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Is a whiteboard political? If I buy a whiteboard from Staples, and draw a confederate flag and some hate speech it does not get erased automatically. Have the w

Is a whiteboard political? If I buy a whiteboard from Staples, and draw a confederate flag and some hate speech it does not get erased automatically. Have the whiteboard manufacturers made a political statement because their products do not censor hate speech? I'm skeptical of this claim they everything is political. A forum they hosted any and all content will definitely host political speech, but those are the politics of the users not the site. Your kind of rhetoric seems like an attempt to say that hosting something is equivalent to an endorsement of it. This is not at all the case.

sandworm101 6y ago
Where was the whiteboard manufactured? Did the frame use Canadian aluminum?
- zo1 6y ago
  Then there is that pesky issue of it being a Whiteboard.
  - sandworm101 6y ago
    Most stuff from canada comes in white these days. The country is litterally covered in snow at the moment.
bird_monster 6y ago
If content is posted onto a site that is obviously hateful, the site has the choice to keep it up or take it down. The outcome of that choice is a political act (to not act is to act). The severity of the hate speech might matter, but ultimately regardless of which path they take, they've taken a path. In your whiteboard analogy, if you were giving an interview to a candidate and walked into a meeting room that had a swastika on a whiteboard and opted not to erase it, as a candidate I would assume that was an endorsement. Not taking a side is taking the side of whoever is being most aggressive. "I don't want to get involved" is getting involved.
- dmingod666 6y ago
  Someday people will realize that there is something called laws and law enforcement.. till that day tech companies can keep playing that part..
  - bird_monster 6y ago
    What do laws have to do with this?
- manfredo 6y ago
  Not getting involved is not getting involved. You might take this as an indirect endorsement of content. But by that logic, a site with no moderation simultaneously liberal, conservative, and centrist because all are allowed. I guess you can say that it's political, but because it allows all content it's political nature is all-encompassing. Calling a completely apolitical stance political is sort of like calling Atheism a religion. It's arguably correct but it's really the absence of religion. Also, I think your whiteboard with a swatstika analogy demonstrates the shortsightedness of this sort of "inaction is endorsement" line of thinking. What about a candidate who's family was personally affected by the Holocaust and is so mortified to see the swatstika that they are too uncomfortable to even do anything about it? What about a South Asian candidate for whom the symbol doesn't elicit a reaction because of it's prevalence in South Asian culture? Or what about a candidate who thinks, "the people at this company definitely aren't Nazis, clearly this was part of diagram or something."
  - bird_monster 6y ago
    > Not getting involved is not getting involved. No. > But by that logic, a site with no moderation simultaneously liberal, conservative, and centrist because all are allowed. We aren't (and haven't been) talking about political ideals, but hate speech. A website that doesn't take action on hate speech is allowing and condoning hate speech. > Calling a completely apolitical stance political is sort of like calling Atheism a religion. It's arguably correct but it's really the absence of religion. We're not talking about apolitical stances like "I like chocolate." We're talking about hate speech, which is implicitly political. > Also, I think your whiteboard with a swatstika analogy demonstrates the shortsightedness of this sort of "inaction is endorsement" line of thinking. What about a candidate who's family was personally affected by the Holocaust and is so mortified to see the swatstika that they are too uncomfortable to even do anything about it? Isn't this just even more evidence to suggest that an employee not taking action is an action itself? What-aboutism is great, but it doesn't really matter in this context, right? "What about a candidate who's blind" etc etc. I defined a hypothetical scenario to prove a point in response to the above hypothetical scenario.
bitmunk 6y ago
>Is a whiteboard political? If I buy a whiteboard from Staples, and draw a confederate flag and some hate speech it does not get erased automatically. Have the whiteboard manufacturers made a political statement because their products do not censor hate speech? Considering that in that case you are the "moderator and owner" of that white board, yes it would be a political action if you decide to remove or not the confederate flag. That's without getting into the fact that the whiteboard didn't come from the ether and it's production, sale and all processes that compose the two are, also in some manner, political.
dk775 6y ago
I am a policy person by trade, I will say that there is a quote “you cannot separate politics from administration” this is a public sector term but I think it applies to any admin functions of a business. I also think politics (more accurate policy, regulatory, and administrative law) would play a huge role in making a white board due to compliance requirements. But maybe not in the way you say.

