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Moderation Philosophy - On Content Removal
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this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2023
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Ideally, we don't want people dehumanizing others, ever. Realistically, if someone is intolerant to you, we're not going to tone police you for responding in kind. There's nuance in there we touched on a little with this post, but it's hard to itemize every possible human behavior.
If you see anything on Beehaw that makes you think twice about whether it should be up, please report it.
I read this as modspeak for “ideally, those posts wouldn’t be up, but because it’s usually intolerant people we’ll file the calls for violence towards these groups as just minority frustration that shouldn’t be tone policed.” Am I correct in my interpretation?
There’s annoying insults and there’s normalizing violence and dehumanization of the Other. I’m going to be disgusted with myself if I ever dehumanize even the worst person out of frustration. Have to remember that no, they’ve not monsters, they’ve made a series of bad choices that any of us could have chosen to make, we could all be “monsters” if we choose wrong enough. They’re not some odd other species of being that we could never ever fall into being.
Kick them off the platform, figure out how to make acts of bigotry illegal, but I don’t believe in violence unless it’s protecting yourself or others. And what I see looks much less like a preemptive strike to protect yourself/others and more like “whee, acceptable target, it’s punching time baby!”
I'm not sure I completely follow what you're saying or asking, could you reword if you still have questions for me?
You’re posting that in reply to someone’s question about whether content about mugshots of awful criminals, about Nazi punching, and pedophile execution is acceptable, and their concern about whether it’s okay to dehumanize and wish harm on these people.
I am interpreting your reply as a diplomatically-worded and unclear way to say “Ideally, this kind of content would be unacceptable, but in practice we will let it fly because it’s just minority frustration at people being awful and telling them to stop would be tone policing.” I am also autistic and would like to know if my interpretation is correct, because my disability has gotten in the way of me interpreting people correctly before.
The rest of my reply to you was not a question but me stating my own views for context. I’ll try to explain it again, sorry for any confusion.
I also heavily disagree with allowing that sort of content. Dehumanization leads down dangerous roads, such as believing you could never ever be like your enemy, because after all, they’re not human. It leads to violation of rights because hey, they hurt someone too, let’s make them feel the pain 3x worse as punishment! Allowing calls to violence just seems very bad to me too.
I hold the view that that content should not be allowed while also believing that Nazi content and “it’s just freedom of speech” justifications for Nazi content should be removed and the Nazi should be banned. I do not support them or their views at all, but I do support not allowing any calls to violence or dehumanization, even if the person you want to dehumanize is really really bad. I also perceive the recent Nazi-punching content to be less about violence for the sake of protecting others and more about having an acceptable target to dehumanize.
I don't think it's fair to characterize it as simply frustration. These people are at serious risk of harm and death by some of the individuals who have passed or may even have friends or important figures in their lives who were directly harmed or even worse killed by intolerant people's actions. I personally see no issues in them celebrating the fact that a person who caused harm and violence on the world is now unable to do so and that the world is a safer place with them gone.
Like any comment there's going to be an axis of acceptability that it falls upon. A short comment simply celebrating this with words like 'nice' or 'lol' is very different from a one page manifesto of insults. There's also just the general vibe of a thread- too much negativity and short one-liners which don't promote discussion aren't particularly helpful for the website either, so moderators may step in and lock the post or remove comments if it's inspiring people to act negative towards each other.
For what it's worth I'm also a heavily nonviolent person. I would rather die than inflict harm on just about anyone, simply because I do not wish to live with that burden. I'm not one to call for violence on anyone, but I understand that the world doesn't exist in black and white and minority individuals need space to vent emotions, including anger, in a healthy manner. I think that it's fair and necessary and good to be intolerant towards intolerant individuals and what that means from person to person is going to be different. I'll probably never punch a nazi for the reasons above, but I'm not going to take that away from anyone else.
Do you have any recommendations for a space like Beehaw that’s free of that kind of content? I suppose I’m oversensitive. I wouldn’t tolerate a Nazi on an instance but I also really really really do not like celebrating violence. It’s not celebrating “they can’t cause harm anymore,” it’s celebrating the act of punching. Taking an army against the Nazis stopped them from committing more atrocities on a large scale, this is fine. Never heard of punching individual Nazis stopping any of them from just plotting out how to hurt more people and get back at the person who punched them.
