Comment by bArray | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bArray | Hacker News Reader

This appears to be the slippery slope of freedom of speech we spoke about when people on Twitter were clapping when various people got banned. Enjoy the bed you made for yourselves.

> Individually, you can take steps to own your content, like I've done here by publishing my own blog on my own domain and a publicly accessible RSS feed.

If you have something to say - anything at all - then please setup alternative ways to say it. The number of things being censored is only increasing, we are yet to see any relaxation in free speech. Something you say jokingly today is almost guaranteed to get you banned in 10 years time when political feelings change and context is removed.

> Yet in the end it doesn't matter, because RSS readership is very low nowadays compared to social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. You can try to be decentralized, but if your decentralized content isn't linked on the big centralized networks, it might as well not exist.

This is very true. I think we need to do more to make RSS accessible to the average person (read: non-tech people). Obviously big-social media giants are diametrically opposed to this idea, as RSS is somewhat decentralized and they make their money by being a centralized platform.

For a while now I have been thinking about an RSS-based social media platform with opt-in personalized censorship... The idea being to re-use existing (and well supported) technologies, rather than re-design everything. One thing I can't really think of how to handle elegantly is comments/replies between multiple platforms - every solution I can think of involves inventing something new. If anybody has ideas on this I would definitely be interested to hear them.

This has always been how Twitter operated.

It is in no way a result of last years debate, as the mentioned tweet did in fact break their rules.

While the author meant it as a jest, it nonetheless was actually encouraging self harm.

> it nonetheless was actually encouraging self harm.

Uh, no it wasn't.

I cannot see it any other way. If I encourage you to inform yourself how to amputate yourself, then I'm indirectly telling you to do said thing.

He didn't actually mean it like that, but you need to look at the tweet he responded to in order to get that.

Contextual humor doesn't really work on Twitter where you're unlikely to actually see the surrounding tweets

>This appears to be the slippery slope of freedom of speech we spoke about when people on Twitter were clapping when various people got banned. Enjoy the bed you made for yourselves.

I don't know which people you are talking about specifically or who was clapping, but the slippery slope also goes the other way -- when moderators are afraid to ban people for potentially abusive language then it's very easy for the discourse to start slipping and become toxic. Even if you disagree with twitter's stance, please do your part to ensure that doesn't happen, we all deserve a place where we can be treated respectfully and have intellectually stimulating conversations.

>Something you say jokingly today is almost guaranteed to get you banned in 10 years time when political feelings change and context is removed.

I don't understand what the issue is here, if this is talking about twitter, you can just delete an old tweet if it's upsetting people later. The article even shows how twitter has a process to let you delete the tweet and restore your account.

> [..] when moderators are afraid to ban people for potentially abusive language then it's very easy for the discourse to start slipping and become toxic.

I think it really depends on what the purpose of your forum actually is. Perhaps that's the problem - people go to these platforms for different reasons. In my opinion, Twitter is not a place for intellectual discussion and debate, the format itself encourages quick and low-depth hot-takes. And don't get me started on the Tweet numbering...

> [..] we all deserve a place where we can be treated respectfully and have intellectually stimulating conversations.

I don't think we fundamentally do. It would of course be nice and it's something I personally want - but I don't think it's something I deserve. I accept that some things will offend me, and that's okay. If I don't want to see it, there are many options available.

> I don't understand what the issue is here, if this is talking about twitter, you can just delete an old tweet if it's upsetting people later.

In theory, but you have "cancel culture" where something is taken entirely out of context and judged with modern sentimentality, rather than in the context it was written. Also it should be okay to openly disagree with your past self and not have the re-write history, it shows personal progress.

> The article even shows how twitter has a process to let you delete the tweet and restore your account.

"Let you" - it didn't seem like there was much of a choice if the person wanted to continue using the service.

My original point about a better social media still stands anyway, I believe censorship should be opt-in. "I don't want to see X content" - sure, here's your wall with X content removed. "I don't want to talk to Y" - sure, here's everything with Y removed.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com