Also, as a society, I'd like to think we can do better than "sorry about the rape/murder threats, we'll try to hide most of them from you"
I'd argue it's making use of technology to make a people oriented solution: people do less of things that are harder to do, and seeing less garbage even if you still see some makes the place seem more pleasant.
> I'd like to think we can do better than "sorry about the rape/murder threats, we'll try to hide most of them from you"
The best we can ever do, without swerving way out in to super repressive regimes, is impact the rate at which it happens, the response of other people, etc and not that it happens at all.
This doesn't follow from the symptoms being cited, which is that a small subset of people say incredibly offensive and inappropriate things online.
If a million people see a video, and 1% of the people respond, and 3% of the people responding are crazy, that's 300 crazy people responding. If each crazy person sends 15 emails before finding a new thing to obsess about, that's 4,500 threatening or otherwise crazy emails in response - which certainly seems like a flood to the person being responded to - but doesn't actually tell us anything about the population watching the video, at large, except that it has a similar percentage of crazy people to society at large.
Continuing the hypothetical: if you assume a normal person only sends 2 emails, then you only have 19000 normal emails to 4500 crazy ones, because crazy people are more talkative. At 1.2 emails for a normal person, It's 11000 to 4500, which makes crazy emails over a quarter of all messages received in response - a vastly disproportionate number considering they were 3% of respondents.
One thing that automated filters can provide is sentiment analysis and looking at related messages, to pull out the underlying distribution of people responding (and hence seeing it's just people being people), rather than just seeing the surface level "We have 25% crazy emails!"
I would have to see a much more detailed analysis of the emails, responses, and distribution of them to conclude that it's a widespread problem, rather than a small crazy contingent being amplified above their importance by just posting a lot.
So how would you feel about it? How would you feel about the oppression you're looking to subject others to, being applied to you?
You have the right to free speech, but you do not have the right to be listened to. If you are on private property the owner can ask you to leave. If I wrote a script to send you an obnoxious email every 5 minutes I imagine you would set up a filter so you would not have to read them or even be aware of their existence. You don't have the right to make other people read your (hypothetically) obnoxious comments any more than I have the right to make you read my obnoxious emails.
It's what you're proposing to do to other people, so you have the ethical burden of considering how you'd feel if it were done to you.
So how would you feel? Would you feel that it were ethical, even if it were somehow legally justified? Would you accept it? Would you consider it a good, just, humane use of technology? Stop evading the question and answer it already.
How would I feel if a website removed my profane, unreasonable, and offensive comment? Ashamed. Considering a website has no obligation to display my comment I think it would be ethical (and of course legal) for them to not display horrible comments. I would accept it. I see nothing inhumane or unjust about a website declining to distribute my hate speech.
How would you feel if websites colluded to prevent you from communicating at all, based on what they consider to be undesirable, not based on what you consider to be undesirable? By definition, you're already negatively predisposed to what you consider to be undesirable, so your proposed scenario never comes up. Mine does.
It doesn't need to have anything to do with profanity. It could be something as simple as you being a pro-censorship piece of shit. Or something else. Who knows. It doesn't matter. What matters is them oppressing you the way you'd like to oppress others, based on criteria you don't necessarily agree with, and possibly don't even know. How would you feel about that?
Stop trying to evade the question. If you evade it one more time, I will consider you to have conceded.
"How would you feel if websites colluded to prevent you from communicating at all"? They don't have that ability; a website cannot reach through my computer screen and gag me. Since the you question are literally asking is absurd, I guessed you really mean to ask how I would feel if a website removed my comment, which I answered. Now I think you are asking how I would feel if every single website agreed to a common blacklist and put me on it. This is still quite far fetched and drastically different from what I am talking about, but I will answer it anyway. I would feel annoyed and embarrassed.
What I am talking about (removing vile comments) is already done manually, so your notion that it "never comes up" is strange. If you right to force other to distribute rape threats is so important to you then I doubt we will come to an agreement.
Lastly, there is no need to call me a "piece of shit". If you stoop to this level again, I will consider you to have conceded.
Yes, they do. What stops private parties from colluding? Nothing. What stops your local ISP (in most locations, in a position of local monopoly) from denying you access, even without participation from websites? Nothing. What stops them from doing this for their own reasons, which you might not necessarily agree with, and possibly don't even know? Nothing.
And the actual point that you keep evading -- what stops other parties from approving of ideas and speech that you disapprove of, and vice versa? Nothing. What stops them from oppressing you, the way you want to oppress others, in a way that enforces this diametrically opposed configuration of approval and disapproval? Nothing. What stops them from considering every idea and form of speech that you've ever perpetrated, and every idea and form of speech that you stand for, to be vile, and to do everything in their power to censor, silence, and oppress you as a result? Nothing.
You have evaded once again, and lost by default. Thanks for your time, anyway.
P.S. I didn't call you a piece of shit, the hypothetical oppressive parties in the hypothetical scenario did. You lose by default for putting words in my mouth, as well.
I have already answered the question you think I am evading.