Feb 2021
40 / 64
Feb 2021
Feb 2021
NickRowler
Feb '21
fusi

You are talking about the guy who encouraged people to harass victims of mass shootings (some being minors) to the point where he was taken to court and had to pay the victims. The line about the frogs being gay comes from a homophobic conspiracy theory that the chemicals they put in water to help keep it clean causes the male's Y chromosome to break down and makes them feminine. Any "censorship" he is getting is people telling him that he is spreading toxic information that's not true and can lead to people getting hurt.

fusi
Feb '21

He was dragged to court, and by any mean exercise your right to protest/critique in any way necessary, delete the exact video that violates the rules or something, but do not censor free speech if it doesn’t incite violence(which is another grey area which every people have different red line). It’s not like i endorse him or anything, in fact i’m one of those people he hates the most. But i already witnessed/experienced personally what happens when you attempt to ‘erase’ problem rather than ‘solve’ problem.

HippieGhost
Feb '21

I feel like there's too much of a focus on the binary of censorship or no censorship. You can stop people from spreading hate speech and violence without putting political dissenters in gulags. What it boils down to is whether or not arguments are being made in bad faith, and what level of truth there is to the conversation. Deliberate spreading of hateful rhetoric and misinformation can and should be punished. Arguing because you disagree based on a different interpretation of the evidence shouldn't be.

IndigoShirtProd
Feb '21
1

I see what your saying, what is deemed 'toxic' by the majority is enough to throw someone in jail over. At least in the Alex Jones example, he was actively spreading harmful beliefs that led to directly negative consequences for the people involved. Then there are other's, whose ideas can't really be considered toxic because they do not directly or even indirectly harm others. But often the people deplatformed are in a similar position as those you've mentioned: small creators or personalities, sometimes from a minority group, that are deplatformed unfairly from a rabid mob or are so implicitly biased against that they might as well not have a platform.

"Dragged"

You can't violate someone's free speech if your not beholden to protecting it. And what's the point of removing one video if he can make more spreading the same vile rhetoric. Just keep removing videos until your satisfied?

Yea but he incited harrassment and detriment to the mental health of the parties involved. He caused active harm even if it was specifically violent.

fusi
Feb '21
HippieGhost

Then again the definition of ‘spreading hate’ varies depending on the person. Who will judge what is a bad faith, hateful rhetoric, what is the truth? The billionaire, the general masses, the ‘right’ ones? It’s the one in the power. Therefore, the pendulum swings both ways. Thank you. I’m out.

NickRowler
Feb '21
fusi

There is a misconception of what free speech is, people often think it is the right to be able to say anything, that is not true. Defamation is not covered under free speech. That is what he is guilty of. He encouraged people to harass minors who were dealing with PTSD. Even if the harassment was not "violent" it still caused harm to people.

IndigoShirtProd
Feb '21
fusi

The studies that show an uptick in hate crimes against people who have lies, misinformation, and hate speech spread about them.

Verifiable evidence and peer reviewed studies.

Yea in a dictatorship or a government structure of a similar caliber, though I do recognize the truth in "the victors write history."

fusi
Feb '21

Again, each side will create something to back their point of view/defense. There’s a lot of studies that were created solely to oppress minorities.

It’ll be great if both sides agrees which one is verifiable though, again each side and maybe one more than the others will use anything, in my case, people on the right, to oppress their opposition.

Defamation is really hard to prove. And it’s also a tool used to oppress minorities too. I’m really tired, though, i’m out.

thedude3445
Feb '21

"Discourse" is almost universally just a bunch of people with a poor grasp on rhetoric or research arguing with a bunch of other people who also have a poor grasp on rhetoric or research.

You get the people who passionately believe in a topic and will post a thousand essay or video recommendations about the Discourse Topic to help change the minds of those who are currently opposed to them, wasting hours of their life on something that will never change because, honestly, nobody clicks those links. Then you have the bad faith actors who know the aim of the people they are engaging with, and try to rile them up or get them off-track (you see this constantly with any Discourse having to do with certain People's Republics). Then, of course, you have the people so far in the weeds, so angrily fighting whatever internet war they've been dragged into, that they have stopped being able to see what is actually discussed and have resorted more to tribalism with the people who agree with them.

I'm not even thinking about anything specific here. Sometimes huge weighty issues like racist institutions and authortarian governments are thrown in, though most of the time it's "///This fandom thing is Problematic and here's why, my thread ///" and it's all just drama. It doesn't matter the topic; I think some people just really want to argue about stuff, regardless of how informed they actually are about it. I've seen too many wonderful internet people, both celebrities and acquaintances, devolve into Discourse Machines; all they can do is talk about "takes" and "lrt" snark and post "yikes" about fifteen times a day. It genuinely makes me really sad.

