3 ms·

Publicly, that is. In a private forum like Hacker News, exclusion of disgusting hateful speech is legitimate and even necessary for the survival of the communi

Publicly, that is. In a private forum like Hacker News, exclusion of disgusting hateful speech is legitimate and even necessary for the survival of the community - or people would leave because the "trolls" have taken over.

illuminate 14y ago
Right, there's a difference between tolerance and embedding it in your community's culture.
danielweber 14y ago
I agree that HN can operate how it wishes. I'm not sure that barring disgusting speech is "necessary," if only because "necessary" can be such a loaded word. reddit, for example, seems to have a principle of free speech, where there only a very specific things you are not allowed to say board-wide. So there is a fair amount of disgusting speech there. It seems to work for them -- although I have been slowly disengaging from it over the past year or two, and maybe that's part of the reason.
- aristidb 14y ago
  Don't some individual subreddits moderate fairly heavily? And the upvoting/downvoting also has the effect of hiding disliked speech.
  - danielweber 14y ago
    Yes, they do, and the admins support lots of freedom and experimentation for the subreddit moderation policies. (Although there are "default" subreddits that are a little weird.) The sitewide bans, to my recollection, are of only two things (besides that which is illegal): sexualized pictures of children, and doxxing.
ericingram 14y ago
I think the big difference between private and public is that the public authority uses force against the property of others to exclude speech, supposedly deemed as disgusting to a particular group, but you have to recognize as history shows that it will be abused to limit legitimate political speech. Private forums like Hacker News in no way infringe on the rights of others, by using their own property (web site) in a way they deem fit.

3 ms·

Publicly, that is. In a private forum like Hacker News, exclusion of disgusting hateful speech is legitimate and even necessary for the survival of the communi

by aristidb 14y ago

illuminate 14y ago
Right, there's a difference between tolerance and embedding it in your community's culture.
danielweber 14y ago
I agree that HN can operate how it wishes. I'm not sure that barring disgusting speech is "necessary," if only because "necessary" can be such a loaded word. reddit, for example, seems to have a principle of free speech, where there only a very specific things you are not allowed to say board-wide. So there is a fair amount of disgusting speech there. It seems to work for them -- although I have been slowly disengaging from it over the past year or two, and maybe that's part of the reason.
- aristidb 14y ago
  Don't some individual subreddits moderate fairly heavily? And the upvoting/downvoting also has the effect of hiding disliked speech.
  - danielweber 14y ago
    Yes, they do, and the admins support lots of freedom and experimentation for the subreddit moderation policies. (Although there are "default" subreddits that are a little weird.) The sitewide bans, to my recollection, are of only two things (besides that which is illegal): sexualized pictures of children, and doxxing.
ericingram 14y ago
I think the big difference between private and public is that the public authority uses force against the property of others to exclude speech, supposedly deemed as disgusting to a particular group, but you have to recognize as history shows that it will be abused to limit legitimate political speech. Private forums like Hacker News in no way infringe on the rights of others, by using their own property (web site) in a way they deem fit.