"To delete a violent video is one thing; to censor an unpopular opinion (or any opinion) is quite another."
We've been at the "quite another" stage for a few years now, what with Covid, the laptop tale, and a host of other examples in which govt worked in concert with private actors to silence certain voices. I'm less amazed that it happened than that so many people were okay with it. They began to parrot "mis" and "disinformation" the same way they parrot other words that flow from their preferred politicians and media mouthpieces. At first, they tried to give big tech cover by claiming that these are private platforms, and when that was no longer tenable, they attacked the reporters that documented the Twitter files.
I agree re: child porn and explicit calls for violence, but those have always been exceptions, just as they have been the sorts of things that violate terms of use. Beyond that, I'd say let everything go and give adults the opportunity to make adult decisions for themselves. If someone posts blatantly obnoxious things, we're intelligent enough to figure out and to provide some pushback. When wacky ideas are silenced, they don't go away. They're just pushed into corners where they can ferment and become even worse. A marketplace that allows for dissent, disagreement, and pushback is how lousy ideas get exposed. It's no small irony that the people forever pearl-clutching about "our democracy" are frequently the biggest violators of one of its central tenets.
"so many people were okay with it." Yes. They were actively training and improving their minds in college in the eighties and nineties, then it took twenty years for them to accumulate status and offices and positions in administrations, etc. So now we see it. How could anyone have seen it before? Now we see them for who they are.
Hear! Hear! Be great if Glenn and Mr. Sussman kept your wise words in mind while reviewing and hopefully modifying the current TGS "policy" (whatever it happens to be) on comment acceptability. At a minimum, ANY censoring of comments should be made known and visible to all readers, and the specific policy violation behind the specific "moderation" applied should be cited.
"To delete a violent video is one thing; to censor an unpopular opinion (or any opinion) is quite another."
We've been at the "quite another" stage for a few years now, what with Covid, the laptop tale, and a host of other examples in which govt worked in concert with private actors to silence certain voices. I'm less amazed that it happened than that so many people were okay with it. They began to parrot "mis" and "disinformation" the same way they parrot other words that flow from their preferred politicians and media mouthpieces. At first, they tried to give big tech cover by claiming that these are private platforms, and when that was no longer tenable, they attacked the reporters that documented the Twitter files.
I agree re: child porn and explicit calls for violence, but those have always been exceptions, just as they have been the sorts of things that violate terms of use. Beyond that, I'd say let everything go and give adults the opportunity to make adult decisions for themselves. If someone posts blatantly obnoxious things, we're intelligent enough to figure out and to provide some pushback. When wacky ideas are silenced, they don't go away. They're just pushed into corners where they can ferment and become even worse. A marketplace that allows for dissent, disagreement, and pushback is how lousy ideas get exposed. It's no small irony that the people forever pearl-clutching about "our democracy" are frequently the biggest violators of one of its central tenets.
"so many people were okay with it." Yes. They were actively training and improving their minds in college in the eighties and nineties, then it took twenty years for them to accumulate status and offices and positions in administrations, etc. So now we see it. How could anyone have seen it before? Now we see them for who they are.
Hear! Hear! Be great if Glenn and Mr. Sussman kept your wise words in mind while reviewing and hopefully modifying the current TGS "policy" (whatever it happens to be) on comment acceptability. At a minimum, ANY censoring of comments should be made known and visible to all readers, and the specific policy violation behind the specific "moderation" applied should be cited.