sandworm101 6y ago

Where was the whiteboard manufactured? Did the frame use Canadian aluminum?

zo1 6y ago
Then there is that pesky issue of it being a Whiteboard.
- sandworm101 6y ago
  Most stuff from canada comes in white these days. The country is litterally covered in snow at the moment.

bird_monster 6y ago

If content is posted onto a site that is obviously hateful, the site has the choice to keep it up or take it down. The outcome of that choice is a political act (to not act is to act). The severity of the hate speech might matter, but ultimately regardless of which path they take, they've taken a path. In your whiteboard analogy, if you were giving an interview to a candidate and walked into a meeting room that had a swastika on a whiteboard and opted not to erase it, as a candidate I would assume that was an endorsement. Not taking a side is taking the side of whoever is being most aggressive. "I don't want to get involved" is getting involved.

dmingod666 6y ago
Someday people will realize that there is something called laws and law enforcement.. till that day tech companies can keep playing that part..
- bird_monster 6y ago
  What do laws have to do with this?
manfredo 6y ago
Not getting involved is not getting involved. You might take this as an indirect endorsement of content. But by that logic, a site with no moderation simultaneously liberal, conservative, and centrist because all are allowed. I guess you can say that it's political, but because it allows all content it's political nature is all-encompassing. Calling a completely apolitical stance political is sort of like calling Atheism a religion. It's arguably correct but it's really the absence of religion. Also, I think your whiteboard with a swatstika analogy demonstrates the shortsightedness of this sort of "inaction is endorsement" line of thinking. What about a candidate who's family was personally affected by the Holocaust and is so mortified to see the swatstika that they are too uncomfortable to even do anything about it? What about a South Asian candidate for whom the symbol doesn't elicit a reaction because of it's prevalence in South Asian culture? Or what about a candidate who thinks, "the people at this company definitely aren't Nazis, clearly this was part of diagram or something."
- bird_monster 6y ago
  > Not getting involved is not getting involved. No. > But by that logic, a site with no moderation simultaneously liberal, conservative, and centrist because all are allowed. We aren't (and haven't been) talking about political ideals, but hate speech. A website that doesn't take action on hate speech is allowing and condoning hate speech. > Calling a completely apolitical stance political is sort of like calling Atheism a religion. It's arguably correct but it's really the absence of religion. We're not talking about apolitical stances like "I like chocolate." We're talking about hate speech, which is implicitly political. > Also, I think your whiteboard with a swatstika analogy demonstrates the shortsightedness of this sort of "inaction is endorsement" line of thinking. What about a candidate who's family was personally affected by the Holocaust and is so mortified to see the swatstika that they are too uncomfortable to even do anything about it? Isn't this just even more evidence to suggest that an employee not taking action is an action itself? What-aboutism is great, but it doesn't really matter in this context, right? "What about a candidate who's blind" etc etc. I defined a hypothetical scenario to prove a point in response to the above hypothetical scenario.

bitmunk 6y ago

>Is a whiteboard political? If I buy a whiteboard from Staples, and draw a confederate flag and some hate speech it does not get erased automatically. Have the whiteboard manufacturers made a political statement because their products do not censor hate speech? Considering that in that case you are the "moderator and owner" of that white board, yes it would be a political action if you decide to remove or not the confederate flag. That's without getting into the fact that the whiteboard didn't come from the ether and it's production, sale and all processes that compose the two are, also in some manner, political.

dk775 6y ago

I am a policy person by trade, I will say that there is a quote “you cannot separate politics from administration” this is a public sector term but I think it applies to any admin functions of a business. I also think politics (more accurate policy, regulatory, and administrative law) would play a huge role in making a white board due to compliance requirements. But maybe not in the way you say.