The censorship we are talking about is not censorship: it's moderation.
Every forum worth using has moderation. The problem today is that most people aren't using user-moderated forums. Instead, they are using corporate-moderated social networks.
Considering this entire discussion is about the censorship/moderation of content with the intent to suppress political speech, I think it is important to be clear. Also, most people don't use the term "censorship" when they talk about moderating forums. It is as radical as saying "taxation = theft".
I find it bizarre to see people equating forum moderation with some sort of freedom-bashing censorship. Does no one remember Usenet? Active moderation is essential for discussion forums, even if only to clean out spam and trolling.
There's just too many people on the internet, and only so many are housebroken.
“Free speech” is not freedom from moderation either. Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and, yes, Ycombinator, have a right to delete content they do not like and block users who post content they do not agree with.
That’s not censorship. That’s moderation. Censorship is getting shot by police in Burma for protesting the military coup that recently happened there, or beaten up in Russia for protesting the arrest of the opposition candidate.
Back to the original conversation, I have seen online forums get ruined once unpleasant argumentative cranks, usually people who have been kicked off of other forums for inappropriate behavior, start overtaking a forum. Soon, the forum is a cesspool of conspiracy theories, and pretty soon, the place is inciting violence. For example, Parler. I don’t want to see that happen to Ycombinator.
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.
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.
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.
Out of all of the people who would like to frequent message board, some of them can't stand boards with a lot of censorship; and others can't stand boards which don't have strong moderation.
Surely some forum hosts will desire to serve those users who desire strong moderation, and for these forum hosts, not censoring or moderating isn't a solution.
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.
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.
That's because forums generally have topics and rules. If we're in a forum about sports cars and you're constantly starting adversarial threads about city planning and parking, then mods would probably censor you to keep the forum on topic. Places like Facebook advertise themselves as the "town square of the web". Traditionally nobody was censored in the town square. There's a difference between purpose built communities and the general network of communication.
The term moderation itself often came from debate and discussion venues where moderators would police speeches.
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