8 ms·

It is hardly just Tiktok policing content with an agenda. Twitter, Youtube, Reddit are particularly bad if you are conservative or have gender critical ideas.

It is hardly just Tiktok policing content with an agenda. Twitter, Youtube, Reddit are particularly bad if you are conservative or have gender critical ideas. Reddit recently banned a ton of subreddits that are simply critical of the idea that men can literally become women (they say it's to stop hate, but they leave up violent porn subs and other subs that hate women). Even subreddits like PCOS - a very serious condition that only females have - ran into trouble because they aren't inclusive enough with their language. Someone got suspended on twitter for saying only females get cervical cancer (this is apparently hate speech), Meghan Murphy got banned from Twitter for using the pronoun 'he' about Yaniv about a profile of his when he was presenting as a man. People get their videos taken down on youtube for "misgendering" people, or demonetized for not having the correct opinion. American companies are absolutely policing content to their own political agenda.

andreilys 6y ago
Yes although I’m more concerned about the CCP policing western discourse and influencing it based on the moderation policies and algorithm choices they make. You already see organizations like the NBA, Disney, etc. self censoring to preserve their market in China so to assume a Chinese based company won’t do the same is a bit of a stretch.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
driverdan 6y ago
> are particularly bad if you are conservative or have gender critical ideas I downvoted you because this is not true. Watch YT logged out and you will discover it quickly starts recommending far right videos, recommending more extreme videos as you watch them. As for "gender critical" and your following paragraph, people aren't being banned for simply misgendering people. It's intentional misgendering from hateful people, often as a final straw after many similar hateful actions.
- manfredo 6y ago
  Doing what you suggest has an immense issue of selection bias. You go into youtube trying to see if it recommends right wing videos, and you're going to be a lot more likely to click on right wing videos. Which then informs the algorithm that you're interested in right wing videos. The correct way to test this is to write a program, not to just watch youtube while logged off. I used selenium to do exactly this. Start at a video, and do a breadth based search based on recommendations. No such preference for far right videos exist. It's frequently get into a hole of certain topics (e.g. first recommendation is on knitting, subsequent recommendations have a higher chance of being about knitting, and so on), but there was no substantial representation of right wing content. And it's not just me with a selenium driver. Other researchers have examined youtube and reached the same conclusion: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1912.11211.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1912.11211.pdf
- seebetter 6y ago
  That’s not true about YT wormholes pushing viewers into far right content. And yes people are being banned for innocuous misgendering. And for saying only biological women are women. It’s not hate speech to say that. Declaring things as true don’t make them true. Let’s try reasoning from first principles and acknowledging that principles actually exist. Amorphous relativism is a destructive force in society.
  - specialist 6y ago
    "That’s not true about YT wormholes pushing viewers into far right content." What measure of proof do you require?
  - khrbrt 6y ago
    The YouTube alt-right pipeline is well documented. ACM study: https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3351095.3372879 https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3351095.3372879 MIT Technology Review summary of the study: https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/01/29/276000/a-study-of-youtube-comments-shows-how-its-turning-people-onto-the-alt-right/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/01/29/276000/a-study-o... NYTimes feature: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/08/technology/youtube-radical.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/08/technology/yo...
newacct583 6y ago
> Reddit recently banned a ton of subreddits that are simply critical of the idea that men can literally become women This is a deeply misleading way of understanding this controversy. You can be "simply critical" of the way we define gender or of reddit's policies without being an asshole. "Inclusive" behavior consists, essentially, of just not being an asshole. If someone tells you they're a woman and you don't agree, that's fine. Let them be them and you be you. Complain if you're actually harmed, or if you think someone needs to be defended. If you start a subreddit dedicated to the notion that trans women aren't "really women" and share a bunch of memes making fun of them, that's crossing the line. That's who got banned. ... Edit ... Good grief. I started looking up the rest of your evidence (I only knew the trans hate subreddits thing a priori), and it's all equivalently spun. You're are NOT arguing in good faith here: 1. Hammer_Of_Glass was not "banned" from twitter. The account was locked for a few hours, then released when reviewed. It was clearly a mistake. 2. /r/PCOS went through a mod shakeup due to anti-trans comments getting out of hand on a forum that was supposed to be about medical issues and social support for sufferers. The community as a whole seems to be entirely behind the new focus. 3. Meghan Murphy was banned from twitter after a long history of anti-trans activism (including two instances of doxxing otherwise-anonymous trans twitter users), not one tweet and certainly not one pronoun. 4. I don't know what you're talking about with Youtube. The amount of anti-trans hate on that site is staggering.