For me acceptable intolerance is deplatforming, making it illegal, taking away their megaphone and not letting them play ball, not “violence is GREAT against the intolerant group and we’ll celebrate it” instead of “violence is a necessary evil we sometimes have to take out to stop intolerant people for making it worse for us.” Not violating basic human rights. Even “nice” and “lol” when someone fucking dies is not something I can really get behind. I get why people have the feelings, I really do, but I don’t want to see it and I have to figure out how to curate my experience to easily avoid that given that a lot of online safe spaces for minorities actually don’t curate that out. What to do when you’re a minority that needs to not have “but freedom of speech” when people post slurs, but also needs to not have “lol” when someone dies…
I suppose I should have spoken more carefully because I fully understand the actual threat the rise of neo-Nazis can pose, especially given the anti-LGBTQ+ laws actually being enacted in the modern day. “Minority frustration” was probably reductive though I did not intend to be—I think I grabbed it from several posts on the topic of “are people allowed their vent spaces” and I need a better way to express that I understand the dangers while also managing to convey my point. I understand people need their vent spaces. I want to find a space safe from the vents.
Blocking a lot of the news subs should be pretty helpful, but I’m still curious if you know of any spaces that don’t tolerate bigotry but also don’t make room for these type of posts.
We're probably one of the most highly moderated spaces on federated software. I am not aware of any spaces that are more moderated. I would encourage you to take your mental health seriously and if you need a more sanitized space to seek it out or work with a professional to see if there are coping strategies that can help you when you encounter this kind of behavior as it's openly and extremely present in the world at large.
So in nice, diplomatic words, you’re saying “toughen up buttercup, find therapy, because everyone has a hated group and you’ll have to accept ‘lol’ at deaths of the hated group and other nasty things you and everyone were taught not to say as kids, and everyone other than you thinks it’s actively acceptable instead of even mildly distasteful and something they might want to avoid online.” Did I process that right?
I don’t come across people saying this stuff in real life. It seems to be a purely online phenomenon, at least in my tiny little corner of the world.
I don't think it's a negative or undesirable trait to be considerate of others or to admonish violence. In fact, I have nothing but praise for this mindset and I wish that more individuals were compassionate and cared about the lives of others above all else.
I only meant to recognize that we do not live in such a world and because of such there are trade-offs that we deal with. In my personal life I find myself drawn towards individuals of a softer demeanor - while I know many militant queers, I don't spend a lot of time around them because I don't particularly enjoy even the thought of violence. This is me curating my space and finding the spaces which represent my wants and needs.
I'm not passing judgment on you for wanting to do the same and I wish you the best of luck. I'm just trying to help you understand that this may not be the space for you and I'm not sure where such a space exists online. The only reason that I mentioned mental health is that I have experienced what sounds like a very different world from what you have experienced. The world I have experienced is sometimes cold and uncaring and hateful and violent. I have seen individuals struggle with this reality without the appropriate tools to manage their mental health and I do not wish the same for you.
Thank you very much for clarifying your intent! I appreciate it.
Fully aware of the harsh reality of the world, was just hoping I could find a lovely online escape and was disappointed to find what I thought was an escape is more 3/4 of one. At least the bigotry is gone (not even bigots getting dunked on by the general population but still existing on far too many posts, they’re just not there at all which is very nice), the bigotry-free but still not-nice comments consisting purely of “KYS” are gone, the “HAHAHAHAHA you actually believe that” condescension is gone, which is a lot better than I can say for most spaces and I thank you for that.
I'm a strong proponent of punching Nazis, and I hadn't thought about it until now, but I'm also supportive of any and all positive responses to a Nazi being punched, including "lol".
Glad to peacefully coexist with you on this platform though. Not trying to fire up that debate, but glad to lend perspective if it's of any interest or use.
Hello! I assume that because you replied so far down here, you’ve read the entire exchange between the mod and I.
