Hacker News Reader

I'm not so sure that is a thing that happens with any great regularity - and I say that because the previously bright line between "this person offended me" and "this person is harassing me" has become a lot more blurry.

Sure, any of us can point at high profile cases, but there's that old saying about anecdotes and data.

The problem with your entire last sentence is that it's full of value judgements, value judgements shaped by your experience as a human and your own knowledge and biases. One person's "hate speech" is another person's "spirited argument", one person's "disagreement" is another person's "harassment".

You might have a very clear definition of "hate speech" in your mind as you write those words, but I'd be willing to bet if you defined it here in the most clear and unambiguous language you possibly could, you'd find perfectly reasonable people disagreeing with it.

And therein is the problem - I'm on the side of that line that leaves people the hell alone in all but the most egregious of cases, because at the end of the day, it's all words on a screen.

Sure. It's complicated. Heck, even just a passive laugh at a funny picture which is totally innocent and non-harmful in person, can become a crushing attack on a person when it goes viral and it's millions upon millions of people doing it.

But just because these issues are messy doesn't give us a license paper over their complexity with reductive founding-father-esque ideology. It's pretty clear to me that in aggregate freedom of speech on the internet is not suffering—people have unprecedented access to spread whatever thoughts they happen to have. Meanwhile an increasing number of people being hurt by internet bullying, harassment, and other anti-social behavior is growing by leaps and bounds in a way that society is not yet equipped to deal with.

In aggregate is not what we're talking about in this instance. "In aggregate", crime is down worldwide, people are living longer than ever. That does not mean focus gets shifted away from individual criminals and diseases.

People being cut off from any medium based on, not because someone was hurt in any tangible way, but because they were offended, is a crying shame, and that goes double when the medium plays at being precisely against that sort of thing.

Source on "anti-social behavior growing by leaps and bounds", and a definition would be nice, too. It seems to me words like "harassment" and "bulling" are being used as stand-ins for things as innocuous as simple incivility.

Perhaps the rise of microaggression complaints is exaggerated, but one has to wonder where we're headed as a society when the smallest insignificant things are labeled as (micro)-aggressive[1].

I'm loath to live in a culture where people have to walk on eggshells so as to not offer the semblance of offense. I think it's childish and also hypocritical --as if we can expect no one to think or say anything that would ever offend anyone. They never try to be mean to an ex-lover, they would never think bad of someone who ignored them unwittingly, etc.

[1]http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/the-rise...

This is a huge problem and has actually destroyed something very near to me, video games. The oversensitive attitude you mentioned has poisoned online gaming. Personally, I love to talk shit. A well spoken insult is a thing of beauty to me. It is an art, a craft, a science. Talking shit in video games used to be half the fun of playing, now it's unacceptable. What was once a staple of the culture is now it's greatest crime. Gamers today have this word "toxic". We used to have an antonym for that word, it was called "being a pussy". It's like one day everyone just decided to start taking the internet way too seriously. I can't talk shit in my favorite video game, some college student is facing charges because of a joke he made on twitter, and the presidential candidates are getting asked questions from facebook. What the fuck is going on.

The internet is growing up.

I think it just became popular. I don't think it grew up at all. This all seemed to start happening after the facebook boom and all of my friends suddenly knew what a meme was.

The question is, is the locker room, the powder room, the boardroom, etc. growing up?

There is a place for civil discourse and there is a place for people to be as ugly as they want to be or are. Else you're just pretending it does not exist or that you can wish it away.

This is like religious people thinking that if you only think pure thoughts all will be well in the world.

The same people who want to see crime-ridden neighborhoods bulldozed over to bring about the new society where everything is resplendescent, bright and tame and only the good people live and there is no Other. There are no drug abusers, misogynistic men, cruel women, or human traffickers.

I don't really think that the action of sanitizing reddit could be characterized as "pretending it does not exist or that you can wish it away". Its pretty likely that the people that are trying to do that are acutely aware of the presence of the Other.

I also find it curious that you're using the capital o Other. Is that a deliberately existentialist term?

The capital-O Other is our capital-E Enemy. They stand for everything we don't stand for.

Jokes aside, it seems that has been a growing awareness for the concept of "othering," as in emphasizing the difference between your ingroup (AKA Us, AKA people like you) and an outgroup (AKA Them). Unfortunately it has little to do with the relatively benign idea you might be thinking about.

Play dota instead of league, yes you can get communication banned for being abusive but I think largely they just seem to lump all the unpleasant people on teams together.

dota was the first game to mute ban me. I came home after a night of drinking and roleplayed troll warlord at 3 in the morning. I woke up to find myself mutebanned (something I'd never heard of). I had won 2/3 games and had the best stats in all three games. Very quickly I realized that this mute system was automated. A game could start with me unmuted, a teammate could report me because he didn't like the hero I picked or the lane I was going to, even if I hadn't said anything to said teammate, and I would become muted before creeps even spawned. The whole system was supper shoddy and lazily put together. Valve actually responded by posting an essay on why they were right and how the system wasn't automated, but perfect in every way. As a long time fanboy of Valve, I had never seen them do anything like this and I had never seen them post an essay like this. That was the nail in the coffin for me.