- dvt 6y ago
  > share a bunch of memes making fun of them Making fun of people is crossing the line? This seems like a dangerous slippery slope to say the least. Suppose I make an entire career out of making fun of (say) Irish people. Jokes and stereotypes like "they drink a lot" and "they get into bar fights" and "they're dumb potato farmers" are my bread and butter. Most people would probably agree that this kind of speech should be protected. However, because trans rights, LGBT, race, etc. has been so profusely politicized, it's become a third rail. Making fun of a trans person and an Irish person are, for whatever reason, not on the same playing field any more. I'm not sure what the solution is, but let's not pretend there's no problem.
  - newacct583 6y ago
CogentHedgehog 6y ago
Once again, we have Conservatives trying to push a false narrative that they're the "innocent victims of censorship." The reality is that Reddit removed a handful of subreddits which were openly advocating for discrimination or violence against people because of their race, religion, or gender identity. Admins didn't touch /r/Conservative, /r/libertarian, or the major right-wing subreddits. the_Donald was already long-defunct and had migrated to another platform. The Right got to keep its safe spaces. Are you arguing that memes about how black people are all "thugs" or "thieves" are a core tenet of modern Conservatism? Or that your political doctrine requires that trans women should be treated as men? Perhaps you think /r/joerogan should enjoy seeing a blackface video saturated with racial slurs? When you argue that someone ELSE's lifestyle or race is a threat to your politics, then the problem isn't them, it's YOU.
- pentae 6y ago
  > the_Donald was already long-defunct and had migrated to another platform. The Right got to keep its safe spaces. This is a patently false spin that reveals your obvious bias. Even the most pedestrian research would reveal this sub was pushed out of reddit by the admins and so they set up an alternate forum. I'm always amazed at how people feel the need to push their ideological agenda instead of calling a spade a spade.
  - CogentHedgehog 6y ago
    Fact: the_Donald had their admins removed for a long pattern of refusing to abide by Reddit's platform policies, specifically brigading other communities and making repeated calls for violence. This action happened months ago, as did the migration of t_D off Reddit. Calling a spade a spade: recognizing that Right wing communities are enraged SIMPLY because Reddit won't let them bully trans people and post blackface videos and circlejerk over racist memes anymore.
Spivak 6y ago
Reddit banned a bunch of hate subreddits. Full stop. I don't care what you think about trans men and women but this is not a case of people being overly sensitive. "Gender Critical" is the spiritual equivalent of "Race Realists" and their subreddits were nothing other than a safe space for them to express their overt hate. This was not a place "simply" for people with an opinion. You don't understand hate speech. Misgendering a trans person isn't hate unless you do it with the intent to hurt them. Saying that only women get cervical cancer or that that shit that JK spouts about menstruation is literally no issue except for the fact that it's said to purposely be mean and exclusive. Like FFS, I'm glad we're finally at the point where this bullshit "I'm speaking in coded language and therefore technically not being a hateful pos despite everyone and especially my followers know exactly what I mean" is being called out for what it is an not tolerated anymore.
- ehsankia 6y ago
  From my understanding, most subreddits that are banned generally are breaking wider rules, which often consists of hate spilling outside of the subreddit itself From my experience, reddit is actually pretty hands off as long as what you do is contained to your sub, but brigading is a very common occurrence in these more "heated" subreddits, intentional or not.
- dvt 6y ago
  > You don't understand hate speech. This is "no true Scotsman" in its full glory, but I'll bite. Even if we agree that "Gender Critical" was hateful, in no way would the sub be "hate speech" as it would need to (by your own definition) target specific people with the intent to hurt them (which was explicitly against the sub's rules).
  - Spivak 6y ago
    I really don't think you get the kind of content that got GC in trouble. The subreddit followed the "name and shame" formula (that's way too common on Reddit) of posting "cringe" pictures/articles/screengrabs of trans men and women and then then insulting, shaming, misgendering, and otherwise making fun of them. GC wasn't some Socratic circle discussing the intricate nuances of sex and gender and happened to hold the "wrong" opinion. It was a group of bullies who had it out for trans men and women.

