Oh dear. This world is going crazier by the day. I've been kicked from a forum where I had enjoyed chatting and commenting for 20 years for what? Using a point of reference that a group of people and moderators took offense to. Now here's what happened: the Forum belongs to a famous liberal US blog run by a couple of writers and artists and there was a post about Elvis. Now someone commented that Elvis was racist and I (as well as two others) replied that this was not the case and that BB King, for example, had strongly denied that allegation. Btw., Elvis was a special interest of mine as a kid, but that's old history.
So someone says: "Yeas but he's at least guilty of Cultural Appropriation", to which I replied that the cultural consequence of the thinking that implied that Cultural Appropriation was actually a thing wasn't far from the ***' ideal of 'every culture to itself' and therefore not helpful. So what happened was that somebody took offense and had my comment flagged and erased and when I came back and asked why they flagged my comment rather than to debate me on it, hell broke loose and I got cornered by 3 ladies (I think) and a moderator who started kicking, insulting and belittling me while all I kept asking was to have a civil, respectful discussion. They also kept giving each others "likes" while taking turns at delivering blows and flagging my comments, which got erased one by one.
When I finally cracked, I said that my head was about to explode at that point and I declared: "I'm sorry. I'm autistic and therefore, it happens that my remarks or comments seem blunt and detached and I'm happy to be corrected in such instances but being condescending or insulting does not help me understand anything". At that point, the insults doubled and I was actually shamed for being autistic with the words: "SHAME ON YOU. My brother is on the spectrum and he stands by his word but you ... (blablabla... I don't know. Couldn't read any further)", which to me sounded similar to an overtly racist person making the generic claim the he or she has "friends who are black (or Jewish or whatever...)". Then I got a private mail from the chief moderator who said that I obviously didn't match the quality of their forum and I should "move on".
Why did I attach so much importance to that? I live under extreme social anxiety and for most of my life, the Internet has become my window to the world. I'm an old geezer and I've tried living a social life, worked in a company for 10 year, different others for up to 3, etc. but in the end, the experience was rather painful and stressful, so I prefer to live at home as much as I can. at the same time, I actually am a social person and discussion forums on the Internet are a chance to find a point where I can have a social life while staying at home most of the time (I like and also have to go out sometime but I need long periods to recharge due to all the micro aggressions I have to deal with)
Well anyway, here it is: my experience with a liberal forum these days. I believe these guys are so paranoid at the moment, they must have mistaken me for some Alt-Right troll and then couldn't release their grip from that idea, specially once they had formed a mob and then: kicking an autistic person who is laying on the floor, and even shaming him for being what he is. The next day, I was still shaking. I had had nightmares about it the same night. I know I shouldn't attach so much importance to these forums (been bullied on 'friendly ground' before that) but they have become quite important to me, since every other attempt at a social life has failed.