I usually do a decent job of curating my online experience to avoid seeing upsetting things, but at least at that time Beehaw was doing something where, once you login, your feed still shows the exact same thing as before login, regardless of whether you set your default view to Subscribed and regardless of what you have blocked. So I ended up seeing content that made me mad and I typed out a reply on it. I had this in mind when I commented on this Moderation Philosophy post, and was pretty sure the commenter who started this specific thread was also referring to that same post.
I fully understand there’s a decent chance people have had to face more than just seeing nasty things online from Nazis, and have personally seen them try to do harm in real life. You may live in an area where they may no longer be outnumbered and unpopular. Depending on your demographics, they might pose an existential threat to you. And of course if you have any interest in living, you must deal with the threat.
I’m curious about your perspective, but I also worry that I’m just going to set myself off when I read your reply. I am very much thinking of the lyric “you’re not good, you’re not bad, you’re just… nice” from Into the Woods and it’s probably an appropriate prediction of what I’ll have an honest emotional reaction to and what I’ll just coldly process. Both homophobic slurs and “lol [person doing hatecrimes] died good riddance” comments make me upset. I know I’m probably supposed to allow for space for the latter, but I frankly can’t handle it too well. I don’t think, in an ideal world, I should have to be able to handle that well, but I live in the real world and not an ideal world. Fact is, I have a hard time with not-nice behavior, from what I gather the good thing may be to let it fly sometimes so people can vent justified anger, and I am not good at doing that at all. So I try to cordon it off from my view so people can do that in peace and I don’t have to see it. So when I want to learn about your perspective… I think you can see the conflict of interest here. I want to learn about your perspective, I also want to not set myself off with something I know I don’t handle well.
I think I was drawn to comment because your preferences are an extreme version of what most people prefer (basically avoiding conflict?). You also seem to know yourself better and explain where you're coming from better than most people.
So there's a practical question that has value, of how you're doing the work to help win these ideological wars, or if you're strictly trying to be a bystander. Your answers probably have a lot more relevance to strict bystanders than mine.
On Nazi punching, I was just raised working class, where punching is one of the ways we communicate. Celebrating the misfortune of someone that deserves it is also completely normal. So I'd chalk a lot of the mismatch up to culture rather than right or wrong.
A little bit more confounding, a lot of the habits and culture of the professional class, managerial class, owning class, ruling class, etc. are offensive to me. You've probably seen how that goes. But particularly silence in the face of unjust violence can often be extremely violent.
Should probably mention people have brought up to me that I’m apparently confrontational. I don’t do violence but I do speak up when something’s wrong. And I’m always willing to say the quiet parts out loud, which might make some people uncomfortable. (This is necessary in general life because half the time I can’t pick up on the quiet parts that most people would infer because of my autism, and need to have it confirmed whether I’m picking up on it correctly or if I’m off base.) I don’t think I’m any more conflict avoidant in general than the next person, just specifically violence-averse.
Is punching actually a way the working class communicates and something they like, or just something from your particular circle? I’m very wary of validating stereotypes of “ew, the nasty, brutish, gross and violent workers,” so I’m a little hesitant to take your word for it and accept that into my worldview, especially given how I see violence as extremely bad and a necessary evil. It also doesn’t match my own experience with working-class people, but it might also be colored by me being a woman and “never hit a girl” (I benefit from that but honestly, just extend that rule to everyone please unless they actually commit physical violence against you first?). Also, I’d imagine working class people recognize hitting people the wrong way can kill or permanently disable the target for life, some injuries will last and bother them for life, getting in a fight means you can get hit like that too, and they don’t have the greatest access to healthcare to mitigate any of these effects.
I’ve never ever liked to point at someone suffering and say “they deserve it.” At least for me personally, I know myself and that I’m going to slippery slope from cases where most people say they deserve it to “they were mean to me once online, they totally deserve their house burning down.” I do not care how popular it is to rejoice in the suffering of people you think deserve it, I hate it. I might not care as much about the suffering of someone people don’t like, but actively rejoicing in others’ suffering is something I find very very uncomfortable. Just because it is normal doesn’t make it okay to me. A lot of things are normal, like people getting a lot more health problems when they’re old, and I’m not okay with them.
