Yeah, I don't consider moderation censorship. There are plenty of places to go for unmoderated conversations, but they are rarely civil. On Metafilter, abuse and insults aren't tolerated.
Moderation isn't really censorship IMO, if a comment was deleted that would be censorship. Or, if you were prevented from reading downvoted comments then I would qualify that as censorship as well.
It's subjective in some ways which makes the discussion complicated.
Anyone who has ever moderated knows that allowing a free-speech-for-all, while seemingly a noble ideal, turns into something that nobody needs nor wants. Communication becomes noisy, the topics tend to favour a lowest denominator of quality, and more akin to a soapbox arena then a place of pure speech.
The solution it seems to me is in the name : moderation.
Instead of unfiltered thoughts, we moderate so we can more clearly communicate. In that sense the word censorship loses all meaning : because meaning should be conveyed carefully, especially when topics are sensitive. And so often online people aren’t sensitive at all, for many reasons that seem evident.
Source : moderated several chatrooms for many years.
I like Metafilter's discussion as well. I think the key is having fairly heavy handed moderators who are involved in the community. That keeps discussions civil and on track, and it also tends to drive away the "harassment-as-free-speech" people who create a lot of the toxicity you see in places like reddit and twitter.
Moderation is censorship you agree with. Censorship is moderation you disagree with.
Not quite. Moderation works at a place to form its shape. Censorship is total. At the dawn of modern internet it was an issue, because people “lived” at specific places and wanted to discuss all topics. Some places made exceptions, some were strict, some turned to the mode of no rules except legal. Bringing topics that people do not want here is just rude, because either one wants to annoy people or couldn’t find them elsewhere, where they consciously do not visit, for that exact reason. Or they do visit, but behave differently. Figuratively, nobody wants to discuss shit at the dining table, but that doesn’t mean they do not go vent out from time to time. There are enough places full of these discussions, why not enjoy it there? HN is a rare island of calmness, and you can’t take it from people in the name of something already ubiquitous. Without moderation you’ll get fed with it in a couple of months and will go look for another good place to lash its “censorship”, which is the cause of its goodness, and not an issue.
By “you” I mean average users and their usual forum dynamics, not you personally.
I was trying to convey that they weren't disagreeing with you about it being censorship, they were disagreeing of whether it was wrong or not depending on context. My reply was probably a bit disjointed.
A moderator is supposed to be an arbitrator or mediator. Moderation becomes censorship when they start enforcing policies to get users to align with their values rather than simply bringing people to an accord. Users are allowed to think it's censorship once they lose their value or become a liability.
Yeah, I don't think of a fair moderation system as censorship. Groups of people should have the freedom to keep a discussion focused on whatever they desire.
Still, it's disappointing just how easy it is for us to be completely blind to things that go against our own preferences, even when they're blindingly obvious to others.
Yeah, actually not opposed to moderation, but opposed to some forms of censorship. There's a balance to be struck, but right now, you can get kicked off Facebook for politically-incorrect memes, for instance.
While I understand it is tricky to properly moderate a forum without stifling dissenting opinions, it isn't impossible. You can censor clear, vulgar, abuse while not censoring challenging opinions.
Trolling, name calling, and abuse are NOT "challenging opinions", and removing them does not stifle discourse. There is no opinion that can't be expressed in a way that doesn't resort to abuse.
This is a false dichotomy. I can’t name any platforms that don’t exercise moderation, except maybe 4chan? I think it’s desirable for places to put rules in place to kick out or mute the asshats.
Moderation is keeping people on topic of the forum, killing spam, trolls and sockpuppets, removing abuse and so forth, and trying to keep things on the rails and civil. Including banning trouble makers. Rather like dang does around here. That's not censorship, it's attempting to avoid anarchy. Neither is limiting the range of topics the forum or platform wants. Standards and extent will vary depending on the aims of the site.
Censorship is suppressing a view, even if it follows the standards and allowed topics of the forum. Legal censorship is a little more complex as standards vary between countries.
Having a post removed because it's spam, abusive or is off-topic is not censorship, which was the point the GP was erroneously trying to make.
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