When does moderation become censorship?
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I have almost zero sites I login to for a reason. I would think that as soon as a website becomes embroiled in taking a political viewpoint to the extreme of not allowing the opposite side to speak is when censorship comes into play. If we are talking individual attacks obviously that would and should fall into the moderation category.
Personally, I think that deleting someone's comments is censorship, but that doesn't mean it's a bad thing. Censorship gets a bad rap, but purging certain viewpoints from a certain venue is not inherently evil or negative. For example, Hacker News does it with the shadowbanning system. I don't mind because dang is a thoughtful moderator.
This is not correct; TV networks have censors that operate internally. The government doesn't operate television censors; it is limited to punishing the networks after the fact.
> A private citizen deleting your comment on a webpage they own and administrate matches neither the denotation nor connotations of "censorship", except in the broadest theoretical reading. And that reading that would appear to prohibit any maintenance of comment sections whatsoever.
This is a confused argument; you seem to be proceeding from the premise that censorship is bad, and therefore a phenomenon which is not bad can't be censorship. And then that if it was censorship it somehow wouldn't be allowed. (Observe that the definition of "censorship" cannot in itself prohibit or mandate anything.)
It's much more productive to agree on a definition of a term, and then argue over whether any particular example is good, bad, or a mixture of both, than to agree that a term must be good, and then argue over whether certain things are metaphysically able to fit under that term.
2. No, I'm not. I'm preceding from a definition of censorship as "the practice of officially examining books, movies, etc., and suppressing unacceptable parts." Getting into "the dictionary say..." arguments is mostly boring, but most of the definitions do include some element of official imprimatur. Someone removing comments from their personal site fails to meet that official element.
The publisher of a website removing comments from it meets the same soft officialness standard as a newspaper declining to run articles on a particular topic, or a television network refusing to air episodes in which someone disagrees with the group but doesn't end up suffering for it (not an invented example, by the way -- that was a real element of a code governing children's cartoons).
I'm sure that's the primary function of the Chinese government's Central Propaganda Department.
Censorship is when someone or some organisation who has power over you, control your ability to access information.
From the government regulating the content internet users can access deleting content contrary to the government's goals, to administrators of personal websites deleting comments by people espousing views, considered disagreeable by the owner of said website.
I'd say a personal website eliminating disagreeable views from comments is actual censorship, even if it's ability to silence views is a few magnitude orders smaller than state censorship.
If state censorship is an artillery, personal censorship is at least a zip gun, and it can injure someone.[2]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R136a1#/media/File:The_sizes_o...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Improvised_firearm#/media/File...
It's more correct to say most include some element of superior right or ability, often not attributable to the state.
Uh, no. Censorship means the suppression of speech or information. Said suppression does not require involvement from an agent of the state to qualify as censorship.
Same with government-enforced censorship: North Korea can censor speech, but only within its borders. Just because North Koreans living in the US can speak out against Kim Jong-un doesn't mean that what North Korea is doing doesn't count as censorship.
1. Outline rules for a community, make them clear and understandable
2. Enforce those, and only those, rules.
3. If something objectionable happens, and the rules don't cover them but you think they should, then change the rules to how you see fit.
4. Handle the fallout of the rules changing.
Steps 3 and 4 are where things mostly fall apart in communities. Personally, any time something happens which leads me to change rules for something, it's reactive and is the voice of the majority of people (not the loudest, the majority). Most people are happy that way.
Disagreement is never a rule I'd have. I'd only make sure that people either have the tools to self-censor what they don't want to see, or tell them they might be happier going elsewhere.
There are many discussions about rules being either clear or understandable, but usually not both.
> Enforce...
Oh. We "just" enforce it? You sure this mechanism will be both clear and understandable, and be enforced as intended?
> change the rules
Change the rules, in reaction to specific instances, while keeping them clear and understandable? This is why they're usually neither both clear and understandable and enforceable.
> Steps 3 and 4 are where things mostly fall apart in communities.
There is no community where this idea of moderation could hold true.
I fully get that 'clear' and 'understandable' are very subjective, though.
In my experience it's hardly ever been the community showing someone the door, it's always a corporation getting cold feet over potential controversy, or some narrow-minded zealot abusing their janitorial moderator powers.
