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It seems the current pro-censorship group has a fairly homogeneous political slant as evidenced by the author's statement: > It’s offered a megaphone to those

It seems the current pro-censorship group has a fairly homogeneous political slant as evidenced by the author's statement: > It’s offered a megaphone to those promoting dangerous ideas like white supremacy, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, homophobia and other anti-LGBTQ positions, and sometimes outright Nazism. This group always seems to willfully ignore or is ignorant of 20th century history WRT Russian and China.

xfitm3 6y ago
If you want to predict the future just look at history. The belief that somehow these groups will get it right and aren't inherently harmful is false. At my prior job we were fairly big (1000+) and had internal meetings more or less instructing people how to vote. We had a significant social reach and the ability to promote arbitrary articles such as news. We had editorial guidelines forcing us to be politically biased. As much as I disagree with the current president I do think there was some sort of attempt at manipulation. Whether it was successful or not is beyond my ability to analyze.
betwixthewires 6y ago
I also find it interesting how the spread of extreme ideology is characterized as being the result of the free flow of information, when a cursory look at the situation shows that it is not the case. There are sites such as this one where anyone can pretty much say anything they like, and you don't see this phenomenon here. Where you do see this phenomenon is on sites where algorithms control the spread of information directly based on business incentives centered around attention grabbing and emotional reaction, and less commonly (but increasingly more commonly) sites that outright require ideological conformity to participate.
- specialist 6y ago
  aka monetizing outrage.
- mplanchard 6y ago
  I’m not disagreeing with your general point, but this is definitively not a site where anyone can pretty much say what they like. Individuals flag posts and comments, which can keep them from showing up. The mods here are very active, responding to user reports and dealing with content that breaks the site guidelines. IMO that moderation is what makes this site generally tolerable, as compared to other discussion forums on the internet. It’s possible I misinterpreted you and you meant “anything they like” in the sense of being able to hold (almost) any opinion and be able to express it, provided it’s expressed politely and in good faith. In that case, I would still argue that it’s only the selective moderation of impoliteness and poor faith arguments that keeps this site bearable.
cbradford 6y ago
agree. And no mention of the spread to black supremacy in the form of BLM, Antifa, and other hate based organizations

xfitm3 6y ago

If you want to predict the future just look at history. The belief that somehow these groups will get it right and aren't inherently harmful is false. At my prior job we were fairly big (1000+) and had internal meetings more or less instructing people how to vote. We had a significant social reach and the ability to promote arbitrary articles such as news. We had editorial guidelines forcing us to be politically biased. As much as I disagree with the current president I do think there was some sort of attempt at manipulation. Whether it was successful or not is beyond my ability to analyze.

betwixthewires 6y ago

I also find it interesting how the spread of extreme ideology is characterized as being the result of the free flow of information, when a cursory look at the situation shows that it is not the case. There are sites such as this one where anyone can pretty much say anything they like, and you don't see this phenomenon here. Where you do see this phenomenon is on sites where algorithms control the spread of information directly based on business incentives centered around attention grabbing and emotional reaction, and less commonly (but increasingly more commonly) sites that outright require ideological conformity to participate.

specialist 6y ago
aka monetizing outrage.
mplanchard 6y ago
I’m not disagreeing with your general point, but this is definitively not a site where anyone can pretty much say what they like. Individuals flag posts and comments, which can keep them from showing up. The mods here are very active, responding to user reports and dealing with content that breaks the site guidelines. IMO that moderation is what makes this site generally tolerable, as compared to other discussion forums on the internet. It’s possible I misinterpreted you and you meant “anything they like” in the sense of being able to hold (almost) any opinion and be able to express it, provided it’s expressed politely and in good faith. In that case, I would still argue that it’s only the selective moderation of impoliteness and poor faith arguments that keeps this site bearable.

cbradford 6y ago

agree. And no mention of the spread to black supremacy in the form of BLM, Antifa, and other hate based organizations