6 ms·

I am not who you asked, but if I may step in? It bothers me for the same reason it bothers me that those things exist. They are terrible, and should not be giv

by iherbig 12y ago

I am not who you asked, but if I may step in? It bothers me for the same reason it bothers me that those things exist. They are terrible, and should not be given a platform. I don't feel that we, as a society, should tolerate terrible things in general, much less let them prosper.

waterlesscloud 12y ago
The problem there is that the range of what people consider "terrible" is quite broad. Who decides?
- iherbig 12y ago
  Society decides. And sometimes it comes up with the wrong answers. But I don't think that pure freedom comes up with the right answers, either. There are consequences to both sides, and the consequences of no action can be just as bad as the consequences of too much action. There is a wide gap between being hesitant and serious about prohibiting things and accepting everything for fear of overreach, in my opinion. We need to work towards a middle-ground.
kansface 12y ago
May I ask where you are from? Free speech - bigoted, hateful, maybe untrue, or otherwise, is perhaps the one enduring (sacred) tenet of American society.
- cmdkeen 12y ago
  Harassment isn't. One of the big points of the article is that when law enforcement doesn't act that is justification that the action is legal and thus "free speech". Except that law enforcement almost never acts against online harassment. There are plenty of laws restricting free speech when it harms others, and I'd hope you agree that some of the examples in the article crosses the boundary into things that should be criminal.
  - makomk 12y ago
    The boundaries of harassment are very blurry and tend to favour the powerful. For example, some of the campaigns against online harassers look even more like harassment than the actions they're going after people for: http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/online-trolls-whos-hounding-who/15966 http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/online-trolls-w... Except that because it's the press harassing people to the point of suicide, we don't see anything wrong with it.
    - zimpenfish 12y ago
      > we don't see anything wrong with it. Not entirely true - the reaction in the UK to this whole incident has been quite negative from what I've seen. Then again, we're not overly happy with our press at the best of times...
    - pjc50 12y ago
      Spiked are themselves a bit trollish (in the controversy-maximising sense). That said, two wrongs don't make a right. People are not happy with the press hounding people to suicide. The Daily Mail has a nasty track record of outing LGBTQ people, for example.
  - dllthomas 12y ago
    The parent wasn't a comment about the article directly, but on a thread that was discussing acceptance or rejection of subreddits for "domestic abuse and snuff". I don't know that these constitute "online harassment".
- iSnow 12y ago
  Well, this right does not imply that everyone or even a certain service provider has to provide you a platform for it.
- EliRivers 12y ago
  And like all religions, it ultimately becomes harmful.
- wpietri 12y ago
  Free speech, sure. But freedom of association, too. And accepting the consequences of one's actions. If misogynists and abusers want to go and construct their own forums, nobody can legally stop them (as long as their discussion stops short of the various sorts of criminal speech, like conspiracy to commit). But nobody is legally obligated to support them, either. Reddit tomorrow could say, "Welp, we're not going to host people who cause harm in way X". And that's perfectly American because they'd be exercising their own rights. That they choose to support abusers is legal, but it is well within everybody else's rights to point that out, with volume and at length.
- ryanpardieck 12y ago
  And it has almost nothing to do with reddit. Reddit could censor all instances of discussion featuring the phrase "hackers news" tomorrow, and it's not as if they would be brought up on freedom-of-speech charges.
tomp 12y ago
> I don't feel that we, as a society, should tolerate terrible things in general, much less let them prosper. You mean premarital sex, homosexuality, genital mutilation and women showing their faces? Hint: two of those things are still considered normal in much of the world.
- iherbig 12y ago
  I understand the difficulties. However, just as I would not support a lawless society, I do not support the laissez-faire attitude of the reddit admins. And the reasons are much the same. We choose between letting everyone go free and dealing with the consequences, or restricting people and living with the consequences. There is no right answer.
  - tomp 12y ago
    > We choose between letting everyone go free and dealing with the consequences, or restricting people and living with the consequences. There is no right answer. There is no right answer, but restricting information is the wrong answer, primarily because it doesn't work. The leaked nudes are still available, even if not on reddit. You can still download pirated movies, even if it's not as simple as it used to be. Eventually, we'll have to figure out ways of preventing/minimizing the consequences, without restricting information.
    - DanBC 12y ago
      > The leaked nudes are still available, even if not on reddit. That's the point - I can dump uuencoded blobs of text in HN that are stolen nudes. I'd be downvoted to hellban if I tried. Online communities create their own standards. Reddit's standards exclude some groups of people. That's a weird choice to make - in the name of freedom of expression we're going to create an environment that is ridiculously hostile to large numbers of people to make sure they can't express their opinions.
      - tomp 12y ago
        > That's a weird choice to make - in the name of freedom of expression we're going to create an environment that is ridiculously hostile to large numbers of people to make sure they can't express their opinions. So you're suggestion that instead, in the name of safety, we should create an environment that is ridiculously hostile to large numbers of people (banning them) to make sure they can't express their opinions?

