4 ms·
You know we're living in a dystopian future where the first complaint against an open source project is that it provides too few tools for censorship.
by nukeop 8y ago
You know we're living in a dystopian future where the first complaint against an open source project is that it provides too few tools for censorship.
- zaarn 8y agoThere is a line between censorship and a healthy culture in a project, I don't think asking for tools to moderate what people write into issues and being able to remove illegal content (like copyrighted movies or CP), is not censorship, especially because I'm not a government body nor do I have even remotely that power. Giving me these tools empowers me to run the project how I like, not how someone who read the backcover of 1984 likes it (ie with no moderation tools at all).
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- StreamBright 8y agoAccess control is not censorship.
- mikekchar 8y agoIf "censorship" is stopping people from spreading certain information, what do we call forcing people to spread certain information that they don't want to? I wish there was a word for that. Generally speaking, censorship is about suppressing something with the intent that nobody can get access to it. Deciding not to forward information is not actually censorship because generally the original speaker can choose other avenues in which to spread their information. I think it's interesting to imagine a situation where someone puts a political poster on their house. They live near a busy street and so the political poster gets a lot of views. Another person thinks this is unfair because they don't own a house (let alone a house near a busy street). They ask the house owner to display their political poster. The owner decides not to because they don't like the poster. Is that censorship? Now imagine that our enterprising poor person decides to canvas the neighbourhood to see if someone else will post their poster. The person with the poster on their house thinks this will impede the success of the ideas on their poster and so canvases the neighbourhood asking others not to accept the poor person's poster. Is this censorship? If so, should we make a rule that the person with the house is not allowed to tell others not to post other posters? Is that censorship? Now imagine that the government made a rule. Only those who own their own house may post posters. You may not ask others to post posters for you because it causes problems in the neighbourhoods. Is that censorship? They aren't trying to suppress any particular message. However, the end result is that poor people have no effective way of posting posters. I understand that there is frustration if people don't cooperate to help you spread the message you want to spread. However, I don't think that in itself is censorship. It is especially frustrating when a group of people collude to deny you a cheap/popular platform to spread your message. I don't think even that is censorship, even though it's kind of a crap thing to do. Even if there are situations that arise that make it impossible for you to spread your message, that is not necessarily censorship, even though it is really, really frustrating. It's only when society actively tries to suppress any avenue for you getting your message out is it called "censorship". TL;DR: Nobody owes you a free lunch, no matter how hungry you may be.