I don't think that's as much the fault of the discourse as it is the fault of one person with a horrible take. I mean, if the prior conversation about commissions hadn't happened, and she went off like that in response to a personal conversation, the end result would have been the same. Which says something, don't you think?
I was on Twitter during that time, and I think I may have heard about this person once...and quickly forgot about her completely. For me, the whole event was just a thing people were talking about; it barely made it onto my radar.
Which is another thing: your own social media environment does color your perception of 'discourse'. If you are surrounded by people who love drama or actively clown around to promote drama, things will look a lot messier to you than they do to people who simply do not engage. I feel like I learned from that conversation, whereas you seem to think it wasn't worth the trouble it supposedly caused by existing.
It's like elementary school teacher tactics: If one kid acts up during recess, recess itself should be cancelled. Never mind that you're just ignoring the root of the problem and hoping that removing one outlet for its manifestation will somehow make it disappear...
@dokidokitsuna I'm surprised this barely hit your radar, because this was a very influential person and every single art director and animator I was following also made it into their own personal soap box. But, we are all in our own little social media soap bubble, we all have different interests, and we all follow different people--especially professionally--and so it makes sense that what I see isn't the same as what you see.
But I'm not saying recess needs to be cancelled, haha, just that people need to stop responding to the drama! Bury it when someone tries to steal the soap box! It escalates to a point where people get death threats and stuff--just stop responding, stop quote RTing, block, get the conversation back on point.
Also, I don't think she would have had the same outcome if she hadn't done it in response to the commissions conversation. People in arts talk about improving your skills all the time. But the trick is knowing when and how to say it.
I dunno...as someone who also follows a lot of art professionals (which is why I was surprised that I heard so little about it, even at the time) I see this sort of thing happen all the time on a smaller scale. It's why the concept of a 'bad take' exists; every once in a while someone just says something, often at random, that makes a lot of people mad, and it sparks a big conversation.
I'm just saying the death threats and the toxicity probably would have happened either way, especially if this person is as influential as you say. The bigger the star, the more intense the hate becomes.
One huge problem I've seen is that everyone believes they have a right to an opinion & that all are equally valid. Of course, they aren't all equally valid. Many are rooted in ignorance &/or bad information.
(EDITED for spelling error.)
The thing is, everyone technically does have a "right" to an opinion, meaning they should be allowed to express their opinion but...
At least here I agree that not all opinions are "good" opinions and some are rooted in ignorance, fear, and intentional malice and probably shouldn't be expressed.
Deplatforming is a problem though. I have no opinion on cancel culture but i have one on deplatforming. For an example, there’s this internet guy who believe school shooting is a hoax and that the water will turn people gay, i know this is a toxic content and by all means do hate the guy as you wish and maybe delete the exact video where it violates the host rules, but don’t give him the internet death penalty. As long as it doesn’t incite violence, what we’re doing is basically censoring him. And this is another topic that will go down into rabbit hole so fast. I don’t want any billionaire, instead of the government, to act as minister of truth. To counter this toxic content you shouldn’t ban people to exercise their free speech, but to create better counterargument content. Because believe it or not, the pendulum swings both ways, and there’s a lot of progressive activists being censored because of this too.
Actually it's not and I'll elaborate.
Regarding the free speech part specifically I'll again ask that we read and pay attention to the contents of the comic made by XKCD and I'll link it again here:
The first panel says in plain text that "the right to free speech means the gov't cant arrest you for what you say". The deplatforming of people promoting harmful views is in no way violating their free speech. No ones being thrown in jail, platforms (and by extension people) are simply making the decision that they no longer wish to host these people and their content. Plain and simple.
Also deplatforming people with harmful views is necessary albeit hard to understand especially if your not someone who is harmed by such views and it's the absolute truth. It's no mystery that people who are not of marginalize backgrounds will never relate to nor understand their struggle but what can be done by those outside those labels, those identities and those backgrounds is to listen and empathize. and that very last bit is a big one that many seem to fail to do constantly.
