His refusal to condemn the other guy then looks suspicious.
This. I can’t stop someone from believing that “LW believes [a stupid thing]” even if I am totally convinced that LW does not believe any of that, but I can make a clear statement that “I do not believe [the stupid thing]”. And, who knows, if many people on LW make the same statement, maybe the person will update on the opinion that “LW believes [the stupid thing]”.
(Or we get the frustrating outcome when the person says “well, Viliam, good for you to not believe [the stupid thing] but I am still convinced that LW believes that”, in which case… well, at least I tried.)
But if someone refuses to take this step, and their approach is “well, I do not agree with X” in private, but at the same time they take great care to be never seen saying “X is wrong” publicly, then I believe I have a good reason to suspect them of defending one version of the belief publicly, and only falling back to another version privately when caught. (“Hey, my group totally does not believe X! That’s just a lie spread by our enemies!” “So, would you be willing to go to your group’s communication channel and post ‘by the way, X is false, obviously’?” “No, why would I do that?” And the next day someone else from the group posts “X” and this person will share the post on social networks.)
This. I can’t stop someone from believing that “LW believes [a stupid thing]” even if I am totally convinced that LW does not believe any of that, but I can make a clear statement that “I do not believe [the stupid thing]”. And, who knows, if many people on LW make the same statement, maybe the person will update on the opinion that “LW believes [the stupid thing]”.
(Or we get the frustrating outcome when the person says “well, Viliam, good for you to not believe [the stupid thing] but I am still convinced that LW believes that”, in which case… well, at least I tried.)
But if someone refuses to take this step, and their approach is “well, I do not agree with X” in private, but at the same time they take great care to be never seen saying “X is wrong” publicly, then I believe I have a good reason to suspect them of defending one version of the belief publicly, and only falling back to another version privately when caught. (“Hey, my group totally does not believe X! That’s just a lie spread by our enemies!” “So, would you be willing to go to your group’s communication channel and post ‘by the way, X is false, obviously’?” “No, why would I do that?” And the next day someone else from the group posts “X” and this person will share the post on social networks.)