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This sort of weird slippery slope argument that banning obviously bad advice somehow leads to youtube becoming a "horrible oppressor" doesn't pass the smell tes

This sort of weird slippery slope argument that banning obviously bad advice somehow leads to youtube becoming a "horrible oppressor" doesn't pass the smell test. By this reasoning, _any_ platform that features _any form of moderation at all_ will devolve into oppression. Is HN at risk of becoming oppressive due to banning flamebait and spam comments?

arghwhat 7y ago
Moderation is not necessarily censorship. It is only censorship if the content is removed based on the content itself. For example, shutting down a flamewar for simply being aggressive is not censorship, as long as the same discussion would have been permitted if held in good spirit. Censoring "wrong" content likely has bad outcomes, the worst being that with only "good" content, critical thinking may get even sloppier.
- cmeacham98 7y ago
  HN has plenty of rules that remove content "based on the content itself". For example, HN bans job ads (outside of 'who is hiring' threads). There are no circumstances where a job ad post is allowed outside of 'who is hiring' and YC-funded companies, not even "in good spirit". Similarly, the HN FAQ says not to post comments complaining about paywalls, and there is no 'unless you are civil' exception. Again, does banning content from an internet forum inevitably lead to "oppression" or "bad outcomes"? If so, why hasn't this happened to HN/Reddit/Twitter/etc?
  - prox 7y ago
    As someone who did a lot of moderation in the past, people forget any platform is more akin to a cafe, instead of a public square. A cafe has rules that keep a pleasant atmosphere. A public square has a public function and needs rules to allow for a broad discourse or protests. One could argue if there is a certain size where a platform like youtube becomes a public square. But on the whole its their room, their rules.
- zepto 7y ago
  I disagree. Aggression in the sense of language style, is very much in the eye of the beholder. As is assigning value to a ‘flamewar’. One person’s meaningless flamewar is another person’s valuable but heated argument.
  - arghwhat 7y ago
    Not any more so than physically. Sure, if you stop something early you may have overstepped, but no one questions violence taking place when rocks are being thrown. Same goes for once a discussion degrades to ad hominem attacks/insults.
    - zepto 7y ago
      This is simply not correct. You may call something an insult or an ad hominem as a third party, but you cannot know what value the consenting parties are gaining from the fight. If you claim that you do, you are asserting that you know better about their experience than they do. I’m not saying there is no room for third parties to intervene, but I question the judgement of anyone who thinks it’s that easy. There are good reasons why people choose to engage in combative dialog, although it may not be obvious to observers.
belorn 7y ago
If the telephone system had the same moderation as HN then I would suspect that indeed it would seen as oppressive if they were listening on all telephone calls and banned users who they deemed inappropriate citizens. We only have one telephone system so being banned has a rather large impact as it is an essential service. So maybe we should ask what platforms are like other essential services. Radio is an essential service. What about Youtube? The telephone system is an essential service. What about Skype? I think libraries are also seen as an essential service, so what about Wikipedia? And then we have HN. How essential is HN?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- Miraste 7y ago
  Skype and HN have alternatives. Wikipedia and YouTube do not.
vorpalhex 7y ago
One of the youtube series I watch normally features pork ribs. Like, the shrinkwrapped package you get from the grocery store. Well that video the creator couldn't get pork ribs because of coronavirus and so had used beef ribs instead - and couldn't even plainly say the reason why. Instead he had to hold up a bottle of corona beer and say "Well, it's due to beer, if you get my drift." Is Youtube actually in the right here? The guy just wanted to say he couldn't find pork ribs. He wasn't telling anyone to inject bleach or chug quinine. That isn't just clamping down on the conspiracy nutters. This has repeatedly become an issue in multiple videos from videogame commentary to cooking shows I watch. Youtube and other large corporates often see themselves as leading the dumb cattle that is the general population and frankly it's outright insulting and their handling of this situation is abysmal. But also it's going to get worse. The more Youtube can get away with these things, the more they'll do them. Don't be surprised when this extends even more to protected political speech (Israel BDS, free HK, Taiwanese independence, etc) because it's happened before and it will happen again.
- monkpit 7y ago
  > Is Youtube actually in the right here? Are you saying he got banned for this? I feel like you left something out in your comment.
  - vorpalhex 7y ago
    One of the things that's important when we discuss any kind of censorship and freedom of speech is what we call "Chilling Effects". If you know taking a political position is going to result in your family being arrested and put in prison, then your speech is being curbed even without being punished and it's one of the insidious wrongs of censorship. When a grown man who was in the marines for several years is afraid he's going to lose his youtube channel talking about why he can't find pork ribs, that's a chilling effect. When a multi-million dollar videogame streamer is afraid he's going to be demonetized if he talks about why he's filming from home instead of his studio, that's a chilling effect. The goal of a good censor is not to enforce censorship. It's to get the people to enforce it themselves.
immutate 7y ago
I've been very surprised, and I guess I shouldn't be, that so many folks are taking such a hard black or white stance on this. There's folks who've literally pushing ingestion of Chlorine Dioxide to eliminate coronavirus, or conflating HBOT with inhaling ozone to "clean" the lungs. I 100% believe that transparency and understanding when and why things are taken down can help, but there's a _lot_ of slippery-slope arguments being made that here that actually surprised me, when we're talking about actually trying to prevent people from spreading information that can actually lead other to harming themselves, rather than seeking treatment.
banads 7y ago
Why don't you try to steel man the argument, instead of straw manning it?
whatshisface 7y ago
I think it's obviously bad advice for you to suggest that censorship isn't a slippery slope. Under section 239-C of the Obviously Bad Advice Act, I have dispatched the police to your location. Please be ready to comply when they arrive.
aantthony 7y ago
I think there is a big difference between content moderation (based on published and reasonably objective rules) and an outright ban on contradicting the stance of an organisation that is highly political. If this rule was implemented earlier, you’d be banned for saying there is human-to-human transmission, proposing flight restrictions, or advocating for the general public to use masks. The W.H.O. has explicitly advised against each of those measures, despite significant disagreement on every one of those claims. It’s absurd that dissenting against the W.H.O. has been banned, although it’s predictable of course.
- devtul 7y ago
  Infallible institutions change their minds too, you just need to pay close attention to not contradict their rulings.
stcredzero 7y ago
This sort of weird slippery slope argument... Sorry, but history is overwhelmingly against you. The historical precedents are legion. We're not talking about some "weird slippery slope argument." This is well established human nature. In fact, many of the items in the Bill of Rights are based around this principle. In fact, the principle has a much shorter, snappier version: Power Corrupts.
JungleGymSam 7y ago
What? No, that's not right at all. "banning flamebait and spam comments" is nowhere near the same thing. Come on...

