So I have done the leg work to see what happens and it turns out that if you give space to extremist views they overtake other conversations and dominate the community.
What people don’t seem to grasp is that all speech is not equal, and that our brains react very predictably to certain arguments and content.
For example, your argument is not supported by the paper, which I have read. Because the paper shows behavior of the bad actors changed across the site, and became less hateful.
However the argument is complex, and goes against commonly held beliefs, such as sunlight is the best disinfectant etc.
More exposure results in more reinforcement of popular ideas, until something happens externally.
When you feel the need to censor or suppress information all you are doing is admitting that your argument is just not as persuasive as the opposition and requires handicapping. People see that as the same thing as your argument being false which is why they always work their way tirelessly around your efforts to suppress and censor.
If you get to the point where you feel you need to censor, suppress, or outright ban voices to be heard, you have already lost the communication high ground and no matter how true or good your opinion/idea/position. It will lose in the court of public opinion…and frankly should…because you did not put the appropriate effort in to be persuasive.
Someone shared a picture of a dead baby in my community a few days ago. They were part of pictures describing the conditions of an ethnic conflict that is largely unremarked upon.
As mods, we removed it, since it’s traumatic to simply see it, and it’s out of scope for our community. It’s not an ‘acceptable’ argument and it was removed. That was censorship.
Should pro beastiality arguments be allowed? Am I admitting the anti beastiality argument is not as persuasive as the beastiality argument, when I choose not to give them space in my communities?
What about when children are engaging with an experienced cult recruiter?
Users are spamming your community with random content, to bury headlines about a heinous rape case that makes the ruling party look bad. That’s fundamentally more speech and it is acting as an antidote for ‘bad’ speech.
How do you address roving bands of users who go around Reddit, and downvote all negative news about China and India on r/worldnews? The demographics and time they are online, are sufficient to shift the news.
What would your conscience have you do? Have you been in a position to make similar decisions? I have, so I can give these examples.
This.. isn’t an attempt by me to prove you wrong. These aren’t hard questions, but pretty common place ones. Its just that all mod choices are essentially censorship.
I believe you are defending a principle. If you choose not to moderate/ censor in those examples I would respect you for holding to your principle.
If you decide to censor, I would be fine with it too.
Because you would still be making a decision based on a principle.
I’ve struggled with the idea of censorship since I first volunteered as a mod nearly 15 years ago.
I valued free speech as a core principle to enable humanity succeed and thrive.
I have, stopped seeing free speech as an end to itself. I had to reconcile the limited options with the results I saw in communities.
I hated it. Eventually I had to ask why we value free speech in the first place.
And we value it because we value a fair marketplace of ideas. I see the goal as being able to have fair debates and exchanges of ideas between normal people.
And they suffer failings and weaknesses possible in any market place. So the goal is to ensure the marketplace is effective at being fair.
Perhaps you would have a different idea, and I am happy to hear it. If only to see a different solution.
And if you agree with me to some degree and also think that having effective market places is a good idea, thats fine too.
We Sure as heck need the average person to decide what principles need to be held up, and at what costs.
> I believe you are defending a principle. If you choose not to moderate/ censor in those examples I would respect you for holding to your principle.
I am of the opinion that net positive benefit of free expression outweighs negatives when it’s allowed and the negatives of censorship outweigh the positives of it when it’s practiced.
Also, generally I think civil people will simply reject spaces where uncivil discourse or “not appropriate” content to them is present. If I was a moderator I can see where that would create a challenge of balance towards censorship, because you would want your forum to thrive and not dry up from the garbage.
Ultimately it’s not a decision I would need to make, I don’t moderate anything, nor would I. Even here on HN, I only upvote. I am not a fan of how HN handles the downvoting (content dimming), but at least I can still see it if I choose to. I also use a feed reader for HN post delivery so, flagged/dead posts still make it to me and I can choose whether those posts are worth my time.
I think its pretty critical that people who believe in Free speech get their blasted hands dirty.
I cant be amongst the few people trying to communicate the stupid complexity of this issue! If you believe in free speech, then you really really have to see how the sausage is made, so that you can articlate the issues to people who believe the same thing!
I'm serious! To an extent I know its uncomfortable to be put on the spot, but please at least consider it.
Back to our main point:
>I am of the opinion that net positive benefit of free expression outweighs negatives when it’s allowed and the negatives of censorship outweigh the positives of it when it’s practiced.
I would like to think we both agree, but there is much that hinges on what you mean by positives.
I ended up reading everything from court cases to research papers to reconcile the options mods have, with the principles of free speech. I eventually had to lean heavily on the analogy of the market place of ideas from the Abrams dissent, to reconcile the two.
That means the good engendered by free speech, is primarily to enable the exchange of ideas - which in turn is what serves the ultimate goals of humanity. Free speech is a subordinate principle to the free and fair exchange of ideas.
To illustrate -I can and do have users flood the front page with content, to suppress content that is hurtful to their ideas and image. This is speech meeting more speech.
Any action I would take to stop this, is censorship and the prevention of the free expression of users.
This happened over and over again, for all content critical of positions by the ruling party.
The frameworks I had to figure out helped me navigate this choice, but how would you approach it?
would you stop the users who are coordinating the multiple submissions of topics to prevent visibility of a post?
Or would you let that behavior continue?
Or would you find a way to signal boost the content that is being suppressed?
I am way too old, opinionated, and my ability to “suffer fools gladly is long in my past”
But, I do appreciate your point that it’s good to see the sausage being made. Then again, I am a person who knows exactly what is in scrapple and how it’s made, but when I am in Philly if I go to a diner it’s what I order and scarf up every morsel.
It’s the reconciliation and articulation of principles reasoning.
Look you may not do it.
But there is a contradiction at the heart of modern American society between principles and how conversations actually function online.
And this needs to be articulated by normal people for normal people. Otherwise it’s always going to be an imposed reality,
Or think of it this way. Unless people who care about free speech don’t reassure mods that the consequences of not modding are acceptable - that they will also be the conscience keepers when inevitably society turns around and says “oh you should have modded more”
And that has to be an informed choice.
And consider that you are crotchety and old but get annoyed by free speech discussions.
You aren’t crotchety and old and annoyed by discussions on ancient Roman mining methods.
There’s things we can be sort of arsed to do which are within range of our interests.
I acknowledge there would be conflicting forces and its a complex machine, but knowing myself and how important liberty has been to me for my entire adult (and even before as a teenager) life, I am confident that I would not interfere and would rather let a forum wither and die or leave moderation of it if the content presented fell outside my moral belief system rather than get in the way of people communicating where they want to communicate.
That doesn't "get in the way of people communicating where they want to communicate"? If 99.9% of a forum likes the "no child porn" rule, that's not enough?
What people don’t seem to grasp is that all speech is not equal, and that our brains react very predictably to certain arguments and content.
For example, your argument is not supported by the paper, which I have read. Because the paper shows behavior of the bad actors changed across the site, and became less hateful.
However the argument is complex, and goes against commonly held beliefs, such as sunlight is the best disinfectant etc.
More exposure results in more reinforcement of popular ideas, until something happens externally.