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There will certainly be folks that decry this move as limiting freedom of speech, but the reality is this: Freedom of speech does not apply when you participat

There will certainly be folks that decry this move as limiting freedom of speech, but the reality is this: Freedom of speech does not apply when you participate on a private organization's platform. For those that strongly oppose these types of policies from social networks, I'm very much in favor of you starting your own social network to cater to tastes and generes that suit what you feel is appropriate for your community.

rooshdi 15y ago
Why does anyone have to decide what is "appropriate" for a community? Why can't a community just be?
- kstenerud 15y ago
  Because everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, has an axe to grind at some point.
  - drivebyacct2 15y ago
    Isn't that an argument for asking people to leave their axes at home? Rather than bringing it to work and saying, "I own this company so all my users are going to have the same ideas of morality and appropriateness as me."?
    - kstenerud 15y ago
      In a perfect world, sure. But people with an axe to grind have a habit of finding all sorts of reasons to bring it out.
jfoutz 15y ago
That's true. You can't talk politics in the mall. OTOH if you actively encourage loitering then get pissed off when people loiter - you're a hypocritical asshole, and i think your property rights should be diminished. edit very first line from http://www.tumblr.com/about http://www.tumblr.com/about "Tumblr lets you effortlessly share anything." which is a bold faced lie.
- blantonl 15y ago
  Do you think Tumblr allows you to share child porn? I know, "think of the children", but seriously let's not be pedantic.
  - jfoutz 15y ago
    But that's illegal. It takes about 5 seconds to find import generic drugs spam on tumbler. http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/generic-drugs http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/generic-drugs Reimporting drugs is out and out illegal, but they don't seem to be cracking down on that. Personally, I'm really torn. Perhaps being vocal on tumbler will encourage friends to help self mutilators get help. Perhaps the act of public expression is really damaging. Without a lot more information, i'm ok with tumblr doing whatever they feel is best. The thing i hate is the out and out hypocrisy. Share anything. To me, that means: this is a free and open place. be who you are, tell the world. I'm not picking out some random line in some pr statement. This is the first line of the about page. This is content that should be vetted, that really matches the company's values.
- noahc 15y ago
  I think you're being a bit too liberal in your understanding of the word 'anything'. I am all for free speech, but there is a long list of things like child porn, state secrets, copyrighted material, etc that I think we would all agree is not in Tumblr's best interest to not be shared effortlessly.
  - drivebyacct2 15y ago
    Which are all illegal, thus (in my mind) it is implicit. In fact, bans on the things you've listed have probably been in their Terms of Use since they turned their server on. I mean, those aren't allowed anywhere, they're almost completely out of the realm of this discussion which is explicitly about banning things simply because someone doesn't like them.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
drivebyacct2 15y ago
Who brings up free speech? The only time I see free speech in these discussions is when someone is trying to discredit opponents before they even chime in. No one argued against reddit for "free speech". It was about implementing arbitrary new policies because something was deemed "inappropriate" by a sole authoritative source, which is what has happened here as well. Tumblr is free to do whatever they want. Users are free to ditch Tumblr because "self-injury" isn't defined and Tumblr gets to be the sole decider of what is or isn't allowed based on their arbitrary rulings. (Hm, downvoted for pointing out that the only person here who brought up free speech... is someone who preemptively and unnecessarily argued against using free speech as an argument. Literally, no one here is saying Tumblr is required to allow this for free speech reasons.)
discodave 15y ago
You americans get way to hung up on this freedom of speech thing, it's not some all trumping right that overrides everything else. Libel laws for example, limit our free speech. Another definition of rights is set out in the UDHR, article 5 states: No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. The case can be made that promoting eating disorders and other forms of self harm is a cruel and degrading way to treat your fellow humans. Even if the perpetrator believes themselves to be acting in everybody's best interests.
- drivebyacct2 15y ago
  So we should hire you to help us censor all of our user content that you deem "cruel"? Is it cruel to find a gay kid's tumblr and tell him to kill himself? What if I simply say gay teen should kill themselves? How about that they're sinners and are going to hell? What about simply saying that I think marriage is between one man and one woman? Where does untasteful become cruel enough to ban?
- pjscott 15y ago
  Please don't try to inject nationalism into the discussion. At the very least, it's rhetorically rude. (I know this isn't a reply to your actual argument, but I don't have the authority to delete epistemically dangerous posts, so I figured posting this was more appropriate than trying to get myself set up as a censor. :-) ) (Also, is there a commonly agreed-upon way of putting a :-) emoticon at the end of a parenthesized region? The apparent paren mismatch bothers me.)