I also don’t know everybody’s personal story and don’t want to start accepting myself as a good judge of who deserves misfortune. I don’t see all parts of your life. I see a very small fraction. I could have caught you on the worst day of your life and be judging you for that. Humans are subject to fundamental attribution error, where they overestimate the influence of circumstances and not personal traits in their own lives, but overestimate personal traits and underestimate circumstances for strangers. I don’t feel like making this judgment and piling abuse on a relative innocent who acted like a jerk a bit, because all I saw was the jerk behavior so of course that must be representative of who they are every day of their life. I’m not perfect. Who am I to judge, who am I to decide it’s time to hand out punishment and I should deliver it? Why do I get to make peoples’ lives more miserable? What makes me somehow more worthy than others, better than others, qualified to pass down judgment from on high and how do I know that I’m actually better?
I agree that silence in the face of violence is unacceptable. I understand that in some cases, people force you into a corner and violence is your only option if you don’t want to submit to their abuse. I’m just really not great personally with seeing violent action being taken, and since seeing that thread I think a lot of people are very quick to jump to violence when it’s not necessary because of the entire “you made me suffer, now suffer back” thing I despise. Just take away their ability to hurt others and help those they hurt. That’s all I want.
Just realized you may be asking about what I specifically do to help others if I don’t use violence. There’s still calling out bigots without punching them, supporting their victims, donating money to organizations that help vulnerable people, boycotting organizations that support or are directly built off of harming vulnerable people (there are way too many and no ethical consumption under capitalism so just focus on some of the worst offenders for now, like Nestle), and normalizing things that are currently different from the norm (like mental health issues and not being straight) and talking about them openly instead of treating them as something shameful to hide. I’m also not perfect and do not everything I could possibly do. I could volunteer at such organizations, attend protests, etc.
Fair enough to try to avoid stereotyping, and violence is definitely an extremely gendered topic. If the goal is just to understand each other, I'm not sure that there's a big issue though.
There's also socialization around risk. What are acceptable risks to take? We have this collective insanity of everyone agreeing that it's OK to drive cars, despite massive numbers of injuries and deaths. You can also get permanently injured or killed skateboarding or playing a sport. Look at ice hockey in particular and bare knuckle boxing on a rock hard, slippery surface, is part of the sport. That's consensual between players, and some never take part.
If you grow up with any of this, you get a few broken bones or black eyes, and they heal, you get a million small injuries, and they heal, maybe you get a few chronic injuries that slow you down a bit, but overall the skills that you learn and reaction time that you hone prevent many other injuries and accidents. You also need those experiences to be able to assess certain types of risk at all.
On enjoying the suffering of others, I think it's more about beliefs and values than the emotional response. Both are definitely socialized, but attempting to socialize sadism (and masochism?) out of existence seems like it might have some major unintended consequences. Are we really removing it, or just suppressing it?
You already mentioned that slippery slope, but it is just a cultural negotiation of what degree is accepted, and in what contexts. A lot of US culture comes from British culture, which is stereotypically pretty stifled (though again, those stereotypes are about the upper class).
On the autism note, again that's awesome that you know that about yourself (whether professionally diagnosed or self-diagnosed). I'm on the spectrum as well, and have been really enjoying the general trend of acknowledging and exploring neurodivergence (over what, the past ten years or so?). So many insights that people in our communities have make everything snap into place.
Particularly for women it's obviously a lot less common for folks to get diagnosed at all, and harder to accept and navigate (because US male socialization shares so many traits with autism), but many of my autistic mentors are women and non-binary folks.
So solidarity on that front. One funny quirk (maybe it's a defining characteristic) of neurodivergent folks is that we tend to have as much trouble getting along with each other as neurotypical folks have trying to get along with us. So that takes deliberate effort to overcome as well.
Just want to clarify that the “slippery slope” thing was 100% about how my brain works, not about others. I’m aware others can probably handle reveling in schadenfraude, without ending up wishing death upon anyone who inadvertently mildly inconveniences them. I just know I can’t.