arghwhat 7y ago

Moderation is not necessarily censorship. It is only censorship if the content is removed based on the content itself. For example, shutting down a flamewar for simply being aggressive is not censorship, as long as the same discussion would have been permitted if held in good spirit. Censoring "wrong" content likely has bad outcomes, the worst being that with only "good" content, critical thinking may get even sloppier.

cmeacham98 7y ago
HN has plenty of rules that remove content "based on the content itself". For example, HN bans job ads (outside of 'who is hiring' threads). There are no circumstances where a job ad post is allowed outside of 'who is hiring' and YC-funded companies, not even "in good spirit". Similarly, the HN FAQ says not to post comments complaining about paywalls, and there is no 'unless you are civil' exception. Again, does banning content from an internet forum inevitably lead to "oppression" or "bad outcomes"? If so, why hasn't this happened to HN/Reddit/Twitter/etc?
- prox 7y ago
  As someone who did a lot of moderation in the past, people forget any platform is more akin to a cafe, instead of a public square. A cafe has rules that keep a pleasant atmosphere. A public square has a public function and needs rules to allow for a broad discourse or protests. One could argue if there is a certain size where a platform like youtube becomes a public square. But on the whole its their room, their rules.
zepto 7y ago
I disagree. Aggression in the sense of language style, is very much in the eye of the beholder. As is assigning value to a ‘flamewar’. One person’s meaningless flamewar is another person’s valuable but heated argument.
- arghwhat 7y ago
  Not any more so than physically. Sure, if you stop something early you may have overstepped, but no one questions violence taking place when rocks are being thrown. Same goes for once a discussion degrades to ad hominem attacks/insults.
  - zepto 7y ago
    This is simply not correct. You may call something an insult or an ad hominem as a third party, but you cannot know what value the consenting parties are gaining from the fight. If you claim that you do, you are asserting that you know better about their experience than they do. I’m not saying there is no room for third parties to intervene, but I question the judgement of anyone who thinks it’s that easy. There are good reasons why people choose to engage in combative dialog, although it may not be obvious to observers.

belorn 7y ago

If the telephone system had the same moderation as HN then I would suspect that indeed it would seen as oppressive if they were listening on all telephone calls and banned users who they deemed inappropriate citizens. We only have one telephone system so being banned has a rather large impact as it is an essential service. So maybe we should ask what platforms are like other essential services. Radio is an essential service. What about Youtube? The telephone system is an essential service. What about Skype? I think libraries are also seen as an essential service, so what about Wikipedia? And then we have HN. How essential is HN?