>If people behaved the way they do on these boards they would quickly be ostracized by society if not having the shit beaten out of them on a regular basis.

If people talked in public the way they do on those boards there might be consequences.

But if people behaved the way they do, they'd probably be voted into office.

We've just had the British Prime Minister give one of the most offensive and hate-filled conference speeches a lot of people have ever seen. His administration is full of people who are questionably sane.

The Chancellor has turned up in Parliament looking like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBtXxYrp7mo

Cameron's colleagues have been directly implicated in starving dying people - some of whom can't walk or speak - to death by claiming they're "able to work" and so shouldn't receive any state aid.

You want physical harm? We've got as much of it as you can bear to read about.

So really, hate speech on Reddit is a non-issue compared to what goes on in supposedly serious politics.

And did I mention the Internet censorship and surveillance? Because we have that too.

In reality free speech isn't a panacea. There are too many crazy people in politics all over the world, and free speech on Reddit or elsewhere has done nothing to keep them out of power.

It's not the basement-dwelling sociopaths with twitchy keyboards you need to worry about - it's the professionals.

how could you not mention the pig?

I don't really think it matters, everyone makes mistakes when they're young, that's the point of growing up.

Besides, Cameron does plenty of stupid stuff as an adult anyway.

> it is enabled by anonymity and the complete lack of repercussions. If people behaved the way they do on these boards they would quickly be ostracized by society if not having the shit beaten out of them on a regular basis.

It depends where you do it - if you've ever been in a locker room or out drinking with the boys or the girls, all sorts of things are said and done that are extremely "inappropriate". Now, keeping that sort of thing off the front few pages of /r/all to me seems completely reasonable - banning it from the entire site (as was the plan) is something else entirely.

> All groups can find a place on the internet, and they will always be able to. We simply don't need to worry about that, and it's silly to wring our hands over the decision to moderate this or that community.

A lot of people liked reddit the way it was and didn't really feel like just finding another place on the infinite internet....why can't the SJW's and their ilk who came late to the party go find their own place? It's like renting an apartment beside a bar and then trying to get it shut down because of the noise.

>why can't the SJW's and their ilk who came late to the party go find their own place?

Because their cause is evangelical in nature.

Were it just kept to Tumblr then they wouldn't have much with which to stoke the fires.

SJW's are specifically about pointing out to others where they are wrong/insensitive/racist/sexist/ableist/etc.. if they just kept to themselves then who would they persecute with their 'justice'?

For me having different subs with different moderation policies, etc., satisfies both sides of people's needs.

People who want to be civil and interact with other civil people have their subreddits, people who want to engage in uncivility also have their subreddits. I don't see the problem.

Here is what I have noticed. I like forums where people can voice opposing opinions even be unkind but not vile. But I accept that some forums do harbor people who like being vile, either as a persona or their true selves. I avoid those forums/groups/subreddits.

Also, at times some of the offensive people do have great knowledge in their area of expertise, but otherwise can be very offputting and vile. Despite that, I want to be able to have those voices. Certainly I don't want to have them sprinkled all over. So, for as long as they can exist in predictable places and can be sought out or avoided, I'm for that. If push came to shove, I'd have to allow it all over and just have to dig through the noise.

The reason is I don't want proscribed forums. The problems are group-think, shaming, socio-forming, brainwashing. And you can bring out examples of things we want to eradicate, say ideas about terrorism (killing and raping other people indiscriminately or discriminately, as it were) but the thing is there are slippery slopes, grey areas and social movements of the day. Ideas and preferences change over time. I want to allow all those voices, no matter how offensive to be expressed --I don't have to like those ideas. I'm sure I would have a very visceral reaction to most the monsters on hateful forums, but yet, I think there is value in not shutting that off.

That said, reddit has the authority, obviously, to do whatever they like with their platform.

1. I don't think you actually know what a sociopath is. Slapping labels you don't understand on people you don't like is never going to solve your problems.

2. And are you seriously pulling the "cyber bullying" card here?

3. Since when is this a discussion about swatting?

The case seems pretty clear to me. You are free to create any subreddit you see fit, and moderate it however you wish. Why should every existing subreddit be forced to conform to your personal sensitivities? Just go make your own subreddit.

There are all kinds of subs on reddit, ones with anything goes as well as curated ones. If you like civil talk only head on over there, if you like uncivil conversation, head over there. There is no reason they can't coexist, just not in the same sub.

Physical harm is a crime. Some speech is a tort. Very limited aspects of speech are a crime (doxing, some bullying) but aside from those forms, I think it's disingenuous to want to control people's thoughts, no matter how ridiculous.

Climate change deniers are laughably wrong, by the vast majority of accounts and evidence _however_ I would not want them silenced just because they are in the wrong on their opinion or facts. I do not agree with that.

I am glad that reddit, for the most part, has not greatly changed their stand on speech. I understand they have commercial concerns and need to bow to those pressures, but I am glad they allow, by and large, the full spectrum of humanity and inhumanity.