4 ms·

How is it tyranny? Under the most liberal definition tyranny is: "cruel, unreasonable, or arbitrary use of power or control." It certainly is not cruel for any

by dlp211 6y ago

How is it tyranny? Under the most liberal definition tyranny is: "cruel, unreasonable, or arbitrary use of power or control." It certainly is not cruel for any definition of cruel I am familiar with. It certainly isn't arbitrary, Spotify is not doing this on a whim and it isn't taking down all the episodes, it clearly is being very deliberate, though you may disagree with their process. The only one could be unreasonable, but what exactly makes this unreasonable? Again, you may disagree with their reasoning, but it is not an unreasonable position. Why don't we back off this extreme rhetoric that plagues our conversations today?

roenxi 6y ago
> It certainly isn't arbitrary... [a]gain, you may disagree with their reasoning, but it is not an unreasonable position. Those are slightly incorrect interpretations of the words 'arbitrary' and 'unreasonable'. Reasonable doesn't mean 'has reasons'. Every decisions has reasons. If a king decides to chop someone's head off he had reasons - he felt like it. Being reasonable/unreasonable is about whether an opinion can be changed by evidence and argument. Almost all moderation is unreasonable, I've very rarely seen a moderator make a call and then not stick with it (being unreasonable isn't always a bad thing). Reasonableness is a judgement call on the quality of the reasons behind a decision. Similarly, arbitrary doesn't mean unpredictable. It is a judgement call on whether the reasons behind an action are reasonable. Being done on behalf of a policy doesn't make an action reasonable. It is quite an easily sustainable argument that any content moderation policy is arbitrary. Compare European vs American media norms around moderating sex - it is pretty easy to argue by comparison some of the standards floating around are arbitrary, because standards differ but both continents produce great media which involves sex.
- dlp211 6y ago
  arbitrary: "based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system." None of these are by personal whim, there is clearly a process/system in place to determine whether an episode should stay. unreasonable: "not guided by or based on good sense" and "beyond the limits of acceptability or fairness." Sorry, I just don't see how these decisions could be considered unreasonable. You may disagree with the moral sense of why they are doing this, you may disagree that that is good sense, but that would be best, your opinion, not some empirically correct point of view.
  - roenxi 6y ago
    > there is clearly a process/system in place to determine whether an episode should stay. Which system are you thinking of? There is probably just a content moderation group that makes aye/nay calls. A system is something like judicial review of police actions, or that strange independent review council that Facebook is setting up. Spotify's 'system' is going to boil down to someone making arbitrary calls. There isn't a science to it. > Sorry, I just don't see how these decisions could be considered unreasonable. Millions of people endorse Joe Rogan, he is a benchmark of what acceptability means. Joe Rogan talking about something is almost definitely marking it as something that is a matter of interest to the public and a legit topic of conversation. He is far more qualified to decide what is and isn't acceptable to his audience and the public discourse than Spotify, some random corporation filled with people who passed a job interview. Censoring his content is unreasonable by default, unless Spotify has a really compelling argument.

by dlp211 6y ago

roenxi 6y ago

> It certainly isn't arbitrary... [a]gain, you may disagree with their reasoning, but it is not an unreasonable position. Those are slightly incorrect interpretations of the words 'arbitrary' and 'unreasonable'. Reasonable doesn't mean 'has reasons'. Every decisions has reasons. If a king decides to chop someone's head off he had reasons - he felt like it. Being reasonable/unreasonable is about whether an opinion can be changed by evidence and argument. Almost all moderation is unreasonable, I've very rarely seen a moderator make a call and then not stick with it (being unreasonable isn't always a bad thing). Reasonableness is a judgement call on the quality of the reasons behind a decision. Similarly, arbitrary doesn't mean unpredictable. It is a judgement call on whether the reasons behind an action are reasonable. Being done on behalf of a policy doesn't make an action reasonable. It is quite an easily sustainable argument that any content moderation policy is arbitrary. Compare European vs American media norms around moderating sex - it is pretty easy to argue by comparison some of the standards floating around are arbitrary, because standards differ but both continents produce great media which involves sex.

dlp211 6y ago
arbitrary: "based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system." None of these are by personal whim, there is clearly a process/system in place to determine whether an episode should stay. unreasonable: "not guided by or based on good sense" and "beyond the limits of acceptability or fairness." Sorry, I just don't see how these decisions could be considered unreasonable. You may disagree with the moral sense of why they are doing this, you may disagree that that is good sense, but that would be best, your opinion, not some empirically correct point of view.
- roenxi 6y ago
  > there is clearly a process/system in place to determine whether an episode should stay. Which system are you thinking of? There is probably just a content moderation group that makes aye/nay calls. A system is something like judicial review of police actions, or that strange independent review council that Facebook is setting up. Spotify's 'system' is going to boil down to someone making arbitrary calls. There isn't a science to it. > Sorry, I just don't see how these decisions could be considered unreasonable. Millions of people endorse Joe Rogan, he is a benchmark of what acceptability means. Joe Rogan talking about something is almost definitely marking it as something that is a matter of interest to the public and a legit topic of conversation. He is far more qualified to decide what is and isn't acceptable to his audience and the public discourse than Spotify, some random corporation filled with people who passed a job interview. Censoring his content is unreasonable by default, unless Spotify has a really compelling argument.