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Last January, a New England woman was inspired to design a new beanie, commemorating the construction of President Donald Trumps planned US border wall. Her knitting pattern spelled out Build the Wall with a brick motif. Deplorable Knitter, as she calls herself, then posted the pattern on Ravelry, the internets largest collective of knitters and crocheters.

The response was vitriolic. Everyone was so angry about it, she says.

But Deplorable Knitter, whod previously just used the site to browse patterns, was fired up. When Trump announced he was running for reelection last June, she designed a Trump 2020 Keep America Great cowl. That one blew up, she says, describing threats and bullying that have forced her to remain anonymous. Her cowl pattern got flagged for hate speech, and on June 21, Deplorable Knitter was banned from Ravelry.

She was not alone. On June 23, the site banned support of Donald Trump and his administration. In a statement at the time, Ravelry said: We cannot provide a space that is inclusive of all and also allow support for open white supremacy. Support of the Trump administration is undeniably support for white supremacy.

The ban tore Ravelry apart, with opponents of the policy making a bitter exit while liberal supporters offered a flood of patterns featuring pride flags, donkeys, and anti-Trump phrases. It has also splintered the knitting world at large, with new, overtly political (and many right-wing) sites springing up to fill the gap.

But the infighting in one of the internet's most niche communities is about more than just politics and knitting. Its a glimpse of how otherwise ignored populationshere, predominantly older womenare using online platforms to organize and make their voices heard. And the Ravelry falling-out highlights questions other platforms, like Facebook and Twitter, have tiptoed around: What constitutes hate speech, and how should censorship work online?

A decade of pattern-sharing

Ravelry boasts about 8.5 million registered users. Half a million of these are considered active, and there are 40,000 subgroups. The site is pretty ugly: its tab structure, font, and blocky formatting recall an earlier, simpler time on the internet when chat rooms reigned. It hasnt updated its design since it launched in 2007.

The site originally started as a platform for knitters and crocheters to share their works in progress, swapping tips and selling patterns. Soon groups formed around other common interests. Some were silly; others focused on things certain users had in common, like being from a similar region or being a fan of a cult TV show. The most volatile and active groups, however, were political.

Unsplash: John Cameron

For some, the politicization of knitting groups started in earnest with the Womens March in 2017. Thousands of women knitted pussy hats to protest the grab em by the pussy comment the president was revealed to have made in 2005. Nearly 5,000 knitters were active on Ravelrys dedicated subgroup for the march. Three years later, a majority remained active, says Sandra Markus, a professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Together with Ioana Literat, a professor at Columbia University Teachers College, she published a paper last year that chronicles online craftivism and how politics has grown with it.

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The whole [pussy hat] project emerged in six weeks from Thanksgiving to New Years, and it was all online, Markus says. There was a level of effectiveness because people were dismissive of knitters as little gray-haired ladies. But when older women transgressed these boundaries with their knitting, the optics of police up against gray-haired women with balls of knitting were not good. Women were advocating and effective in online spaces.

Much of the organization behind the scenes for the Womens March and the pussy hats took place in the unmoderated spaces of Ravelry, where no entity controlled who saw what content. Unlike Facebook groups, which vet membership, Ravelrys groups (used to) let anyone in. This meant the dialogue gets much more controversial and contentious much faster, says Markus.

But with the ban on Trump-related content, many of those voices moved elsewhere. In the eight months since the ban, a slew of right-leaning Ravelry copycats have sprung up. Deplorable Knitter launched her own site, subtitled The Adventures of a Politically Incorrect Knitter, where shes gained a cult following and is currently hosting a knit-along of a hat and cowl emblazoned with Women for Trump. Theres the independent 18,000-strong Fiberkind, whose threaded chat layout most resembles Ravelry. And theres Trump-supporting Freedom Knits, where artistic freedom is respected. It has grown to 400 members in the two months since it launched.

The increased politicization of the online knitting world has come as part of a demographic shift. While the community still skews older and mostly female, it is fast diversifying. Millennialswho are generally more politically active and came of age in the AIM chatroomare now signing up to Ravelry and its offshoots. Theyve been awakened in this particular moment to capitalize on their identity, Literat says.

And its no longer just about the knitting patterns: sites like Ravelry offer a safe space for discussing politics. Deplorable Knitter and Medora Van Denburgh, who leads a 239-member Bernie Sanders group on Ravelry, both said that they live in regions that typically lean in the opposite political direction from their own, and Ravelry allowed them to feel less alone.

Its something we will see more of, Literat predicts. Other niche groups shes studied, such as Fortnite players and fan fiction sites, have created active subgroups around political conversation in much the same way. Typically, people feel safe engaging around the core interest first (in Ravelrys case, knitting or crocheting), but increasingly delve into political discussions over time.

Online communities that are hyperspecific to certain hobbies also help engender dialogue across the political dividea key point in a polarized political environment where people spend much of their time in ideological bubbles, says Literat.

You get a much wider spectrum of opinions in these spaces, she says. You see people who are already politically engaged, but also people who arent coming to these places, at least at first, because of politics.

Censorship vs free speech

Or they werent. Ravelrys equation of Trump support with white supremacy is a controversial move, even for supporters of the ban. (Ravelry declined to comment for this story, and cofounder Cassidy Forbes told me in an email that the company [doesnt] really do press that isnt part of the yarn industryits not a new policy or anything, just something weve done for the last 13 years.)

Pam Mauser, the founder of Freedom Knits, says she founded the site because she was insulted by Ravelrys stance. I knit a Trump 2020 hat, and they took it down with no notice, says Mauser, an Indiana native. They just sent me a message that its no longer acceptable. But whats acceptable on the site is stuff that says F--- Trump. Its political.

Mauser says her site welcomes both liberals and conservatives. If you want to post about Obama, thats perfectly fine, she says. Its not political. Its Freedom Knits. I dont believe in censoring people who dont believe the way you believe.

On the other side of the aisle, Van Denburgh says the ban on Trump support wasnt something that sat comfortably with her either. I truly was stymied by the conflict between my principles [of free speech] and my grudging admission of the fact that Ravelry had done the right thing in enacting the ban, she says.

The controversy shines a light on the future of political organizing: ultra-niche, small-but-vocal online communities built around an otherwise nonpolitical hobby or interest. For Literat, Ravelrys ban presents a litmus test for the future of niche-site censorship and whether its best to forge a single, politically homogenous community or to splinter fringe users off.

It is also giving women a new way to become politicized online. For Amy Singer, the founder of another knitting site, Knitty, thats good news.

The one thing that crafts have always done is bring solace, she says. It gives us a way to express whats upsetting us, hope for change, and bring comfort. Knittings not for grannies. Were not scared any more.

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How a ban on pro-Trump patterns unraveled the online knitting world - MIT Technology Review