Breitbart Tech Deputy Editor Allum Bokhari was invited to hold an AMA (ask me anything) session on the popular subreddit /r/The_Donald on Tuesday night, the biggest Trump supporting section of the notoriously liberal site.
Introducing himself as the “resident kebab at Breitbart Tech”, a reference to his Pakistani background, Bokhari promised to “not fly a plane” into the subreddit if the eager users asked him “nice questions.” And ask him they did.
Despite the subreddit’s reputation for pranks, many users asked serious questions about the state of the world today. User “moonlightsonataX” (all Redditors have weird usernames) asked how best to expose media bias in the Presidential race, particularly the mainstream’s refusal to address Hillary Clinton’s record of corruption.
Bokhari responded with a detailed analysis of how ordinary web users can fight media bias:
The MSM is on its way out. Information is no longer monopolized by elites. A shitposter on Twitter can, with a little effort, build up a larger audience than most weekly magazines. Milo’s Twitter account alone absolutely trounces many MSM outlets. There are too many avenues for ordinary people to get the truth out for the MSM’s suppression and spin to be effective anymore.
The biggest danger is if social media companies, who manage an increasing share of discussion on the web, go the way of MSM organization. That would be bad. But as we saw with Facebook’s trending news scandal, it’s difficult for them to get away with outright bias. They know that if they push users too far, the users will leave. And they’re worried about government regulation if they start behaving like old media companies. So, for this election at least, I don’t think it will be too difficult to expose Hillary’s corruption — or any other politician’s. You guys will be crucial — keep sharing information that the MSM doesn’t want people to see. Post it on Twitter. Post it on Facebook. Get it on the front of /r/all and make Spez cry.
User “bullshitisrampant” (all Redditors have usernames like that, trust us) asked Bokhari the best way to tell the difference between a “halal kebab and a haram kebab”, roughly translating to how to tell whether a person of Islamic background is a moderate or a radical.
Bokhari’s response:
I’m not sure there is a good way to tell. The most obvious would be to gauge how seriously they take their religion, but a lot of the people who end up as terrorists led lives of un-Islamic debauchery and/or crime before becoming ultra-religious zealots. Converts especially are sometimes the most radical. So I don’t think there really is a good way to tell.
More than one user brought up Brexit, and its implications. Bokhari’s opinion is that Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union could lead to a chain reaction:
I think it’s quite possible, yes. Not just because Eurosceptics across the country are surging, and will be even more enthused after Brexit, but because of the new political makeup in Europe. Britain was Germany’s number-one ally in Europe, and with us gone, power in the Council could shift to France. If you think Merkel was bad, wait until you see a French hegemony in Europe. Nations will be rushing for the exit door.
User “xenium94″ also compared the recent Brexit result to Trump’s presidential campaign, and asked if it boded well for the presumptive Republican nominee. Bokhari’s response highlighted that Brexit was “a major blow to globalists, and will energize Trump’s supporters.”
Bokhari also noted that Trump’s crucial voter base (current and former blue-collar workers in states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan) are the ones who are “most concerned about trade, and will be most enthused by the EU result.”
Bokhari has in the past described himself as a “liberal”, so user “trumpingbitches” asked Bokhari if they were any liberal arguments that weren’t just based on emotion or lies. Bokhari responded by saying “Liberalism is at its best when it’s championing the rights and freedoms of minorities against conservatives, if and when conservatives become too authoritarian.”
He went on to say that a new group of liberals are appearing online, such as Dave Rubin, who are “true to the classical tradition … they believe in opposing sexism, opposing racism, opposing intolerance just like other liberals claim to believe, but they’re also aware that radical Islam poses a far greater threat to women and minorities than Christian bakeries.”
Of course, this was a Reddit AMA, there were a few more light-hearted comments too. User Soundish needed to know if Bokhari thought that “meme magic had gone too far.” Bokhari’s reply was that “Kek [the Egyptian frog-god] will return to us, he will drive out the summerfriends, and make /b/ good again.” Unless you’re familiar with 4chan, it’s likely that you won’t understand any of that.
User “i_was_actually_phone” demanded that Bokhari instead fly a plane into /r/ShitRedditSays, a massively social justice oriented subreddit. Bokhari said such tactics would be ineffective, because “jet fuel may be able to melt steel beams, but hamplanets are considerably larger.”
Finally, user warmonger561 wondered the best way to get Hillary to actually attend a press conference. Bokhari’s ingenious idea was to set one up, but tell her it was actually “an email security class.”
Jack Hadfield is a student at the University of Warwick and a regular contributor to Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter here: @ToryBastard_.
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