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Online interactions don't need to be censored. They're already regulated by the same laws that apply to normal offline interactions. If it isn't illegal, it sho

Online interactions don't need to be censored. They're already regulated by the same laws that apply to normal offline interactions. If it isn't illegal, it should stay where it is without being censored. Of course, any community can have an internal set of rules, but an universal filter that removes things automatically or doesn't let the user post them doesn't make any sense unless your goal is to censor unwanted speech.

sbarre 8y ago
It's really not that black and white. You reduce this down to "censorship!" but really it's about creating and maintaining spaces where people are not feeling attacked or threatened. Imagine you live in NYC and you're in Central Park with your spouse, minding your own business and trying to have a conversation and someone walks up and starts shouting obscenities and insults at you and your spouse non-stop, for no reason. You don't know this person, you can't hear each other anymore, and if you try to walk away they just follow you and keep at it. (I'm using Central Park as a stand-in for whatever congregation space that people in a community will gravitate towards in order to feel connected to their community and participate in social interactions). I don't think most mature or adults would consider this acceptable behaviour, and in fact in most civil societies this actually _is_ illegal (in Canada it's called causing a public disturbance). But the above is basically the online experience for a lot of people (mostly women) today in large forums such as Twitter, Reddit and other places where a lot of our public discourse happens and where people want to join in and participate. Yet there are no consequences for these bad actors online who are effectively doing the same thing. There is nothing legitimate or defensible about trolling, brigading, bullying or harassment online. So spare me the "censorship" argument until you've got a suggestion about the "civility" problem first.
- nkkollaw 8y ago
  > it's about creating and maintaining spaces where people are not feeling attacked or threatened People are different. You might feel attacked if I defend Muslims because you're Jewish, or you might be feel attacked because I defend Jewish people because you're Muslim. Who decides who's right, Facebook? And if they stand by Muslims, do you not see a problem with not letting Jewish people express their ideas? > Imagine you live in NYC and you're in Central Park with your spouse, minding your own business No. I'm not in Central Park with my wife. We're talking about conversations on the internet. > Yet there are no consequences for these bad actors online who are effectively doing the same thing. There is nothing legitimate or defensible about trolling, brigading, bullying or harassment online. Who decides what's bullying, harassment, etc.? > So spare me the "censorship" argument until you've got a suggestion about the "civility" problem first. There is no solution. Online communities mirror real-life communities. Spare me your presence on the internet until you can handle talking to other people like an normal adult without getting triggered if someone says something that offends you.
  - sbarre 8y ago
    > People are different. You might feel attacked if I defend Muslims because you're Jewish, or you might be feel attacked because I defend Jewish people because you're Muslim. Maybe I wasn't clear (even though I'm pretty sure I was), I am talking about full-on uncivilized discourse like threats, harassment, verbal abuse and other such interactions that no reasonable person will consider acceptable regardless of the topic. I am not talking about differences of opinion - no matter how controversial - in religion, doctrine, politics, race, etc.. > No. I'm not in Central Park with my wife. We're talking about conversations on the internet. Again, my example was a person in a public space yelling in your face and not engaging in dialogue. It doesn't matter at that point what the topic is or what that person's views are, it's not acceptable behaviour. I was using Central Park as a proxy for "the place people want to go to participate", because some people say "if you don't like the harassment then just leave" which then prevents people from participating in spaces where everyone else is and that's also not ok. When trolls or harassers drop into your Twitter mentions or start brigading you on Reddit, it's not entirely unlike a stranger coming up to you uninvited and yelling in your face in the physical world > Who decides what's bullying, harassment, etc.? We all do, as a society.. And I call bullshit on the argument that if we can't all agree on what that is, we should do nothing while real harm is done. Much of the trolling and harassment that happens online is dishonestly defended as "differences of opinion" or "free speech". And the opposite is certainly true, people also try to categorize legitimate criticism as harassment, but that's much less frequent.. And that also exists in the real world of course. As I mentioned in my example, in the physical world we have defined "creating a public disturbance" as a crime. This is a vague description on purpose, and it is open to interpretation, and there is a defined process for resolving individual cases, but there is still a focus on first protecting the people being victimized, and then sorting it out afterwards. This is codified in a system of law and charters of rights, etc.. This is lacking in our online spaces, we allow harassment to persist while we endlessly debate what is acceptable and also what the owners of our online spaces should do about it. And this does 100% tie into the point that our online social spaces are not public spaces, and are not even internationally recognized spaces. They are owned and operated by for-profit US corporations who have their own motives and will define "acceptable" in ways that do not align with civil society's views, that's for sure. I agree with you there, it's a complicated thing to fix that doesn't have much precedent, and there's no perfect solution in sight. But I guess we disagree on what we should be doing about it.