Last time this happened it was the community that overwhelmingly wanted to show the zealot the door (a vote happened while the mod was away), but they couldn't - they were nice normal people and not the kind of weasels who dedicate hours of janitorial work for the chance of having veto power over others in an internet forum.
Moderation and censorship can be separated - readers can be given the option to circumvent the moderation when/if they choose, or they can have the option to "unsubscribe" from the actions of moderators they disagree with. To create genuine public spaces we are going to have to find a way that doesn't assume uncorruptible integrity of moderators (the role attracts weasels). Private websites can certainly behave however they want, but they are currently standing in for our public spaces - and presenting themselves as such, which means we have none.
...or they can have the option to "unsubscribe"
from the actions of moderators they disagree with
Anyway, thanks for the yummy food for thought.
Censorship: the practice of officially examining books, movies, etc., and suppressing unacceptable parts
Moderation is censorship.
To say otherwise is to make a distinction without a difference.
Rephrase your question to have meaning. Perhaps "When is censorship justifiable?"
The first question is: what is a given community for, and how should it accomplish those goals? Individual moderation, collaborative filtering, individual killfiles, expert ratings systems, etc., are all tools toward these ends. They're non-trivial.
https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/28jfk4/content...
Community behavior is very strongly dependent on BOTH scale AND founder cohorts.
A group with one person (blog, winking in the dark) is different from one with two, or a small set of people engaged in discussion (say 3-30), or a larger group discussing common topics (say 30-100), etc. Part of this can be thought of as a cost function in which the positive contribution of members falls with scale, while the cost of each additional participant is rather more constant. Eventually, adding more participants makes the experience worse for all.
It's really difficult for any one conversation to have more than a few key participants. Two and a moderator, or perhaps 5-6 participants who know each other well and get along.
If you're trying to arrive at some truth or understanding, it's really difficult not to have a truth-based moderation criterion.
Individual killfiles are somewhat useful, except that the killfilee tends to see a great many one-sided discussions (others interacting with those they've filtered). Unless the system blots out both sides, this accomplishes little.
I've started looking more at discussion tools which foster both smaller and larger groups. "Warrens" and "plazas". The idea of creating persistent communities well below Dunbar's number (say 50-300 people) and promoting up material from those has some appeal (you'd also want to allow for lateral movement of individuals). A small set of tiers would easily accomodate the entire global population. (And yes, there's a social network set up on this basis though the name escapes me.)
A huge problem with allowing noisy participants is that they draw the oxygen out of the room, and tend to very strongly discourage high-quality particpants. There's a curiously persistent asymmetry between an individual's proclivity to participate in a group discussion and the interest in others in their doing so. Good designs balance this mismatch.
Moderation should be about removing the trolls, not what it has become, which is censorship.
It feels like many people personally enjoy moderating down disagreements because they don't get any actual power in their own lives.
It's one of the reasons I stay away from most online discussions these days: because nobody can be open and honest. It really makes me wonder if this is the reason why secret groups like the masons were created. Back in those days, instead of getting moderating down, you were killed or attacked.
True, but some argue that those who support Trump, or who are against gender identity equality, are trolls.
Oh it's been very objectively defined. Knowing when someone is trolling, or when they legitimately believe what they're saying is the problem.
Knowing what a lie is is not the same as knowing when someone is lying.
"Anyone who doesn't agree with my ultra progressive views that people should be able to define their own gender identity is a hateful bigot and needs to be silenced"
Edit: I don't think this item has been deleted, it apparently was flagged and has been "moderated" automatically without human intervention?
How did you tell the difference? (or suspect the difference)
They can be, of course. Censorship is not just deletions/removal. You can censor something by hiding it, drowning it out, discrediting the author, etc.
Now keep all that in mind before giving a one-word response to a very complex question.
Therefore your argument is invalid. (Your argument is really just orthogonal, premised on different assumptions.)
I don't consider upvotes/downvotes by themselves to be moderation or censorship. That's just non-verbal communication.
However, when an upvote or downvote system hides a post or promotes a post, then it's censorship, because promoting a post necessarily hides some other post.