6 ms·

Reddit might be the perfect analogy given the propensity for censorship demonstrated both by mods and the corporate folks.

sdenton4 11y ago
There's two reasons for strong moderation (sometimes called 'censorship' by people who don't like it) on the internet: Jackasses creating an unsafe space for other parts of the community, and making a space safe for advertisers. The first reason comes down to having a choice between taking action against jackasses to allow groups like "women" and to have a place on your site. This is pretty damn important, and something that places like twitter and reddit have been horrible at. To the extent that there's less harassment on sites like Instagram, I wonder if it's just that the jackasses have confined themselves to Reddit. Advertising is a different issue altogether, and pretty much comes down to the Q-Tip corporation not wanting their ads to run on r/penetration. Which, meh, as far as I'm concerned, but companies based on ad revenue need to be able to sell ads. Both of these become bigger issues, however, as the sites get bigger and have a larger need for advertising dime to keep the lights on, and just have a bigger pool of jackasses to deal with. Reddit seems to have scaled... poorly... in both of these regards, and needs to think hard about both issues.
- Karunamon 11y ago
  We disagree (and I get the impression this is the root of much strife) on the definition of the word "safe" in "safe space". Safe from what? From having your views challenged? From someone calling you an asshat? From people making non-credible threats (Think navy seal copypasta)? From people making legitimate threats? Talk to 10 different people and all will have different definitions as to what the meaning is there.
  - jerf 11y ago
    IMHO, the objectionable part of "safe space" is the idea that everywhere needs to be a "safe space", and especially so when only certain favored groups of people gets to be "safe" in that universal "safe space" in accordance with the demands of a very vocal minority. The right to carve out a space (on the Internet or otherwise) for certain like minded individuals to be "safe" from any of the things you mentioned, as well as any other things they may deem fit, is one that we should generally honor, though.
    - Karunamon 11y ago
      Agreed, but only if said "carving out" isn't done platform-wide at everyone's expense. Changing the rules after people have invested their time and effort into being part of a community with certain norms is generally a crappy thing to do. This is the internet, where anyone can start their own community with their own rules in any number of ways. The rights of the people that were there first should be recognized.
  - sdenton4 11y ago
    Sure. It's incumbent on a platform for a wide variety of communities to provide the tools for those communities to define and enforce their own norms. A big part of the problem at Reddit last year was failing to provide good tools for mods of subreddits. Why not give mods a knob that auto kills ninety percent of the stuff they end up deleting, to keep them from just getting worn down dealing with this shit? For my own part, the 'non credible' threats are a huge part of the problem. They stop being non credible if there's enough of them, or if you're getting private messages from people with your home address and a rapid or murder threat. That's the level of unsafe that I'm talking about here. And communities need the tools to stop bullshit before it gets out of hand. I actually think that the sort of over reactionary pc-ness that Steven Fry is concerned about could be a reaction to a lack of such tools.
- 0xcde4c3db 11y ago
  Another reason for "censorship", particularly on Reddit (where the aim goes against the broader cultural default of the site) is to prevent discussions from being overrun by memes and other "low-effort" posts. Most /r/science posts that make the front page end up with a lot of deleted comments, for example.

sdenton4 11y ago

There's two reasons for strong moderation (sometimes called 'censorship' by people who don't like it) on the internet: Jackasses creating an unsafe space for other parts of the community, and making a space safe for advertisers. The first reason comes down to having a choice between taking action against jackasses to allow groups like "women" and to have a place on your site. This is pretty damn important, and something that places like twitter and reddit have been horrible at. To the extent that there's less harassment on sites like Instagram, I wonder if it's just that the jackasses have confined themselves to Reddit. Advertising is a different issue altogether, and pretty much comes down to the Q-Tip corporation not wanting their ads to run on r/penetration. Which, meh, as far as I'm concerned, but companies based on ad revenue need to be able to sell ads. Both of these become bigger issues, however, as the sites get bigger and have a larger need for advertising dime to keep the lights on, and just have a bigger pool of jackasses to deal with. Reddit seems to have scaled... poorly... in both of these regards, and needs to think hard about both issues.

Karunamon 11y ago
We disagree (and I get the impression this is the root of much strife) on the definition of the word "safe" in "safe space". Safe from what? From having your views challenged? From someone calling you an asshat? From people making non-credible threats (Think navy seal copypasta)? From people making legitimate threats? Talk to 10 different people and all will have different definitions as to what the meaning is there.
- jerf 11y ago
  IMHO, the objectionable part of "safe space" is the idea that everywhere needs to be a "safe space", and especially so when only certain favored groups of people gets to be "safe" in that universal "safe space" in accordance with the demands of a very vocal minority. The right to carve out a space (on the Internet or otherwise) for certain like minded individuals to be "safe" from any of the things you mentioned, as well as any other things they may deem fit, is one that we should generally honor, though.
  - Karunamon 11y ago
    Agreed, but only if said "carving out" isn't done platform-wide at everyone's expense. Changing the rules after people have invested their time and effort into being part of a community with certain norms is generally a crappy thing to do. This is the internet, where anyone can start their own community with their own rules in any number of ways. The rights of the people that were there first should be recognized.
- sdenton4 11y ago
  Sure. It's incumbent on a platform for a wide variety of communities to provide the tools for those communities to define and enforce their own norms. A big part of the problem at Reddit last year was failing to provide good tools for mods of subreddits. Why not give mods a knob that auto kills ninety percent of the stuff they end up deleting, to keep them from just getting worn down dealing with this shit? For my own part, the 'non credible' threats are a huge part of the problem. They stop being non credible if there's enough of them, or if you're getting private messages from people with your home address and a rapid or murder threat. That's the level of unsafe that I'm talking about here. And communities need the tools to stop bullshit before it gets out of hand. I actually think that the sort of over reactionary pc-ness that Steven Fry is concerned about could be a reaction to a lack of such tools.
0xcde4c3db 11y ago
Another reason for "censorship", particularly on Reddit (where the aim goes against the broader cultural default of the site) is to prevent discussions from being overrun by memes and other "low-effort" posts. Most /r/science posts that make the front page end up with a lot of deleted comments, for example.