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There are two things here that I wish were not socially accepted: the demonization of even small amounts of body fat, and banning content you dislike "for their

by pjscott 15y ago

There are two things here that I wish were not socially accepted: the demonization of even small amounts of body fat, and banning content you dislike "for their own good".

ahelwer 15y ago
It's not for their own good. It's for the good of the impressionable and emotionally unstable teenagers that would have found these communities and latched onto them as their negative impulses were validated.
- pjscott 15y ago
  You're right, of course. I must have spent thirty or forty seconds looking for a more accurate phrase, but settled on "for their own good" because it flowed better. Now, those pro-anorexia blogs are creepy and disheartening; I looked through some a while back, and they really are as sad as they sound. If Tumblr's goal is to prevent more teenagers from latching onto that subculture, there are a few things they might try. They could stick warning banners up on the blogs in question, visibly registering their protest without going so far as to remove content. Or they might shrug regretfully and say there's not much they can do, since they hardly have a monopoly on the blogging platform market, which would be true. Setting themselves up as censors was not their only option, and as far as I'm concerned, it should have been pretty far down on the list of ideas. In general, I'm uncomfortable with the impulse to try to stop people from saying messages that you don't want others to hear.
  - ahelwer 15y ago
    I, too, am uncomfortable with such things. The slippery slope does exist, although to a lesser degree when the entity does not hold a monopoly (don't want to drive users away to more permissive options). However, the slipperiness of the slope should not preclude people stepping out onto it. It is less comfortable out there, less simple, less black-and-white than settling at one extreme or another. To take the example from the other direction, consider zero-tolerance policies for weapons at schools. I don't think many people would find it reasonable for a young student to be expelled for bringing a swiss army knife his grandfather gave him to school. Doesn't matter, says the school district. Slippery slope. Where do we draw the line? As rational individuals, we can decide where to draw the line. This vastly increases the surface area of critical attacks - the line will seem arbitrary, and there will always be boundary cases which could go one way or the other. "Why this and not that?" will be heard often. It's an easy target. So yes, the easy answer is that all discourse should be allowed. But really, I don't want people advocating that bullshit to teenagers.
    - pjscott 15y ago
      I think that every advocate for censorship that I've ever heard has said some subset of the following things: 1. Freedom of speech is important, but this is a special case. 2. This stuff really is harmful. I don't want bad people exposing children to sex/communism/homosexuality/anorexia/witchcraft/whatever. 3. We're only going to censor $TOPIC_OF_THE_DAY. This is not a slippery slope. 4. Be reasonable. Of course in this case, the stakes aren't that high, since it's easy for censored blogs to move away from Tumblr. This policy is more about social signaling than about seriously trying to help anyone.
BadCookie 15y ago
How do you feel about someone livecasting their own suicide, then, to take your position to an extreme?
- jQueryIsAwesome 15y ago
  Promoting suicide ≠ snuff films
- tweak2live 15y ago
  I feel like censoring it would be unethical, while refusing to host it would simply be poor form. Livecasting of own suicide: freedom of expression + freedom to make choices with regard to own life. Edit: This is not to imply that Tumblr is not entitled to do whatever they damn please with their own website. But, should someone build a website specifically for livecasting suicides I would very much disagree with its censorship.
- pjscott 15y ago
  I consider suicide extremely sad, and would not feel particularly inclined to watch the video. Why are we even thinking about censorship in this hypothetical scenario? What good would censoring the video do? Put a warning on it saying that it's NSFL, maybe run a free banner ad next to it for a suicide prevention hotline. Those things are reasonable, productive responses. Censorship of the video would be as symbolic as waving a flag, and about as useful.
  - BadCookie 15y ago
    It is not just a hypothetical. See http://news.cnet.com/report-teen-commits-suicide-on-justin-tv/ http://news.cnet.com/report-teen-commits-suicide-on-justin-t... Censoring the video may actually have prevented the suicide, because viewers were egging him on. It's hard to know.
rooshdi 15y ago
Yea, it almost always works this way. Some entity in power thinks it's for the greater "good" to censor content from people and the slippery slope of censorship begins. Why can't Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, or any of these other social media outlets have enough faith in humanity to allow people to make their own informed decisions? Boggles my mind how these sites preach freedom of expression yet censor anything they don't agree with.
- jfoutz 15y ago
  "Slippery slope" is not a rhetorically valid argument. (just sayn') I agree with you, it's awfully two faced of the popular organizations. Historically, if you really wanted freedom of speech, you pretty much had to own the printing press. I think the same thing is largely true now. You gotta own the server that hosts the blog. no one out there will protect you.
  - pjscott 15y ago
    Are you arguing that setting a precedent of censoring some views Tumblr considers harmful does not make them more likely to extend that to other controversial opinions? Or did you just see the phrase "slippery slope" and assume that any argument containing them must be fallacious?
    - jfoutz 15y ago
      Any argument following the slippery slope form - if you choose to do X then you must choose to do Y is fallacious. You have the choice both before X and before Y. Tumbler may choose to censor other stuff, they will not choose to censor other stuff simply because they chose to censor this. They will censor other stuff because the other stuff is offensive (or not, they still have choices to make). Also, i saw the phrase slippery slope and dismissed that part of the argument. It's meme-ridden fuzzy thinking at best. the "for the greater good" is imho suspect because of the Orwellian emotional ties to big brother. So, i'll say both clauses of your or are true.
      - 15y ago

by pjscott 15y ago

There are two things here that I wish were not socially accepted: the demonization of even small amounts of body fat, and banning content you dislike "for their own good".