by iherbig 12y ago

waterlesscloud 12y ago

The problem there is that the range of what people consider "terrible" is quite broad. Who decides?

iherbig 12y ago
Society decides. And sometimes it comes up with the wrong answers. But I don't think that pure freedom comes up with the right answers, either. There are consequences to both sides, and the consequences of no action can be just as bad as the consequences of too much action. There is a wide gap between being hesitant and serious about prohibiting things and accepting everything for fear of overreach, in my opinion. We need to work towards a middle-ground.

kansface 12y ago

May I ask where you are from? Free speech - bigoted, hateful, maybe untrue, or otherwise, is perhaps the one enduring (sacred) tenet of American society.

cmdkeen 12y ago
Harassment isn't. One of the big points of the article is that when law enforcement doesn't act that is justification that the action is legal and thus "free speech". Except that law enforcement almost never acts against online harassment. There are plenty of laws restricting free speech when it harms others, and I'd hope you agree that some of the examples in the article crosses the boundary into things that should be criminal.
- makomk 12y ago
  The boundaries of harassment are very blurry and tend to favour the powerful. For example, some of the campaigns against online harassers look even more like harassment than the actions they're going after people for: http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/online-trolls-whos-hounding-who/15966 http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/online-trolls-w... Except that because it's the press harassing people to the point of suicide, we don't see anything wrong with it.
  - zimpenfish 12y ago
    > we don't see anything wrong with it. Not entirely true - the reaction in the UK to this whole incident has been quite negative from what I've seen. Then again, we're not overly happy with our press at the best of times...
  - pjc50 12y ago
    Spiked are themselves a bit trollish (in the controversy-maximising sense). That said, two wrongs don't make a right. People are not happy with the press hounding people to suicide. The Daily Mail has a nasty track record of outing LGBTQ people, for example.
- dllthomas 12y ago
  The parent wasn't a comment about the article directly, but on a thread that was discussing acceptance or rejection of subreddits for "domestic abuse and snuff". I don't know that these constitute "online harassment".
iSnow 12y ago
Well, this right does not imply that everyone or even a certain service provider has to provide you a platform for it.
EliRivers 12y ago
And like all religions, it ultimately becomes harmful.
wpietri 12y ago
Free speech, sure. But freedom of association, too. And accepting the consequences of one's actions. If misogynists and abusers want to go and construct their own forums, nobody can legally stop them (as long as their discussion stops short of the various sorts of criminal speech, like conspiracy to commit). But nobody is legally obligated to support them, either. Reddit tomorrow could say, "Welp, we're not going to host people who cause harm in way X". And that's perfectly American because they'd be exercising their own rights. That they choose to support abusers is legal, but it is well within everybody else's rights to point that out, with volume and at length.
ryanpardieck 12y ago
And it has almost nothing to do with reddit. Reddit could censor all instances of discussion featuring the phrase "hackers news" tomorrow, and it's not as if they would be brought up on freedom-of-speech charges.

tomp 12y ago

> I don't feel that we, as a society, should tolerate terrible things in general, much less let them prosper. You mean premarital sex, homosexuality, genital mutilation and women showing their faces? Hint: two of those things are still considered normal in much of the world.

iherbig 12y ago
I understand the difficulties. However, just as I would not support a lawless society, I do not support the laissez-faire attitude of the reddit admins. And the reasons are much the same. We choose between letting everyone go free and dealing with the consequences, or restricting people and living with the consequences. There is no right answer.
- tomp 12y ago
  > We choose between letting everyone go free and dealing with the consequences, or restricting people and living with the consequences. There is no right answer. There is no right answer, but restricting information is the wrong answer, primarily because it doesn't work. The leaked nudes are still available, even if not on reddit. You can still download pirated movies, even if it's not as simple as it used to be. Eventually, we'll have to figure out ways of preventing/minimizing the consequences, without restricting information.
  - DanBC 12y ago
    > The leaked nudes are still available, even if not on reddit. That's the point - I can dump uuencoded blobs of text in HN that are stolen nudes. I'd be downvoted to hellban if I tried. Online communities create their own standards. Reddit's standards exclude some groups of people. That's a weird choice to make - in the name of freedom of expression we're going to create an environment that is ridiculously hostile to large numbers of people to make sure they can't express their opinions.
    - tomp 12y ago
      > That's a weird choice to make - in the name of freedom of expression we're going to create an environment that is ridiculously hostile to large numbers of people to make sure they can't express their opinions. So you're suggestion that instead, in the name of safety, we should create an environment that is ridiculously hostile to large numbers of people (banning them) to make sure they can't express their opinions?