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Miraste 7y ago
Skype and HN have alternatives. Wikipedia and YouTube do not.

vorpalhex 7y ago

One of the youtube series I watch normally features pork ribs. Like, the shrinkwrapped package you get from the grocery store. Well that video the creator couldn't get pork ribs because of coronavirus and so had used beef ribs instead - and couldn't even plainly say the reason why. Instead he had to hold up a bottle of corona beer and say "Well, it's due to beer, if you get my drift." Is Youtube actually in the right here? The guy just wanted to say he couldn't find pork ribs. He wasn't telling anyone to inject bleach or chug quinine. That isn't just clamping down on the conspiracy nutters. This has repeatedly become an issue in multiple videos from videogame commentary to cooking shows I watch. Youtube and other large corporates often see themselves as leading the dumb cattle that is the general population and frankly it's outright insulting and their handling of this situation is abysmal. But also it's going to get worse. The more Youtube can get away with these things, the more they'll do them. Don't be surprised when this extends even more to protected political speech (Israel BDS, free HK, Taiwanese independence, etc) because it's happened before and it will happen again.

monkpit 7y ago
> Is Youtube actually in the right here? Are you saying he got banned for this? I feel like you left something out in your comment.
- vorpalhex 7y ago
  One of the things that's important when we discuss any kind of censorship and freedom of speech is what we call "Chilling Effects". If you know taking a political position is going to result in your family being arrested and put in prison, then your speech is being curbed even without being punished and it's one of the insidious wrongs of censorship. When a grown man who was in the marines for several years is afraid he's going to lose his youtube channel talking about why he can't find pork ribs, that's a chilling effect. When a multi-million dollar videogame streamer is afraid he's going to be demonetized if he talks about why he's filming from home instead of his studio, that's a chilling effect. The goal of a good censor is not to enforce censorship. It's to get the people to enforce it themselves.

immutate 7y ago

I've been very surprised, and I guess I shouldn't be, that so many folks are taking such a hard black or white stance on this. There's folks who've literally pushing ingestion of Chlorine Dioxide to eliminate coronavirus, or conflating HBOT with inhaling ozone to "clean" the lungs. I 100% believe that transparency and understanding when and why things are taken down can help, but there's a _lot_ of slippery-slope arguments being made that here that actually surprised me, when we're talking about actually trying to prevent people from spreading information that can actually lead other to harming themselves, rather than seeking treatment.

banads 7y ago

Why don't you try to steel man the argument, instead of straw manning it?

whatshisface 7y ago

I think it's obviously bad advice for you to suggest that censorship isn't a slippery slope. Under section 239-C of the Obviously Bad Advice Act, I have dispatched the police to your location. Please be ready to comply when they arrive.

aantthony 7y ago

I think there is a big difference between content moderation (based on published and reasonably objective rules) and an outright ban on contradicting the stance of an organisation that is highly political. If this rule was implemented earlier, you’d be banned for saying there is human-to-human transmission, proposing flight restrictions, or advocating for the general public to use masks. The W.H.O. has explicitly advised against each of those measures, despite significant disagreement on every one of those claims. It’s absurd that dissenting against the W.H.O. has been banned, although it’s predictable of course.

devtul 7y ago
Infallible institutions change their minds too, you just need to pay close attention to not contradict their rulings.

stcredzero 7y ago

This sort of weird slippery slope argument... Sorry, but history is overwhelmingly against you. The historical precedents are legion. We're not talking about some "weird slippery slope argument." This is well established human nature. In fact, many of the items in the Bill of Rights are based around this principle. In fact, the principle has a much shorter, snappier version: Power Corrupts.

JungleGymSam 7y ago

What? No, that's not right at all. "banning flamebait and spam comments" is nowhere near the same thing. Come on...