If I had access to unlimited power for one week, my first act as world dictator would be to delete Twitter and delete all web archive backups of all tweets ever made. This is how much I hate the Discourse and what it's done to friends and acquaintances over the years.

indagold
Feb '21
1
NickRowler

That's a load of bullshit and you know it. I tested the theory and posted a innocuous thread talking about people's experiences as minority creators and how it relates to characters and it got locked immediately when someone had a civil disagreement with someone. No fighting, no nothing. It used to be in the past you could discuss issues like this openly but the moment the mods see a thread that could remotely be seen as political, they lock it no matter how useful it could be and civil it is. I've had posts flagged for literally nothing, posts that the OP of the thread agreed with. This forum is a goddamn cesspool.

@VibrantFox so you're implying i'm promoting hate speech and not that twitter and other platforms censor creators over nearly nothing? People get banned nowadays over the stupidest shit. Wow what a useless hot take and kinda really rude to make that assumption, dude. Most of the times i've been censored was my discussion of being a minority. Can't wait for you to get banned over nothing and see how it feels lol

VibrantFoxRegular
Feb '21

again never once said this and desperately wish people would stop putting words in my mouth :upside_down:

I'm wholly aware of the fact that ppl on online platforms get suspended over pure bs and i've watched it happen to my own online mutuals (very recently in fact) Literally a few days ago saw two mutuals get banned for drawing miku plus sized with dark skin and a tooth gap. Both of them got mass reported even though their actions were innocuous and their accounts were suspended. One of the two litteraly got threats that they should be r*ped.

Do not accuse me of such senseless bs when I never uttered such things and if in some way i did please please show me.

indagold
Feb '21

You literally replied to me with a comic that i'm just an asshole for saying I prefer sites with free speech assuming that my enjoyment on being on sites that promote free speech = i'm on a site that promotes hate speech and i'm just a shitty person. I didn't even mention what sites I was on or what I was doing on there and you literally compared it to hate speech without any context.

VibrantFoxRegular
Feb '21

that was not my intention when sharing the comic at all??? I never directed at you specifically that you were any kind of awful person nor that you were someone promoting any kind of hate speech. Yes the language of the conic is strong but the context I had hoped would be read from it is that in some instances what people view as infringement of their right to free speech isn't and might instead be people opting to not host or interact with certain opinions or ideas which is what I'm almost certain I'd attempted to elaborate in another reply.

I admit maybe I've been guilty of being hasty in my replies, not taking time to think nor reflect and thus posting whilst emotional and in the same vein impulsively without reading or rectifying places where things could be taken out of context as you seem to have done so for that I apologize.

IndigoShirtProd
Feb '21
VibrantFox

And in that situation, it probably wasn't Twitter as an entity deplatforming those users. It was other users using Twitter's self regulation tools to intentionally deplatform people for doing nothing wrong.

NickRowler
Feb '21
1
indagold

I have heard mods discuss why they do what they do. In the past when they allowed people to discuss anything political, it caused people to fight. It got a bit out of control and turned turned them in to "a goddamn cesspool". They decided the best decisions was to lock political threads and encourage users to make posts that focus more on comics and less heated topics.

I do agree that having an open discussion about more serious topics would be useful, however these forums usually only have a couple mods who are suppose to look over everything and scroll through hundreds of posts of discussions to decided if everything is civil or not. And I have ran into several occasions where toxic discourse in the forums were over looked due to mods not having the ability to look at everything. I think if there were more mods and a stricter vetting of trolls, then being able to have those kinds of discussions would be possible.

Also flagged posts are usually flagged by users. It could be possible that "civil disagreement" was not that civil at all. But honestly I don't know what example you are even referring to.

DokiDokiTsuna
Feb '21

Legit question: why??

I thought the role of a moderator was to step in when there's a specific, obvious problem, or when their attention is called to something. Not to babysit the forum looking for trouble (or in many cases, potential trouble) they can stamp out.
Of course that would take more manpower, but IMO it's hardly necessary. =/ This is just a webcomic forum, representing a very tiny slice of a relatively small internet demographic. We don't need 24/7 surveillance.

I do remember the past where things were less strict...trolls usually just got flagged and banned. There were rarely more than 2 or 3 big discussions a week, let alone arguments, and when there were arguments, we usually just let them run their course. The number of people involved would dwindle down until only the most stubborn were left, or until the issue itself just fizzled out; whichever came first.

It wasn't the most peaceful system, but it worked fine, and it didn't feel like a 'cesspool' to me (if you don't want to see drama, you can always just mute the threads...). I can understand why maybe some might want to improve on that environment, but I really can't see how it was so untenable that there was no other option...

...Anyway, this has kind of turned into its own 'discourse', hasn't it? A long thread of internet arguments about whether or not internet arguments are useful. ^^; I'm surprised it's still open...