I am not sure how I need violent experiences to assess risk properly. I’m pretty sure that most people who have and have not experienced violence assess risk the same way: by a combination of their own personal experiences and wisdom from those who have experiences they don’t. I’m happy to say I’m an exception to the commonly-stated “every woman you know has a sexual harassment story,” but I know how prevalent it is and how likely I am to stop being an exception because of others sharing their experiences. I don’t have to have experienced it myself in order to assess the risk of it. If that were true I would be inaccurately putting my risk of it at 0%.
I would also like to clarify that I take no issue with consensual violence, like that between boxers. As long as both participants were fully aware of the risks and nobody was coerced, as long as it’s true consent. I still can’t look, because I’m pretty squeamish, but that’s not the same as a personal objection.
I am a very open person and don’t believe in bottling things up. However, this is in general. I’m on board with suppressing something temporarily so you can deal with it in a more appropriate way at a more appropriate time. In high school, if I felt sad during a test, I set it aside. I knew I would feel even worse if I failed the test, which would be very likely if I spent the entire duration of the test crying and thinking about the thing that made me sad. So I did my best to ignore the feelings and focus on the test. Once I finished, I went to the bathroom and cried it out because I also did not believe in bottling up back then. Sometimes expressing your emotion right then and now is not constructive or how to get what you want, and you need to suppress it long enough to get into a situation where it won’t be deconstructive and won’t get in the way of what you want.
I also think some things are genuinely harmful and should be suppressed and you should find a different outlet to fill the urge. A desire to have sex with someone should absolutely be suppressed if the other party does not consent. Find a willing partner and if you can’t, masturbate. I get that it’s not the same if you only really wanted it with that one person, but consent is essential. Some people are alcoholics. For them specifically, the urge to drink is harmful for them and they need to suppress it (although I also understand very well this must be their choice, you cannot force them to do anything, just give them information and support if you have the space and energy for it). Fill the urge with a different non-alcoholic drink, with a new coping mechanism for hard times if the urge to drink comes from that, with a new hobby… In my worldview, a desire for violence is almost never constructive and should usually be suppressed. Anger should be expressed instead of bottled up, but not through violence towards people. I have no issue with people writing violent stories, playing violent video games, or hitting punching bags.
“Autistic mentor?” Where do I get one? I do have a professional diagnosis but I will take any help I can get. I’m glad you have several and it sounds like they’re helpful for you 🙂
I remember reading something about neurodivergent people reading other neurodivergent people at the same level that neurotypical people read neurotypical people, and the issue is when neurodivergent people and neurotypical people interact. However, my experience lines up more with what you said about neurodivergent people having trouble getting along with each other. I find myself constantly misunderstood by a particular neurodivergent individual, and some other neurodivergent people annoy me so much and I wish I knew why because they haven’t actually done anything wrong to me and I cannot identify what their annoying behavior is. I end up feeling bad because I wonder if it’s just internalized… neurodivergent-phobia? Think internalized homophobia but for neurodivergent people instead of LGBTQ+ people. If it’s that rearing its head. I do get along well with some other neurodivergent people, so I wonder what gives.
A lot of that makes sense in general. I think specifically Nazis and similar ideologies are an exception. When your ideology is lethally violent and subverts any sincere debate, is that consent to physical conflict?
There's a Sartre passage from 1945 that's commonly quoted that still holds true today about debating Nazis. It's worth noting that he literally coined the term "bad faith" (in French) in describing anti-Semites. Nazis literally define bad faith:
"Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past."
Another thing to consider is the famous photograph "The woman with the handbag". Mild trigger warning, I suppose. It's a woman hitting a Nazi with a handbag: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Woman_with_the_Handbag
It's not exactly schadenfreude that the picture evokes... More like a feeling of righteousness maybe? Like the Nazis are so wrong that someone would take all of these risks on themself to publicly refute them, really in the only way possible.
These wars are better to fight on these terms, doing everything possible to stop people from thinking it's a good idea to become a Nazi. Regardless of whether existing Nazis can be deprogrammed. Just simply as a strategic calculation, it's easiest to stop them when they're smallest in number.
