic texts of the early 20th century
On the other hand, at least on the topic of the TikTok ban , what Brianna says is straight-forwardly true?
* In November 2023, Senator Josh Hawley explicitly renewed his push to ban TikTok because of what he described as an increase in “anti-Israel, pro-Hamas content.” That wording comes from his own Senate office. [https://www.hawley.senate.gov/hawley-renews-effort-ban-tiktok-following-rise-pro-hamas-content](https://www.hawley.senate.gov/hawley-renews-effort-ban-tiktok-following-rise-pro-hamas-content)
* The *Wall Street Journal* reported in March 2024 that the renewed legislative push gained momentum after lawmakers alleged TikTok was favouring pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel material.
Nightmare blunt rotation
https://redd.it/1uw1e1n
@r_ContraPoints
With movies ripe for D I S C O U R S E™ like "Obsession" and "The Odyssey" coming out, I just really wish Mother would post on Youtube so that a poor like me could enjoy her presence once again
Anyone else feel the same?
https://redd.it/1uuue5y
@r_ContraPoints
Odysseus is such a fucking Mary Sue
https://redd.it/1utn487
@r_ContraPoints
The Odyssey
https://redd.it/1us856c
@r_ContraPoints
Obsession
https://redd.it/1urjv3h
@r_ContraPoints
Who could've possibly foreseen this?? /s
https://redd.it/1upizxz
@r_ContraPoints
Why X is the platform of choice for political and commentators?
It seems counter intuitive unless you're a hard right conservative.
I'm not telling anyone what to do but I just want to be filled in.
https://redd.it/1uonk2f
@r_ContraPoints
Game Stream Wishlist
Hi everyone!
Many fans often suggest games for Natalie to play on stream, so I thought it would be nice to have a dedicated thread for suggestions here. (Not to mention, I’d love to get some recommendations myself!)
For my part, I think it would be cool to see Natalie stream some pixel-style games with a puzzle focus—something like The Last Door (Lovecraftian mystery), Darkside Detective (full of movie humor), or the Blackwell series (noir-ish ghost detective).
I've also always been curious what she'd think of The Last of Us. It's not such a long shot, since she's enjoyed Resident Evil and Silent Hill before.
I’d love to hear what everyone else has to recommend!
https://redd.it/1uo5pai
@r_ContraPoints
Can't a girl shitpost in peace
https://redd.it/1unsq4w
@r_ContraPoints
Now THAT is how you celebrate 4th of July
https://redd.it/1una6vc
@r_ContraPoints
What is Natalie working on these days?
I haven't had time to catch up with all the creators I follow so I might be a bit behind but what's the next tangent topic?
https://redd.it/1umqx0i
@r_ContraPoints
The Great Lubrication has begun
https://redd.it/1ul31ep
@r_ContraPoints
Soulpassing
https://redd.it/1uk9umx
@r_ContraPoints
Why is Contra Points so hated by leftists?
https://redd.it/1uiqa3k
@r_ContraPoints
