4 ms·

As near as I can tell, people complaining about being "cancelled" are being punished for violating the TOS of the social media platforms they are on. If you ar

by RajT88 5y ago

As near as I can tell, people complaining about being "cancelled" are being punished for violating the TOS of the social media platforms they are on. If you are spouting heresies in a respectful good-faith debate, the worst that generally happens is you get yelled at/laughed at, and usually by community members and not the mods.

domador 5y ago
That brings up the question of whether these social media platforms' terms of service are themselves censorious and intolerant to some degree. The first answer to that would be "yes", since otherwise terms of service wouldn't even exist and no one would ever be banned for anything they said or did in or out of the platform. The second answer would be "maybe", especially for platforms that pride themselves on being paragons of open discussion. (I think that "maybe" should be a permanently ongoing, self-reflective maybe.)
- RajT88 5y ago
  Having frequented a few of the paragons of open discussion, I can tell you that they regularly ban users as well. My takeaway isn't necessarily hypocrisy (although a few of them are certainly full of that), it's that moderation is hard because of the never-ending wave of people trying to clog up public discourse for a variety of crappy reasons. Jeff Atwood (one of the founders of Stack Overflow, Stack Exchange, developer of Discourse) has some pretty insightful things to say about community management.
IE6 5y ago
Yes. Anecdotally I have noticed (in real life and online) some people view being "cancelled" (deleted) from a Social Media as a badge of honour and will gladly enumerate the accounts they have had that were banned but their ever-important message that got them to boot is never mentioned. If you dig deeper it's usually some form of TOS or hate-speech.
- noxer 5y ago
  There is no such thing as "hate-speech" there is just speech that (some) people hate and almost anything fall user that if it has some kind of complexity. That's one of the core problems with hate-speech laws and ToS. You can not moderate it fair because its entirely subjective.
  - IE6 5y ago
    You're conflating laws and enforcing those laws in a legal sense with the capability of a private or public company to control what is published on their platform. It is the reason a president was removed from social media platform(s) and this action was considered fair and constitutional. In this context the concept of hate-speech absolutely exists.
    - noxer 5y ago
      No, I'm not. You actually just did that. I talked about hate-speech laws as one thing and hate-speech in ToS and similar rules/guidelines as another thing. They are absolutely not the same or similar but face the same problem namely that they can not be enforced fair because they are subjective. "hate-speech" is subjective. Its not like incitement of violence/lying under oath or other speech related "boundaries" that are rather exactly defined. This is not about private or public companies and what they legally can or can not do. Its not that they can not write in their ToS that you aren't allowed to say X and then if you say X they ban you. That would be the expected way how thing go. But in reality the say you aren't allowed to say "hate-speech". And then you say X and the people who didn't define hate-speech define X as hate-speech and ban you. This is a problem because it give endless opportunity to abuse The people who make the rules also interpret the rules and enforce the rules. So anything is hate-speech if they hate it. That's not a proof that hate-speech (objectively defined) actually exists, its a proof that it subjectively enforced and that is a problem. Another example. Lets say a platform forbids the use of the n-word. People can disagree with this but still use the platform and follow that rule and they should be fine. But to actually be fine they need to know the way this rules is interpreted. for example is "n*****" against the rules because its just a substitute? And if so what about "n-word" also against the rules? What about "******" or a single "N"? what about context? can I write the full word if I quote an album/movie title? etc. etc. The problem isn't whether the rule is "good" or if someone agree or not with the rule. The problem is can people who want to follow the rules be booted of the platform anyway by simply declaring something they did as against the rules. The answer is yes. If "hate-speech" is in the rules with no definition then p much anyone can be booted for basically anything they say. And yes the law allows this because by law they do not even need a reason, there is always something in the ToS that says that the "service" can be terminated at any time. So the argument that something is "constitutional" is pointless. There is a real problem that somehow need to be fixed. The problem doesn't go away if we just all repeat over and over that no law was broken. That's like saying large companies avoid paying fair taxes but they do it in a legal way so its not a real problem its "constitutional" they have to do this or their shareholder could sue if they voluntarily pay more taxes. But the problem isn't that a law was broken so clamming no law was broken is a fooling argument. Also the president was not removed from platforms due to hate-speech. Your example actually somewhat represents a case where they didn't even bother to twist or interpret their ToS/guidelines somehow to justify banning the president but instead they just did it. And again they LEGALLY can do that. By law they do not even need a reason. That doesn't mean its not a problem.
ryandrake 5y ago
I think when someone complains about being "canceled" or suffering negative consequences from something they said, you kind of have to look at what they're saying. The reasons then often become clear... This old Tweet [1] always comes to mind whenever someone feels they are being unjustly picked on for their views. 1: https://twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/1050391663552671744 https://twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/105039166355267174...

by RajT88 5y ago

domador 5y ago

That brings up the question of whether these social media platforms' terms of service are themselves censorious and intolerant to some degree. The first answer to that would be "yes", since otherwise terms of service wouldn't even exist and no one would ever be banned for anything they said or did in or out of the platform. The second answer would be "maybe", especially for platforms that pride themselves on being paragons of open discussion. (I think that "maybe" should be a permanently ongoing, self-reflective maybe.)

