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> it's rather interesting how all the information technology (social media, etc...) is slowly moving our culture towards increasing self-censorship. It's not.

> it's rather interesting how all the information technology (social media, etc...) is slowly moving our culture towards increasing self-censorship. It's not. Take it from me, a guy who predates social media by decades. If you go back and look at what Gary Hart dropped out of the 1988 presidential race for, and compare it to what Donald Trump said on social media before, during, and after being elected President, there's just no comparison. Racial, misogynistic, derogatory, offensive sentiments you can easily find being published on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or most other social media platforms would not have passed muster in any mass-media channel or public conversation 30 or even 20 years ago. On the positive side, social media has been a tremendous boon to marginalized communities like gay/lesbian/bisexual, transgender, heck, even furries. It has allowed like minds to find and support each other, and allowed the rest of us normies to see these communities for the constructive, positive forces so many of them are. I am convinced that social media aided in their growing public acceptance. In fact, I'd say that social media has opened up the discourse so much that even the resignation of a powerful figure over controversial remarks about pedophilia--an outcome which would have been expected and commonplace for at least the past 70 years of U.S. society--are taken as somehow problematic. In other words, things are so de-censored now that even the most anodyne and obvious objections to gross statements by powerful figures is taken as censorship. The Overton Window has moved way over to one side, but people still complain when they hit the edge of it.

js8 7y ago
It's an interesting dynamic. I would agree that on the whole, you're probably correct that there is less censorship in the society. However, it seems that the political division is greater than ever. It is almost as if there are two Overton windows now, one for liberals and one for republicans (roughly). The republican one shifted to much less self-censorship, while the liberal one shifted very slightly to more self-censorship. And RMS seems to be caught in the liberal one. He has held his opinions for a long time, and nobody really cared that much. He is also not a particularly powerful figure. If anything, FSF is weaker than it has been in the 90s. That's also an interesting change in dynamics, the shifting of both windows now affects powerful and powerless alike, where in the past, it was I believe considered less decent to have "wrong opinions" if you were powerful, and the wrong opinions of the powerless were tolerated much more. (Basically, the difference between elites and proletes, and agreement who is what, is now morphing into a difference between liberals and republicans.)
fatbird 7y ago
I hate that the parent is being downvoted. It speaks to the poor quality of the community at HN. Parent is absolutely right: twenty or thirty years ago, you were driven from the public sphere for merely a fraction of what passes today as 'within bounds'. Every cry of how we're self-censoring and being chilled rings hollow with every tweet by the pussy-grabber-in-chief. Whining about the boundaries now is just a confession of how little history you know.
- scoobyyabbadoo 7y ago
  >Parent is absolutely right: twenty or thirty years ago, you were driven from the public sphere for merely a fraction of what passes today as 'within bounds'. That's because a single viewpoint controls "the public sphere" when all information gets to people through only a few channels controlled by a few people who all happen to be part of the same ethno-religious viewpoint. What you are seeing is a democratization of the flow of information
  - sterileopinions 7y ago
    Hello HN mods? Are you okay? Are you okay dannie? The community has brought attention to this account multiple times with no actual action on your part. I guess you might be too busy tone policing, as per usual: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20993139 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20993139
    - scoobyyabbadoo 7y ago
      >The community has You and your alt account do not make up "the community". Since I make comments related to the articles and discussions then I am way more a part of the HN community than you are. Anyway, I invite you and your alt account to respond to the content of what I write in order to have a constructive conversation.
    - dang 7y ago
      Actually, no one brought this to our attention until a user emailed about it earlier today. If you don't see something being moderated that should be, the likeliest explanation is the simplest: we just didn't see it. We don't come close to seeing all the posts on HN. There are far too many. As the site guidelines explain, the way to react to a bad comment on HN is not to feed it by replying, but rather to flag it and (in egregious cases) to email us at hn@ycombinator.com. Posting more comments complaining about lack of moderation doesn't help, for the same reason: we might not see it. In fact we probably won't, if we didn't see the original post in the first place. Making your complaint as sarcastic and cruel as you can doesn't add to its visibility. Would you please review the site guidelines and follow them? They're written the way they are because, to avoid HN deteriorating further, users need to help preserve the site. Letting moderators know about egregious comments (in ways that work—flagging or emailing) is one way the guidelines ask you to do that. Not being snarky or calling names is another. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
mindslight 7y ago
The proper comparison is not what a politician could say 20 years ago, but rather what a well-known software figure could say on a mailing list. "Predating social media by decades", you should appreciate how online communication was before the status-gamers got here and reasserted their tribalistic bullshit.
concordDance 7y ago
You're conflating two very different environments. Mass media of yesterday was the establishment broadcasting carefully considered things. Social media today is individuals chatting to other individuals in a manner that can incidentally be seen by everyone. People using say, hackernews, aren't modelling this interaction as if they are on the stage being broadcasted to the world, they are modelling it as if they were talking to someone at a pub.