sbarre 8y ago

It's really not that black and white. You reduce this down to "censorship!" but really it's about creating and maintaining spaces where people are not feeling attacked or threatened. Imagine you live in NYC and you're in Central Park with your spouse, minding your own business and trying to have a conversation and someone walks up and starts shouting obscenities and insults at you and your spouse non-stop, for no reason. You don't know this person, you can't hear each other anymore, and if you try to walk away they just follow you and keep at it. (I'm using Central Park as a stand-in for whatever congregation space that people in a community will gravitate towards in order to feel connected to their community and participate in social interactions). I don't think most mature or adults would consider this acceptable behaviour, and in fact in most civil societies this actually _is_ illegal (in Canada it's called causing a public disturbance). But the above is basically the online experience for a lot of people (mostly women) today in large forums such as Twitter, Reddit and other places where a lot of our public discourse happens and where people want to join in and participate. Yet there are no consequences for these bad actors online who are effectively doing the same thing. There is nothing legitimate or defensible about trolling, brigading, bullying or harassment online. So spare me the "censorship" argument until you've got a suggestion about the "civility" problem first.

nkkollaw 8y ago
> it's about creating and maintaining spaces where people are not feeling attacked or threatened People are different. You might feel attacked if I defend Muslims because you're Jewish, or you might be feel attacked because I defend Jewish people because you're Muslim. Who decides who's right, Facebook? And if they stand by Muslims, do you not see a problem with not letting Jewish people express their ideas? > Imagine you live in NYC and you're in Central Park with your spouse, minding your own business No. I'm not in Central Park with my wife. We're talking about conversations on the internet. > Yet there are no consequences for these bad actors online who are effectively doing the same thing. There is nothing legitimate or defensible about trolling, brigading, bullying or harassment online. Who decides what's bullying, harassment, etc.? > So spare me the "censorship" argument until you've got a suggestion about the "civility" problem first. There is no solution. Online communities mirror real-life communities. Spare me your presence on the internet until you can handle talking to other people like an normal adult without getting triggered if someone says something that offends you.
- sbarre 8y ago
  > People are different. You might feel attacked if I defend Muslims because you're Jewish, or you might be feel attacked because I defend Jewish people because you're Muslim. Maybe I wasn't clear (even though I'm pretty sure I was), I am talking about full-on uncivilized discourse like threats, harassment, verbal abuse and other such interactions that no reasonable person will consider acceptable regardless of the topic. I am not talking about differences of opinion - no matter how controversial - in religion, doctrine, politics, race, etc.. > No. I'm not in Central Park with my wife. We're talking about conversations on the internet. Again, my example was a person in a public space yelling in your face and not engaging in dialogue. It doesn't matter at that point what the topic is or what that person's views are, it's not acceptable behaviour. I was using Central Park as a proxy for "the place people want to go to participate", because some people say "if you don't like the harassment then just leave" which then prevents people from participating in spaces where everyone else is and that's also not ok. When trolls or harassers drop into your Twitter mentions or start brigading you on Reddit, it's not entirely unlike a stranger coming up to you uninvited and yelling in your face in the physical world > Who decides what's bullying, harassment, etc.? We all do, as a society.. And I call bullshit on the argument that if we can't all agree on what that is, we should do nothing while real harm is done. Much of the trolling and harassment that happens online is dishonestly defended as "differences of opinion" or "free speech". And the opposite is certainly true, people also try to categorize legitimate criticism as harassment, but that's much less frequent.. And that also exists in the real world of course. As I mentioned in my example, in the physical world we have defined "creating a public disturbance" as a crime. This is a vague description on purpose, and it is open to interpretation, and there is a defined process for resolving individual cases, but there is still a focus on first protecting the people being victimized, and then sorting it out afterwards. This is codified in a system of law and charters of rights, etc.. This is lacking in our online spaces, we allow harassment to persist while we endlessly debate what is acceptable and also what the owners of our online spaces should do about it. And this does 100% tie into the point that our online social spaces are not public spaces, and are not even internationally recognized spaces. They are owned and operated by for-profit US corporations who have their own motives and will define "acceptable" in ways that do not align with civil society's views, that's for sure. I agree with you there, it's a complicated thing to fix that doesn't have much precedent, and there's no perfect solution in sight. But I guess we disagree on what we should be doing about it.