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Ask HN: Are we still allowed to be controversial without censorship?

9 points by nightmarish 4y ago

Beyond the overly eager censor-moderators and other censors, is it actually possible to be controversial and even to simply question the narrative? It seems most people have become mindless sycophants for $$$… is an escape from such a system possible?

soueuls 4y ago
Yes it's possible. But if you want to be controversial, you need to expect controversy. That's what the word implies. From personal experience, it's far easier to cross the line completely than flirt with it. If you are just a little off base, you will get a lot of pushbacks. Once you cross the line for good, it's easier. 95% of the world population will not want to associate with you in any way. But you become part of a tribe. If you have a hard time handling criticizing or being canceled, then don't do it.
Silverback_VII 4y ago
>is an escape from such a system possible? It will certainly be possible as soon as enough competent people try it. You have to know that new things and new solutions always attract the strangest people at the beginning, who often do not act very efficiently and rationally. That's because you have to be either crazy or pretty desperate to bite into a fruit that no one has ever bitten into before.
- moremetadata 4y ago
  [dead]
sircastor 4y ago
> is it actually possible to be controversial This may be unintentional, but I find there’s a meaningful difference between having/making controversial opinions/ideas/statements and being controversial. The former is (IMO) an important part of a tolerant and thinking society. The latter feels to me like attention seeking.
codeptualize 4y ago
It depends on the things you want to say and where you say them. In most countries, even the US, free speech has limitations. If you stay within the law you are totally fine to say whatever you want, but it's a fuck around and find out situation, there might be consequences. If you say wild shit at work your employer might rethink your position, if you say wild shit to your friends they might not appreciate your company anymore, if you say wild shit online the platform might remove it. This is imo fair, you get to make your decisions, others can make theirs. "Questioning a narrative" sounds innocent, but can certainly be used in hateful and malicious ways. The same rules apply; you can likely say it, but people might not appreciate it, and that's ok. Often "I want to say controversial things" is a way to say "I want to say hateful things". The tolerance for hate speech is decreasing and hopefully will decrease further, which is great. If that applies to your situation (and I'm not saying it does), I suggest you question your narrative a bit more. If it's not about hate speech you can absolutely discuss controversial takes, given that the other people are willing to hear about them and you have some decent arguments to back them up. I have plenty of controversial coding and design takes, nobody ever even tried to censor me, and some even agree!
- dustedcodes 4y ago
  People like you are literally the enemy of free speech. Controversial things are not hateful things, that’s why it’s called controversial in the first place and not hateful. Labelling things which go against the mainstream narrative as possibly hateful is a huge jump to make out of nowhere and really does nothing good other than trying to suppress any critical thinking.
  - DemocracyFTW2 4y ago
    I think you just mistook the quote for the opinion. Parent wanted to express that "some people say that their words are 'controversial' and therefore OK when in truth their words qualify as hate speech". It is the trolls and so on who mislabel things, a practice the parent disapproves of, and rightly so.
  - codeptualize 4y ago
krapp 4y ago
I don't know what "mindless sycophants for $$$" means, but I see people "question the narrative" all the time, everywhere on the internet I go, even here on HN, which is aggressively moderated and tone-policed. I don't know why you seem to think that's impossible. Maybe what you really want is to be able to freely question the narrative without anyone questioning yours?

spoiler 4y ago

> Often "I want to say controversial things" is a way to say "I want to say hateful things". The tolerance for hate speech is decreasing and hopefully will decrease further, which is great. If that applies to your situation (and I'm not saying it does), I suggest you question your narrative a bit more I agree with this sentiment. I also think that it's good that tolerance for hate speech is on a rapid decline. However, there's this recent trend that anytime someone doesn't like a topic, they claim it's hate speech and equally hypersensitive people[1] flock to crate a hate mob. I've seen a children's book author trying to start a conversation about incredibly nuanced topics be accused of hate speech, and called a "vile hateful person", sent death threats (which is somehow acceptable and encouraged??), and attempts to cancel them. Everything they said was perversely twisted to the point it was outright lies, etc. Which is just trading one form of hate and intolerance for another, IMO. (Aside: I'm very close to the topic in question and was appalled and ashamed of my community's reaction) Seems like we keep yo-yoing from one hate trend to the other. It's ironic how much self awareness we lack collectively as a species, considering we prides ourselves on our heightened self awareness amongst other creatures we share the planet with. People suck. [1]: I'm not trying to offend. Some people just haven't learned adequate coping skills in childhood. That's a bit endemic lately due to rapid lifestyle changes that are happening for the past few generations... and parenting quality took a major hit in that process. However, people need to learn coping skills; we can't expect everyone else to cope for us instead.