ahelwer 15y ago

It's not for their own good. It's for the good of the impressionable and emotionally unstable teenagers that would have found these communities and latched onto them as their negative impulses were validated.

pjscott 15y ago
You're right, of course. I must have spent thirty or forty seconds looking for a more accurate phrase, but settled on "for their own good" because it flowed better. Now, those pro-anorexia blogs are creepy and disheartening; I looked through some a while back, and they really are as sad as they sound. If Tumblr's goal is to prevent more teenagers from latching onto that subculture, there are a few things they might try. They could stick warning banners up on the blogs in question, visibly registering their protest without going so far as to remove content. Or they might shrug regretfully and say there's not much they can do, since they hardly have a monopoly on the blogging platform market, which would be true. Setting themselves up as censors was not their only option, and as far as I'm concerned, it should have been pretty far down on the list of ideas. In general, I'm uncomfortable with the impulse to try to stop people from saying messages that you don't want others to hear.
- ahelwer 15y ago
  I, too, am uncomfortable with such things. The slippery slope does exist, although to a lesser degree when the entity does not hold a monopoly (don't want to drive users away to more permissive options). However, the slipperiness of the slope should not preclude people stepping out onto it. It is less comfortable out there, less simple, less black-and-white than settling at one extreme or another. To take the example from the other direction, consider zero-tolerance policies for weapons at schools. I don't think many people would find it reasonable for a young student to be expelled for bringing a swiss army knife his grandfather gave him to school. Doesn't matter, says the school district. Slippery slope. Where do we draw the line? As rational individuals, we can decide where to draw the line. This vastly increases the surface area of critical attacks - the line will seem arbitrary, and there will always be boundary cases which could go one way or the other. "Why this and not that?" will be heard often. It's an easy target. So yes, the easy answer is that all discourse should be allowed. But really, I don't want people advocating that bullshit to teenagers.
  - pjscott 15y ago
    I think that every advocate for censorship that I've ever heard has said some subset of the following things: 1. Freedom of speech is important, but this is a special case. 2. This stuff really is harmful. I don't want bad people exposing children to sex/communism/homosexuality/anorexia/witchcraft/whatever. 3. We're only going to censor $TOPIC_OF_THE_DAY. This is not a slippery slope. 4. Be reasonable. Of course in this case, the stakes aren't that high, since it's easy for censored blogs to move away from Tumblr. This policy is more about social signaling than about seriously trying to help anyone.

BadCookie 15y ago

How do you feel about someone livecasting their own suicide, then, to take your position to an extreme?

jQueryIsAwesome 15y ago
Promoting suicide ≠ snuff films
tweak2live 15y ago
I feel like censoring it would be unethical, while refusing to host it would simply be poor form. Livecasting of own suicide: freedom of expression + freedom to make choices with regard to own life. Edit: This is not to imply that Tumblr is not entitled to do whatever they damn please with their own website. But, should someone build a website specifically for livecasting suicides I would very much disagree with its censorship.
pjscott 15y ago
I consider suicide extremely sad, and would not feel particularly inclined to watch the video. Why are we even thinking about censorship in this hypothetical scenario? What good would censoring the video do? Put a warning on it saying that it's NSFL, maybe run a free banner ad next to it for a suicide prevention hotline. Those things are reasonable, productive responses. Censorship of the video would be as symbolic as waving a flag, and about as useful.
- BadCookie 15y ago
  It is not just a hypothetical. See http://news.cnet.com/report-teen-commits-suicide-on-justin-tv/ http://news.cnet.com/report-teen-commits-suicide-on-justin-t... Censoring the video may actually have prevented the suicide, because viewers were egging him on. It's hard to know.

rooshdi 15y ago

Yea, it almost always works this way. Some entity in power thinks it's for the greater "good" to censor content from people and the slippery slope of censorship begins. Why can't Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, or any of these other social media outlets have enough faith in humanity to allow people to make their own informed decisions? Boggles my mind how these sites preach freedom of expression yet censor anything they don't agree with.

jfoutz 15y ago
"Slippery slope" is not a rhetorically valid argument. (just sayn') I agree with you, it's awfully two faced of the popular organizations. Historically, if you really wanted freedom of speech, you pretty much had to own the printing press. I think the same thing is largely true now. You gotta own the server that hosts the blog. no one out there will protect you.
- pjscott 15y ago
  Are you arguing that setting a precedent of censoring some views Tumblr considers harmful does not make them more likely to extend that to other controversial opinions? Or did you just see the phrase "slippery slope" and assume that any argument containing them must be fallacious?
  - jfoutz 15y ago
    Any argument following the slippery slope form - if you choose to do X then you must choose to do Y is fallacious. You have the choice both before X and before Y. Tumbler may choose to censor other stuff, they will not choose to censor other stuff simply because they chose to censor this. They will censor other stuff because the other stuff is offensive (or not, they still have choices to make). Also, i saw the phrase slippery slope and dismissed that part of the argument. It's meme-ridden fuzzy thinking at best. the "for the greater good" is imho suspect because of the Orwellian emotional ties to big brother. So, i'll say both clauses of your or are true.
    - 15y ago