I'll give some examples. You mentioned the "water turning the frogs gay" statement made by Alex Jones a well known conspiracy theorist and holder of many harmful views. Views which put actual lives in danger even if not directly. A better example I can elaborate on is author J.K. Rowling (which I apologize to any trans folks passing through for even invoking the name) who is a known terf and overall transphobe likely among other things. Her harmful views have put trans lives in danger especially in the UK where she's considered a highly respected and influential individual. The cost this has had is making it incredibly hard for trans folk to have access healthcare among other things I'm sure. The info is online and can be researched but of course be discerning in what you read.
The point is when you continue to host people with certain view it's not only perpetuating the spread of what they say but also invites other with those same views, normalizes it and perpetuates it across whichever platform. When you deplatfrom a person who is racist that's necessary to protect people who are victims of racism. When you deplatform people who think school shooting are a hoax your protecting the victims of said events. When you deplatform people who are deniers of genocide you not only protect victims of genocide but also prevent such a thing from happening again. The point is that deplatforming is necessary because the longer those views are allowed to exist and persist and permeate spaces the more people are put in danger even if indirectly. That's why Donald Trump had his social media accounts terminated because his words eventually led to violence being incited (and there is undeniable evidence of that so I will not debate it).
Sometimes violence doesn't just outright happen. Often times it's a slow build. It starts with micro-aggressions, small actions, maybe a little abuse or assault here and there but then as it build over time then you get the big explosion (as we witnessed with the build up to the Jan 6th insurrection at the capitol). I'd imagine that even in other countries outside the US the same happens (I'm merely focusing on the US as that's where I am). Deplatforming people is not silencing them, no one said they can never ever come back but if it's made clear that their views are harmful or potentially harmful and people see that having such views bears consequences then it serves as a lesson and a warning.
This is why the notion of so called "cancel culture" can be so harmful because rather than acknowledge and address genuine evils or at the least harmful veiws or ideas it instead directs concern to how "you can't say anything on the internet because ppl will cancel you for it later" when that's no it at all. Actions have consequences. What you say can have an affect/effect on the lives of others whether you bear witness to it or not and the more you dismiss those things the further you endanger said individuals.
Like I just want to say that if I seem like I'm angry as I'm speaking on this it's because in part I really am but I'm also tired. I've seen people here and in other places be so dismissive to the suffering of others and struggle to understand how people can lack basic empathy but I guess that just goes to show where things are on the planet as a whole. It's easier to dismiss the actions of others and scold the ones who raise their voices about it rather than bothering to give even a single iota about the well-being of others. No ones saying you can't say things. No ones saying you can't follow or interact with certain folks. If anything all that's being asked is you at least try to pay a smidgen of attention to who those people are and where they stand and if their views could be hurting or harming your peers. if anything I'd say don't be surprised or angry if people choose not to interact with you (I certainly wouldn't) because of whatever views you have.
I keep writing these longs posts but if anything it just feels like I'm screaming at a brick wall and all my words are fallen on deaf ears but all I ask, all I hope, is that some of you (any of you) can learn or try to have at least a tiny atom's worth of empathy because some of these replies are incredibly disheartening.
Was going to jump into this, but @VibrantFox did a great job nailing everything on the head. Words have consequences in the same way actions do, and there are some views that are simply too dangerous to be tolerated. I'm reminded of "The Paradox of Intolerance", a warning that a truly tolerant society would have to be intolerant of intolerance in order to survive, otherwise they'd eventually fall to the intolerance they were trying to prevent. Well said Vibrant. Good work 
I want to add I've seen far more folks with dangerous views or ideologies remain on a platform than their "progressive" counterparts. 9/10 you'll see more marginalized voices silenced (and in some cases killed) before you even get to see an Alex Jones or J.K. Rowling or Donald Trump get deplatformed.