RajT88 5y ago
Having frequented a few of the paragons of open discussion, I can tell you that they regularly ban users as well. My takeaway isn't necessarily hypocrisy (although a few of them are certainly full of that), it's that moderation is hard because of the never-ending wave of people trying to clog up public discourse for a variety of crappy reasons. Jeff Atwood (one of the founders of Stack Overflow, Stack Exchange, developer of Discourse) has some pretty insightful things to say about community management.

IE6 5y ago

Yes. Anecdotally I have noticed (in real life and online) some people view being "cancelled" (deleted) from a Social Media as a badge of honour and will gladly enumerate the accounts they have had that were banned but their ever-important message that got them to boot is never mentioned. If you dig deeper it's usually some form of TOS or hate-speech.

noxer 5y ago
There is no such thing as "hate-speech" there is just speech that (some) people hate and almost anything fall user that if it has some kind of complexity. That's one of the core problems with hate-speech laws and ToS. You can not moderate it fair because its entirely subjective.
- IE6 5y ago
  You're conflating laws and enforcing those laws in a legal sense with the capability of a private or public company to control what is published on their platform. It is the reason a president was removed from social media platform(s) and this action was considered fair and constitutional. In this context the concept of hate-speech absolutely exists.
  - noxer 5y ago
    No, I'm not. You actually just did that. I talked about hate-speech laws as one thing and hate-speech in ToS and similar rules/guidelines as another thing. They are absolutely not the same or similar but face the same problem namely that they can not be enforced fair because they are subjective. "hate-speech" is subjective. Its not like incitement of violence/lying under oath or other speech related "boundaries" that are rather exactly defined. This is not about private or public companies and what they legally can or can not do. Its not that they can not write in their ToS that you aren't allowed to say X and then if you say X they ban you. That would be the expected way how thing go. But in reality the say you aren't allowed to say "hate-speech". And then you say X and the people who didn't define hate-speech define X as hate-speech and ban you. This is a problem because it give endless opportunity to abuse The people who make the rules also interpret the rules and enforce the rules. So anything is hate-speech if they hate it. That's not a proof that hate-speech (objectively defined) actually exists, its a proof that it subjectively enforced and that is a problem. Another example. Lets say a platform forbids the use of the n-word. People can disagree with this but still use the platform and follow that rule and they should be fine. But to actually be fine they need to know the way this rules is interpreted. for example is "n*****" against the rules because its just a substitute? And if so what about "n-word" also against the rules? What about "******" or a single "N"? what about context? can I write the full word if I quote an album/movie title? etc. etc. The problem isn't whether the rule is "good" or if someone agree or not with the rule. The problem is can people who want to follow the rules be booted of the platform anyway by simply declaring something they did as against the rules. The answer is yes. If "hate-speech" is in the rules with no definition then p much anyone can be booted for basically anything they say. And yes the law allows this because by law they do not even need a reason, there is always something in the ToS that says that the "service" can be terminated at any time. So the argument that something is "constitutional" is pointless. There is a real problem that somehow need to be fixed. The problem doesn't go away if we just all repeat over and over that no law was broken. That's like saying large companies avoid paying fair taxes but they do it in a legal way so its not a real problem its "constitutional" they have to do this or their shareholder could sue if they voluntarily pay more taxes. But the problem isn't that a law was broken so clamming no law was broken is a fooling argument. Also the president was not removed from platforms due to hate-speech. Your example actually somewhat represents a case where they didn't even bother to twist or interpret their ToS/guidelines somehow to justify banning the president but instead they just did it. And again they LEGALLY can do that. By law they do not even need a reason. That doesn't mean its not a problem.

ryandrake 5y ago

I think when someone complains about being "canceled" or suffering negative consequences from something they said, you kind of have to look at what they're saying. The reasons then often become clear... This old Tweet [1] always comes to mind whenever someone feels they are being unjustly picked on for their views. 1: https://twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/1050391663552671744 https://twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/105039166355267174...