[sputr]

Quite a few parties suffered from either takeovers and the "crazy people magnet". Everyone with fringe views on ... anything ... decided that the Pirates were the place to be.

Which, fine happens, the problem we had was, that the core ideology was very anti-censorship, so much so, that in the end those fringe groups dominated the discussion.

[raxxorraxor]

In my country it might have been the same. Although the anti-censorship positions quickly evaporated and were replaced by something completely different. Freedom of speech became a far right dog whistle to some and hate speech was all the new rage and state surveillance a must to combat unsanctioned opinions.

On the other side, you had ideologues promoting strict libertarian positions, which were also quite repellent because they were inflexible about their own belief system and their policy suggestions crude at best, completely anti-social at worst.

Overall there was no discussion on which positions the party should take on specific issues and instead it was mostly prescribed top down. I believe people just noticed that they don't share the same values as the party anymore and so they left.

I was never a member, but followed their developments for a time.