As a black person I've seen more black people get their accounts suspended or ip banned as opposed to the hordes of racists that send them death threats, harass them and dox them and this is an absolute fact. This is why marginalized voices especially beg to be heard because you'd rather listen to the sensationalized garbage some random conspiracy theorist is spouting as opposed to the people who's lives are harmed by those extreme and absurd views. For many of us it's life or death but for others it's just "another day of internet drama"
This is why the discussion is so draining because it feels like ya'll never ever bother to listen
Agree to disagree. And i know the facts about jk rowling and alex jones, they are toxic. But you see as i said before, the pendulum swings both ways, and ultimately the decision to deplatform someone is in the hands of the group with power, and what those groups or mainstream public deemed harmful. I don’t know if you know the fact that outside of the u.s, like in any country that actively suppresses human rights, often activists are being jailed and even people with normal but different view, people like me, who is an atheist will be jailed if i ever proclaim so in the public. But the problem is that not only they’re being jailed, their content is also being banned in the said country and it’s hard to express opinion other than the ‘rightful ones’. It’s these microaggression that eventually lead to their arrests. See the problem? Maybe look outside of our own bubble for a bit, and realize the situation is case specific, and there are lots of other minorities who are being oppressed and deplatformed too, not only you. I’m not saying this to belittle anyone though, as i’m a minority too. Accusing others who offer different angles to look at problems as ‘doesn’t even try to listen to the problem’ is for me, disheartening.
That was a well written document! Great points brought up! This is one of the reasons I put “discourse” in quotation marks. There is definitely more important pressing issues like racism where “Oh, this isn’t “drama” this is a systemic issue that we’ve been fighting for over a century and if we don’t find solutions soon, more people suffer and die.”
Issues like FandomTwitter harassing an animation studio over bad cgi definitely shouldn’t be put on the same level as something like that.
I think “drama”, (if it is that and not real issue) is useless but it always makes me wonder “why’re we still talking about this?” We’re still talking about racism now because racism is still an issue that needs to be discussed and fought, but what about less severe topics? One things I think you’ve really touched on in a lot of your posts is the importance of discretion. Having these discussions over and over again may be tedious, but I wonder if the repetition is the only way to make sure we’re on the right track to finding out what really matters.
I never once tied to disregard issues in other countries tho? I may not be fully informed but I am aware of issues of suppression of free speech in other countries which as you said are often times activists or people with views that are in opposition to the masses which is very alarming to see. Literally if anything I'm trying to say that I empathize even if the situations may be a little different (not all that much but still)
But like you said agree to disagree 
I don't think this is the same thing. I really don't this is the same thing. If people are being jailed for their public views, that means in that country, they are committing a crime, meaning the government is the entity stripping a person of their rights, not a private company or person. That's a freedom of speech violation, not deplatforming a person based on their violation of a platform's rules or holding and espousing harmful beliefs.
Oh I see the problem, and it's not just deplatforming, it's human right violations. Not to say deplatforming a person isn't a way to violate someone's right, but it's not a one to one comparison.
Yeah but by your standard and definition, people like me, who the general masses deemed harmful is alright to deplatform or to be cancelled. The moral compass / progress is different in each country, and to put a blanket statement that ‘toxic’ opinions should be censored will not work.
You see, the arrest isn’t made because they violate the country’s penal code, because there’s nothing written about it, but because the general masses are angry and demand the government and companies to do something about it, to ‘punish’ or censor the outliers.
It’s not the exactly same thing, i agree, but it starts from the same starting line.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
"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.
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
again never once said this and desperately wish people would stop putting words in my mouth 
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
Speaking on behalf of myself, I've been tracking this thread since Friday. Nothing's raised a flag for me yet to close it: there have been no personal attacks, discussion is still on topic, no post has gotten flagged by anyone for us to review, so it's been civil so far.
I think it's an important topic to discuss, since it does involve our experiences as creators and can be tied to the content we create.
But that's just me.
I can chime in on this as someone who used to moderate forums.
Back on Halo3boards, there were certain areas that I learned to pay more attention to than others. We had different sections of the forum just like Tapas has, and generally most of the trouble would happen in the political threads, or threads regarding certain current events. There was a lot of debate about whether or not to close all political threads in general, but we opted to make a section specifically for it to keep it all contained, but with heavy moderation. Most of my time was spent browsing those threads to keep things civil. We also had a few banned topics because they never failed to cause an argument. We had a team of 7 mods, including myself, and I probably spent about 5 or 6 hours a day lurking and posting consistently. With how busy everyone is nowadays, I can see why they'd want to go the extra mile and just not allow politics altogether.
This is how i felt terrorized and became abused for ten years by a gaslighter and was sure no one would believe me and only have been free for a few months. There is a point where there really isn't two sides. There is lies and twisting psychologically damaging words told to people to cover up bad behavior while the meek and the abused are to scared to speak up.