andreilys 6y ago

Yes although I’m more concerned about the CCP policing western discourse and influencing it based on the moderation policies and algorithm choices they make. You already see organizations like the NBA, Disney, etc. self censoring to preserve their market in China so to assume a Chinese based company won’t do the same is a bit of a stretch.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

driverdan 6y ago

> are particularly bad if you are conservative or have gender critical ideas I downvoted you because this is not true. Watch YT logged out and you will discover it quickly starts recommending far right videos, recommending more extreme videos as you watch them. As for "gender critical" and your following paragraph, people aren't being banned for simply misgendering people. It's intentional misgendering from hateful people, often as a final straw after many similar hateful actions.

manfredo 6y ago
Doing what you suggest has an immense issue of selection bias. You go into youtube trying to see if it recommends right wing videos, and you're going to be a lot more likely to click on right wing videos. Which then informs the algorithm that you're interested in right wing videos. The correct way to test this is to write a program, not to just watch youtube while logged off. I used selenium to do exactly this. Start at a video, and do a breadth based search based on recommendations. No such preference for far right videos exist. It's frequently get into a hole of certain topics (e.g. first recommendation is on knitting, subsequent recommendations have a higher chance of being about knitting, and so on), but there was no substantial representation of right wing content. And it's not just me with a selenium driver. Other researchers have examined youtube and reached the same conclusion: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1912.11211.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1912.11211.pdf
seebetter 6y ago
That’s not true about YT wormholes pushing viewers into far right content. And yes people are being banned for innocuous misgendering. And for saying only biological women are women. It’s not hate speech to say that. Declaring things as true don’t make them true. Let’s try reasoning from first principles and acknowledging that principles actually exist. Amorphous relativism is a destructive force in society.
- specialist 6y ago
  "That’s not true about YT wormholes pushing viewers into far right content." What measure of proof do you require?
- khrbrt 6y ago
  The YouTube alt-right pipeline is well documented. ACM study: https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3351095.3372879 https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3351095.3372879 MIT Technology Review summary of the study: https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/01/29/276000/a-study-of-youtube-comments-shows-how-its-turning-people-onto-the-alt-right/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/01/29/276000/a-study-o... NYTimes feature: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/08/technology/youtube-radical.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/08/technology/yo...

newacct583 6y ago

> Reddit recently banned a ton of subreddits that are simply critical of the idea that men can literally become women This is a deeply misleading way of understanding this controversy. You can be "simply critical" of the way we define gender or of reddit's policies without being an asshole. "Inclusive" behavior consists, essentially, of just not being an asshole. If someone tells you they're a woman and you don't agree, that's fine. Let them be them and you be you. Complain if you're actually harmed, or if you think someone needs to be defended. If you start a subreddit dedicated to the notion that trans women aren't "really women" and share a bunch of memes making fun of them, that's crossing the line. That's who got banned. ... Edit ... Good grief. I started looking up the rest of your evidence (I only knew the trans hate subreddits thing a priori), and it's all equivalently spun. You're are NOT arguing in good faith here: 1. Hammer_Of_Glass was not "banned" from twitter. The account was locked for a few hours, then released when reviewed. It was clearly a mistake. 2. /r/PCOS went through a mod shakeup due to anti-trans comments getting out of hand on a forum that was supposed to be about medical issues and social support for sufferers. The community as a whole seems to be entirely behind the new focus. 3. Meghan Murphy was banned from twitter after a long history of anti-trans activism (including two instances of doxxing otherwise-anonymous trans twitter users), not one tweet and certainly not one pronoun. 4. I don't know what you're talking about with Youtube. The amount of anti-trans hate on that site is staggering.