js8 7y ago

It's an interesting dynamic. I would agree that on the whole, you're probably correct that there is less censorship in the society. However, it seems that the political division is greater than ever. It is almost as if there are two Overton windows now, one for liberals and one for republicans (roughly). The republican one shifted to much less self-censorship, while the liberal one shifted very slightly to more self-censorship. And RMS seems to be caught in the liberal one. He has held his opinions for a long time, and nobody really cared that much. He is also not a particularly powerful figure. If anything, FSF is weaker than it has been in the 90s. That's also an interesting change in dynamics, the shifting of both windows now affects powerful and powerless alike, where in the past, it was I believe considered less decent to have "wrong opinions" if you were powerful, and the wrong opinions of the powerless were tolerated much more. (Basically, the difference between elites and proletes, and agreement who is what, is now morphing into a difference between liberals and republicans.)

fatbird 7y ago

I hate that the parent is being downvoted. It speaks to the poor quality of the community at HN. Parent is absolutely right: twenty or thirty years ago, you were driven from the public sphere for merely a fraction of what passes today as 'within bounds'. Every cry of how we're self-censoring and being chilled rings hollow with every tweet by the pussy-grabber-in-chief. Whining about the boundaries now is just a confession of how little history you know.

scoobyyabbadoo 7y ago
>Parent is absolutely right: twenty or thirty years ago, you were driven from the public sphere for merely a fraction of what passes today as 'within bounds'. That's because a single viewpoint controls "the public sphere" when all information gets to people through only a few channels controlled by a few people who all happen to be part of the same ethno-religious viewpoint. What you are seeing is a democratization of the flow of information
- sterileopinions 7y ago
  Hello HN mods? Are you okay? Are you okay dannie? The community has brought attention to this account multiple times with no actual action on your part. I guess you might be too busy tone policing, as per usual: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20993139 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20993139
  - scoobyyabbadoo 7y ago
    >The community has You and your alt account do not make up "the community". Since I make comments related to the articles and discussions then I am way more a part of the HN community than you are. Anyway, I invite you and your alt account to respond to the content of what I write in order to have a constructive conversation.
  - dang 7y ago
    Actually, no one brought this to our attention until a user emailed about it earlier today. If you don't see something being moderated that should be, the likeliest explanation is the simplest: we just didn't see it. We don't come close to seeing all the posts on HN. There are far too many. As the site guidelines explain, the way to react to a bad comment on HN is not to feed it by replying, but rather to flag it and (in egregious cases) to email us at hn@ycombinator.com. Posting more comments complaining about lack of moderation doesn't help, for the same reason: we might not see it. In fact we probably won't, if we didn't see the original post in the first place. Making your complaint as sarcastic and cruel as you can doesn't add to its visibility. Would you please review the site guidelines and follow them? They're written the way they are because, to avoid HN deteriorating further, users need to help preserve the site. Letting moderators know about egregious comments (in ways that work—flagging or emailing) is one way the guidelines ask you to do that. Not being snarky or calling names is another. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

mindslight 7y ago

The proper comparison is not what a politician could say 20 years ago, but rather what a well-known software figure could say on a mailing list. "Predating social media by decades", you should appreciate how online communication was before the status-gamers got here and reasserted their tribalistic bullshit.

concordDance 7y ago

You're conflating two very different environments. Mass media of yesterday was the establishment broadcasting carefully considered things. Social media today is individuals chatting to other individuals in a manner that can incidentally be seen by everyone. People using say, hackernews, aren't modelling this interaction as if they are on the stage being broadcasted to the world, they are modelling it as if they were talking to someone at a pub.