And it's not like a lot of leftists are real bruisers. For the most part counterprotesting Nazi rallies is a ton of people that have never been in a fight in their life. Radical queer folks of all stripes, and random black block kids, mixed with the odd liberal that finally felt moved to get off the couch for something. All taking real risks.
Anyway, just food for thought.
On neurodivergence, the person that I've learned the most from is just active in a lot of facebook groups (among other platforms) and reposts a lot of content as well as creating her own. Particularly around parenting an autistic son and daughter while being autistic herself. We've also done some organizing together and it's always a ragtag group of misfits.
I think the most liberating thing is basically just commiserating and sharing little observations and realizations.
One of my favorite rants on that front is that neurotypical people are the ones that are disabled. If they're so socially functional, they should have no problem interacting with neurodivergent folks. But generally, they're awful at it. in fact neurodivergent folks are forced to learn how to cope and navigate the preferences of neurotypical folks and if we can't, we're duly punished. It's basically a conspiracy.
My thought of the day is that one reason that neurodivergent folks don't necessarily get along is that many of have been told that we're special and unique all our lives (and we might be used to being special, being surrounded by mostly neurotypical folks) but facing the reality that what? Maybe 20% of the world is neurodivergent? It can be a little deflating to face that we're not that special. I'm not really sure about that one. Just fleshing out these ideas as thought experiments.
I can definitely relate to being annoyed at folks though. One thing that reliably bugs me is when people are extremely self-centered w without realizing it. Like in the US everything encourages is to be that way, but if a couple switches are flipped in someone's head they can really buy into the unique individual thing pretty hard. Everything they say and think is the most important thing, and it's usually about themselves...
That's another partially fleshed out thought, but based in thinking about someone I was working with recently.
Hey, thank you for the trigger warning. I’m really really bad with seeing people getting physically hurt.
I did absolutely bring up in the original post I replied to (not in Beehaw Support, the one about Nazi lives not mattering that I linked earlier in this discussion) that given their ideology is basically “violence, extermination against everyone else” this kind of thing might be taken as self-defense. I wish I knew the stats on if violence towards individual Nazis (as opposed to going to war against a Nazi country—I am definitely fine with fighting Nazis in WWII) actually serves as a deterrent or not. I hate violence.
I really have no need for retribution, for justice in the sense of making someone pay for their crimes. Only a need to help the victim get back to where they were before they were victimized, and prevent the offender from hurting anyone again. I suppose this is the disconnect, I don’t do the entire “this feels righteous” thing.
Weirdly enough I know I’m extremely selfish and will admit to it. I just also try my damndest to avoid being entitled. Knowing I’ll put myself first all the time and will not take physical risks for anybody (sorry, I’m not a good leftist but I’m also not going to get in fights I know I won’t win, I’m not taking a hospital bill and getting scars and broken bones that might heal wrong and opening up worse treatment for myself for being uglier than I currently am) isn’t the same as expecting people to put me first and take physical risks for me—in fact I’m completely fine intellectually with them saving themselves. I expect nobody to put their life on the line for me or sacrifice for me, I only expect the basic human decency we are all entitled to, like not being randomly insulted or harassed by strangers. I’m selfish but I’m also consistent.
About the neurodivergent thing—I guess, but if they’re disabled because they can’t figure out interaction with us, then we’re still disabled because we also can’t figure out interaction with them. We just get called disabled because there are more of them. And I’m going to be a realist and say that in the world we live in, I’m disabled.
Some of my minority demographics absolutely make me different from people I know. But I also know that in a world of 7 billion people, though nobody has my exact mix of life experiences and DNA, there are people who are like me. Maybe not as many as those without as many minority demographics, maybe you can consider me special because 1% of people are asexual, but 1% of 7 billion is still a giant amount of people. There are still a lot of people like me. A big part of my teenage desire to be individual and special was refusing to think I’m amazingly special and unique, refusing to fit that stereotype and be deluded about how special I am, and this is still with me I suppose. A big part of my ego is acknowledging reality and not falling prey to common mental traps—including the mental trap that this desire to avoid fallacies makes me immune to them.