codeptualize 4y ago
I think on the surface I agree. Hate mobs doesn't sound great and death threats are simply illegal and should be prosecuted. If it is in fact all lies etc, then sure. But, I do think this is often exaggerated, and a lot of times "start a conversation about incredibly nuanced topics" might not be so nuanced and in fact hateful, look at dog whistles for example. That there is no tolerance for intolerance is kinda necessary (paradox of tolerance). Idk the case you are referring to so can't say if that's relevant to this situation or not. I do strongly disagree that people suck. My experience with people is that generally they mean well, try to live their best live, and wish well on others, even if they might disagree on some things. A good test is to just think about the people you interact with day to day in real life, not tv, not twitter, not whatever. That's reality.
- shrimp_emoji 4y ago
  At the end of the day, I don't think we can socially afford this kind of social engineering. The best we can, or should, do might just be "restrict actions but let people talk". Let people talk about killing minorities but make it illegal to act on it. Otherwise, you start imposing this whole fear-based command set of "you should never say certain things because I've decided in this moment that there's never a legitimate reason to ever say them and it might lead to action which we want to optimize out from even becoming a possibility because the Fourth Reich will rise irresistibly at any moment". It's a deeply depressing outlook to have about your fellow man, and that itself will drive bad outcomes. "You think making edgy jokes is not legitimate and that I'm about to slide down a slippery slope of fascism? Well, now maybe I will, or at least pretend to, if only to troll humorless Orwellian cunts like you." I.e., something like the https://psychology-spot.com/rebound-effect-in-psychology/ https://psychology-spot.com/rebound-effect-in-psychology/
  - codeptualize 4y ago
    But I think nobody is arguing that all of it should be illegal, but there is a big difference between legality and whats socially acceptable. That's often conflated, and actually the point I have been trying to make; you can say a lot of wild stuff legally, but you can not expect others to just accept it, not react to it, and not change their opinion of you. There are also things that should be illegal, as example do you think death treats are fine? Or is that what you are referring to in my comment?
- spoiler 4y ago
  > I do strongly disagree that people suck. My experience with people is that generally they mean well, try to live their best live, and wish well on others, even if they might disagree on some things. A good test is to just think about the people you interact with day to day in real life, not tv, not twitter, not whatever. That's reality. I gave this some thought these days and I think you're right. I guess there are certain people who care about some issues at cost of everything else; not sure how I feel about that and how we help these peope be less antisocial sometimes. I guess at the end of the day even those people are at the very least trying to do good too. It's good to be reminded of that, so thank you
nightmarish 4y ago
Well as the OP I would like to thank you for writing out an insightful reply. You are speaking about the topic in a way that I also feel captures some of the nuance and frustration about communication and free-ness these days… Much seems to be aligned with shutting people up as opposed to having a moral standard.

conradfr 4y ago

I really wonder how the battle against the nebulous "hate speech" became so widespread almost instantly in the Western world. It's nice on the surface (who likes "hate"?) but I think it causes too much self-censorship and a weakened society in the long term.

Silverback_VII 4y ago
hate speech is simply a magic wand that is used to silence inconvenient voices. The same people who wield the wand are also pushing the world to the edge of destruction.
codeptualize 4y ago
It's because generally people want everyone to just be able to live their lives and not get discriminated, bullied, or even physically harmed for who they are, what they believe in, where they come from, or who they love. Things you can not influence, things you can not change, things that do not harm others. The intolerance towards intolerant is necessary for that to happen, which explains the battle. People censoring themselves to not be hateful might honestly be a good thing, maybe they should figure out where those thoughts come from and if they should reconsider them. I would advocate for them to get help, therapy, social support, whatever they struggle with. I think being caring and empathetic strengthens society in the short and long term.
krapp 4y ago
> I really wonder how the battle against the nebulous "hate speech" became so widespread almost instantly in the Western world. Because some asshole Austrian speechified a country into burning down half of Europe and killing millions of Jews, and after a whole ass world war the Western world - the parts that actually had to rebuild their societies from the ashes, not the US, for whom the war and Nazism in particular were more business opportunities than anything - decided that even free speech needed to have limits. edit: of course the US has limits on free speech as well, just not for "hate speech" per se.
- conradfr 4y ago
  So a war that ended almost 80 years ago is responsible for the battle against "online hate" that started like two years ago?
  - krapp 4y ago
    Contrary to popular belief, human culture didn't begin on Twitter. The battle against "online hate" is just the current generational manifestation of a conflict that, yes, has its origins in the ideologies and cultural shocks of World War 2. Particularly where the meme-complexes of modern anti-Semitism and fear of "cultural Marxism" in academia, gender roles and homophobia are concerned, many of which were established either by the Nazis directly or the initial right-wing political shift in the US following the war. Today's redpillers, anti-wokists and the like are just rehashing beliefs that were old hat in their grandparents' time. Even the culture war over transgender identity isn't new - there was an episode of All in the Family about it in the 1970s. I mean go look up any of George Carlin's old bits on political correctness and they would fit in perfectly in a modern day context, despite being made before the WWW was so much as a gleam in Tim Berners' Lee's eye. You'd just have to update the technological referents.