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> 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 Musl

> 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.
- nkkollaw 8y ago
  > 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. I think Facebook and Twitter should now be treated like utilities like phones and electricity, meaning that they should be restricted in how much freedom they have since they gained so much power. Regardless, it doesn't make any sense to delegate these companies--who have been caught spying on users and doing crazy stuff--with deciding what we can say on the internet. In addition, even if the intentions are good a censoring tool will always be abused. The only possible solution is mirroring USA's free speech: if not calling for immediate violence, it's allowed.
  - sbarre 8y ago
    To your point about regulating these companies as utilities, it seems some political candidates are looking to do that: https://medium.com/@teamwarren/heres-how-we-can-break-up-big-tech-9ad9e0da324c https://medium.com/@teamwarren/heres-how-we-can-break-up-big...

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.

nkkollaw 8y ago
> 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. I think Facebook and Twitter should now be treated like utilities like phones and electricity, meaning that they should be restricted in how much freedom they have since they gained so much power. Regardless, it doesn't make any sense to delegate these companies--who have been caught spying on users and doing crazy stuff--with deciding what we can say on the internet. In addition, even if the intentions are good a censoring tool will always be abused. The only possible solution is mirroring USA's free speech: if not calling for immediate violence, it's allowed.
- sbarre 8y ago
  To your point about regulating these companies as utilities, it seems some political candidates are looking to do that: https://medium.com/@teamwarren/heres-how-we-can-break-up-big-tech-9ad9e0da324c https://medium.com/@teamwarren/heres-how-we-can-break-up-big...