The Curious Silence About Paltalk on Jihad Watch

Preliminary Definitions

I have defined Jihad Watcher as a person who has attained the summit of the Learning Curve about the Problem of Islam, such that they now see that Islam itself is the source of that problem. In my lexicon, a Paltalker would be defined the same way, with the added twist of being a person who participates in the vocal chat rooms—particularly the rooms critical of Islam—at the chat website Paltalk.com.

The Curious Silence About Paltalk on Jihad Watch

At the present time, I have no way of knowing whether, or to what degree, these two populations—Jihad Watcher and Paltalker—coincide or overlap, since no mention has ever been made at Jihad Watch (either in the official articles or in the prodigious comments sections) of the Paltalk chat rooms, in the two years I have been reading Jihad Watch, outside the reportage of a few stories in 2005 about the Coptic Christian family in New Jersey who were slaughtered after the father had been on the Paltalk chat rooms having heated debates with Muslims, some of whom made death threats to him and his family (that was what initially piqued my interest in Paltalk and moved me to check it out). I have on some occasions heard or read a few chatters at Paltalk say (or type) that they do indeed read and like the Jihad Watch site—but usually only after I have solicited the question myself. In my two years participating in the anti-Islam Paltalk chat rooms (spending on average six hours a week there), however, I have heard a Paltalker offer an unsolicited mention of Jihad Watch perhaps, at most, two or three times.

Paltalk: A Unique Phenomenon in the War of Ideas

What makes the silence about Paltalk on Jihad Watch rather curious is that, in my estimation—and I would welcome anyone presenting a counter-argument to this—the Paltalk chat site is the only place, not only on the Internet, but on planet Earth itself where people from various countries all over the world can and do get together to engage in heated debates about the Problem of Islam—debates that have the added advantage of being vocalized via microphones in real time, with all the emotional nuance and inflections of actual voices, and not merely typed in text on the screen, as is typical of most chat rooms on the Internet. No other chat rooms on the Internet, to my knowledge, have as vibrant a community of people engaged in the issue of the Problem of Islam; none even come close.

Not only that, but many of these people are people from the Middle East—Muslims and ex-Muslims, as well as Middle Eastern Christians or atheists. These rub virtual shoulders with their anti-Islamic fellows from all over the world—from Canada to the U.S.A. to South America to Europe to Australia to Africa, most of whom, apparently are just ordinary, concerned people. Granted, the Paltalk rooms do not represent gigantic numbers of people—on any given night, there might be, at most, five or six different rooms devoted to the issue of Islam, at least two of them with approximately between 20 to 50 people. Some of the rooms are blatantly propagandistic pro-Islam rooms, other rooms just as blatantly propagandistic anti-Islam rooms. Nevertheless, when one enters into these rooms and listens to the conversations going on, one often feels that something unprecedented is unfolding: a genuine, global town meeting where people are venting their anger and frustration as well as sharing their more or less intelligent insights, about the urgent and pressing Problem of Islam.

An added bonus is that, unlike the vocal chat rooms at Yahoo, the Paltalk chat rooms tend to have much more order and decorum about the microphone use, with people queueing up to wait for their time on the podium—usually set with a time limit by the “Admins”. Of course, this decorum is not always perfectly managed, and sometimes it may careen out of control, with either a “room raid” of people trying to “jump the mic” (i.e., take it away from its rightful possessor at the moment), or people spending too long on the mic, or even the Admins themselves abusing their power. But, for the most part, in my experience on Paltalk, these are the exceptions, not the rule.

Given all this, one would think that Jihad Watch would have at least once reported on this unique sociological phenomenon so centrally pertinent to the Problem of Islam and so useful as a tool in our War of Ideas—and if not officially, then at least unofficially in some of its copious and vibrantly populated Comments sections.

Of course, the Paltalk rooms aren’t always crackling with interest and intensity; many times, they are boring, or sluggish (with no one on the mic at all, or worse yet, with people exchanging silly gossip or chit-chat about unrelated uninteresting things), or get derailed in a tail-spin of crude, silly and petty insults, with Muslims and anti-Muslims acting like children throwing sand at each other in a playground sandbox, back and forth. But if the visitor has some patience, and is willing to stick around for a while, or is willing to revisit a few times, he will inevitably see the remarkably positive side to these rooms.

Why This Curious Omission at Jihad Watch?

At any rate, this positive side, as I have described it above, makes the omission of Paltalk on Jihad Watch a most curious phenomenon. Either most of the Jihad Watchers (including the principal official essayists there—Robert Spencer, Hugh Fitzgerald, Marisol) are ignorant of the amazing and singular qualities of Paltalk, or they are keeping mum for some reason (perhaps embarrassment?). In my memory of reading Jihad Watch for two years now, I have been the only commenter to mention Paltalk, and when I have, no one responded to my comments.

The reason I speculate about “embarrassment” above is that the anti-Islam chatters at Paltalk seem to be much more uninhibited, silly and/or plebeian in the most unflattering ways about their feelings—feelings which, if they were also participants in the Comments section at Jihad Watch, I suspect they would be embarrassed for people to know they were one and the same (not that many Paltalkers have the intelligence to feel embarrassed about coming across in a plebeian manner: indeed, many seem to wear it as a badge of honor).

Another concern might be for personal safety, and certain Jihad Watchers may not want to provide anyone with any additional abilities in “triangulating their coordinates”, so to speak.

(For a more general overview of the Paltalk anti-Islam rooms, see my “mixed review”.)

At any rate, I have noticed among the two populations some common fallacies about the Problem of Islam: these will be analyzed in my next blog essay.