rooshdi 15y ago

Why does anyone have to decide what is "appropriate" for a community? Why can't a community just be?

kstenerud 15y ago
Because everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, has an axe to grind at some point.
- drivebyacct2 15y ago
  Isn't that an argument for asking people to leave their axes at home? Rather than bringing it to work and saying, "I own this company so all my users are going to have the same ideas of morality and appropriateness as me."?
  - kstenerud 15y ago
    In a perfect world, sure. But people with an axe to grind have a habit of finding all sorts of reasons to bring it out.

jfoutz 15y ago

That's true. You can't talk politics in the mall. OTOH if you actively encourage loitering then get pissed off when people loiter - you're a hypocritical asshole, and i think your property rights should be diminished. edit very first line from http://www.tumblr.com/about http://www.tumblr.com/about "Tumblr lets you effortlessly share anything." which is a bold faced lie.

blantonl 15y ago
Do you think Tumblr allows you to share child porn? I know, "think of the children", but seriously let's not be pedantic.
- jfoutz 15y ago
  But that's illegal. It takes about 5 seconds to find import generic drugs spam on tumbler. http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/generic-drugs http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/generic-drugs Reimporting drugs is out and out illegal, but they don't seem to be cracking down on that. Personally, I'm really torn. Perhaps being vocal on tumbler will encourage friends to help self mutilators get help. Perhaps the act of public expression is really damaging. Without a lot more information, i'm ok with tumblr doing whatever they feel is best. The thing i hate is the out and out hypocrisy. Share anything. To me, that means: this is a free and open place. be who you are, tell the world. I'm not picking out some random line in some pr statement. This is the first line of the about page. This is content that should be vetted, that really matches the company's values.
noahc 15y ago
I think you're being a bit too liberal in your understanding of the word 'anything'. I am all for free speech, but there is a long list of things like child porn, state secrets, copyrighted material, etc that I think we would all agree is not in Tumblr's best interest to not be shared effortlessly.
- drivebyacct2 15y ago
  Which are all illegal, thus (in my mind) it is implicit. In fact, bans on the things you've listed have probably been in their Terms of Use since they turned their server on. I mean, those aren't allowed anywhere, they're almost completely out of the realm of this discussion which is explicitly about banning things simply because someone doesn't like them.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]

drivebyacct2 15y ago

Who brings up free speech? The only time I see free speech in these discussions is when someone is trying to discredit opponents before they even chime in. No one argued against reddit for "free speech". It was about implementing arbitrary new policies because something was deemed "inappropriate" by a sole authoritative source, which is what has happened here as well. Tumblr is free to do whatever they want. Users are free to ditch Tumblr because "self-injury" isn't defined and Tumblr gets to be the sole decider of what is or isn't allowed based on their arbitrary rulings. (Hm, downvoted for pointing out that the only person here who brought up free speech... is someone who preemptively and unnecessarily argued against using free speech as an argument. Literally, no one here is saying Tumblr is required to allow this for free speech reasons.)

discodave 15y ago

You americans get way to hung up on this freedom of speech thing, it's not some all trumping right that overrides everything else. Libel laws for example, limit our free speech. Another definition of rights is set out in the UDHR, article 5 states: No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. The case can be made that promoting eating disorders and other forms of self harm is a cruel and degrading way to treat your fellow humans. Even if the perpetrator believes themselves to be acting in everybody's best interests.

drivebyacct2 15y ago
So we should hire you to help us censor all of our user content that you deem "cruel"? Is it cruel to find a gay kid's tumblr and tell him to kill himself? What if I simply say gay teen should kill themselves? How about that they're sinners and are going to hell? What about simply saying that I think marriage is between one man and one woman? Where does untasteful become cruel enough to ban?
pjscott 15y ago
Please don't try to inject nationalism into the discussion. At the very least, it's rhetorically rude. (I know this isn't a reply to your actual argument, but I don't have the authority to delete epistemically dangerous posts, so I figured posting this was more appropriate than trying to get myself set up as a censor. :-) ) (Also, is there a commonly agreed-upon way of putting a :-) emoticon at the end of a parenthesized region? The apparent paren mismatch bothers me.)