dvt 6y ago
> share a bunch of memes making fun of them Making fun of people is crossing the line? This seems like a dangerous slippery slope to say the least. Suppose I make an entire career out of making fun of (say) Irish people. Jokes and stereotypes like "they drink a lot" and "they get into bar fights" and "they're dumb potato farmers" are my bread and butter. Most people would probably agree that this kind of speech should be protected. However, because trans rights, LGBT, race, etc. has been so profusely politicized, it's become a third rail. Making fun of a trans person and an Irish person are, for whatever reason, not on the same playing field any more. I'm not sure what the solution is, but let's not pretend there's no problem.
- newacct583 6y ago

CogentHedgehog 6y ago

Once again, we have Conservatives trying to push a false narrative that they're the "innocent victims of censorship." The reality is that Reddit removed a handful of subreddits which were openly advocating for discrimination or violence against people because of their race, religion, or gender identity. Admins didn't touch /r/Conservative, /r/libertarian, or the major right-wing subreddits. the_Donald was already long-defunct and had migrated to another platform. The Right got to keep its safe spaces. Are you arguing that memes about how black people are all "thugs" or "thieves" are a core tenet of modern Conservatism? Or that your political doctrine requires that trans women should be treated as men? Perhaps you think /r/joerogan should enjoy seeing a blackface video saturated with racial slurs? When you argue that someone ELSE's lifestyle or race is a threat to your politics, then the problem isn't them, it's YOU.

pentae 6y ago
> the_Donald was already long-defunct and had migrated to another platform. The Right got to keep its safe spaces. This is a patently false spin that reveals your obvious bias. Even the most pedestrian research would reveal this sub was pushed out of reddit by the admins and so they set up an alternate forum. I'm always amazed at how people feel the need to push their ideological agenda instead of calling a spade a spade.
- CogentHedgehog 6y ago
  Fact: the_Donald had their admins removed for a long pattern of refusing to abide by Reddit's platform policies, specifically brigading other communities and making repeated calls for violence. This action happened months ago, as did the migration of t_D off Reddit. Calling a spade a spade: recognizing that Right wing communities are enraged SIMPLY because Reddit won't let them bully trans people and post blackface videos and circlejerk over racist memes anymore.

Spivak 6y ago

Reddit banned a bunch of hate subreddits. Full stop. I don't care what you think about trans men and women but this is not a case of people being overly sensitive. "Gender Critical" is the spiritual equivalent of "Race Realists" and their subreddits were nothing other than a safe space for them to express their overt hate. This was not a place "simply" for people with an opinion. You don't understand hate speech. Misgendering a trans person isn't hate unless you do it with the intent to hurt them. Saying that only women get cervical cancer or that that shit that JK spouts about menstruation is literally no issue except for the fact that it's said to purposely be mean and exclusive. Like FFS, I'm glad we're finally at the point where this bullshit "I'm speaking in coded language and therefore technically not being a hateful pos despite everyone and especially my followers know exactly what I mean" is being called out for what it is an not tolerated anymore.

ehsankia 6y ago
From my understanding, most subreddits that are banned generally are breaking wider rules, which often consists of hate spilling outside of the subreddit itself From my experience, reddit is actually pretty hands off as long as what you do is contained to your sub, but brigading is a very common occurrence in these more "heated" subreddits, intentional or not.
dvt 6y ago
> You don't understand hate speech. This is "no true Scotsman" in its full glory, but I'll bite. Even if we agree that "Gender Critical" was hateful, in no way would the sub be "hate speech" as it would need to (by your own definition) target specific people with the intent to hurt them (which was explicitly against the sub's rules).
- Spivak 6y ago
  I really don't think you get the kind of content that got GC in trouble. The subreddit followed the "name and shame" formula (that's way too common on Reddit) of posting "cringe" pictures/articles/screengrabs of trans men and women and then then insulting, shaming, misgendering, and otherwise making fun of them. GC wasn't some Socratic circle discussing the intricate nuances of sex and gender and happened to hold the "wrong" opinion. It was a group of bullies who had it out for trans men and women.