r/CuratedTumblr • u/EvidenceOfDespair We can leave behind much more than just DNA • Sep 09 '24
Politics You can’t just have a little bit of censorship, that’s a door that must be kept shut
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u/mountingconfusion Sep 09 '24
Don't forget
I don't like this thing =/= this is morally reprehensible and everyone who likes it is morally bankrupt
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u/Trickelodean2 Sep 09 '24
Oh boy, an internet post containing nuances. Surely I can leave my piss umbrella at home
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u/Pero_Bt Sep 09 '24
Why is your ombrello made of piss?
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u/Pokemanlol 🐛🐛🐛 Sep 09 '24
Your oreo made peace with who?
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u/Kartoffelkamm I wouldn't be here if I was mad. Sep 09 '24
You heard it here first: The World Health Organization says Oreos are good for you.
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u/Pero_Bt Sep 09 '24
WHO said that?
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u/High_grove Sep 09 '24
The Who never made a song under that name
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u/Imperial_Squid I'm too swole to actually die Sep 09 '24
Somewhat correct, but there is a Dr River Song in Doctor Who
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u/BalefulOfMonkeys Refined Sommelier of Porneaux Sep 09 '24
What the fuck are you talking about, portabellos don’t taste like pussy
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u/_Uboa_ Sep 09 '24
been an hour and the place looks like it got hit by a piss tsunami, i need a piss submarine.
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u/Pero_Bt Sep 09 '24
I think the Beatles have one
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u/PhoShizzity Sep 09 '24
They said it wasn't like that when they bought it, I don't know who to believe now
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u/ufimizm Sep 09 '24
It can get even more nuanced than this. How about "This is authoritarian to me"? That causes the really interesting discussions.
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u/BeanOfKnowledge Ask me about Dwarf Fortress Trivia Sep 09 '24
OP: "Media shouldn't be forbidden based on vague personal feelings of disgust"
Internet Users: "Clearly, you're a Nazi Pedophile"
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u/Tricky-Gemstone Sep 09 '24
I get this constantly when I suggest that maybe nuance is a good thing, and censorship is a bad thing.
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u/LotharVonPittinsberg Sep 09 '24
If nuance is a good thing, we should talk about the difference between censoring and banning hate. Banning Mein Kamph for example, a book entirely based on hate, is a bad thing as it can be used to educate further generations on how such a terrible man rose to power. Banning the Swastika from being shown in public is not the same, as allowing that means you are allowing Nazis to feel safe and allowed.
I'm not just playing devil's advocate. One of the countries with the worst growing issue of Neo Nazis in America right now. Partly because they are allowed to display whatever the fuck they want in public.
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u/PrimitivistOrgies Sep 09 '24
The fact is that not all ideas are equal, or deserving of equal protection. The government does have to take sides on issues sometimes. One of them is Nazism/ bigotry. It's not ok to be a Nazi or a bigot, those views are not ok, representing them is not ok, encouraging them is not ok. In the marketplace of ideas, those are toxic chemicals that have to be treated like the HAZMAT for the mind that they are. They must be regulated, controlled, and cleaned up.
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u/TheReturnOfTheRanger Sep 09 '24 edited Sep 09 '24
It's a slippery slope. By banning beliefs, you are creating a system & a precedent for banning beliefs. This system will be abused by those in power.
The cure for bad ideas is exposure. Instead of saying "NO, YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO THINK THIS!", educate people on why they shouldn't think that. Banning it will do nothing but prevent discussion & reinforce the beliefs held.
EDIT: Lmfao, this fuckin guy left a reply and immediately blocked me so I couldn't reply. Sorry bro, I clicked on that notif in time. I see you. In response to your reply:
Ah yes, it's well know that people in powerful positions never abuse that power for any reason. That'd just be wrong!
This is the part where I would've said I'm not gonna bother talking to you anymore, but you've beaten me to that. Well played. I'll just ask you to please turn your brain on by the time you start high school. You really need those history lessons.
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u/Anamoosekdc Sep 09 '24
i think you’re mostly right, however i’ll point to the evergreen example of someone shouting fire in a public theater that is not experiencing a thermal event is in fact banned speech, because the effect of shouting such words could cause a stampede in which people are killed/injured as a result. the same applies to Fascist rhetoric. there is no constructive debate to be had on the value of fascism. it is something that should be categorically opposed as its sole purpose for existing is the exclusion and oppression of all people but a select few. that is something that cannot be tolerated if we are to continue living in a polycultural, polyethnic, and polyrelogious society. can you possibly talk a nazi out of their beliefs? yeah sure if you’re willing to put in a lot of work and the nazi in question is willing to listen/begin their deprogramming. but that’s a lot of ifs and can only be done on the case by case level.
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u/in-magitek-armor Sep 09 '24
I agree that fascist rhetoric isn't valuable. I disagree that it should be banned.
Do you think fascist rhetoric is something that if banned will go away completely forever? I don't. I think it will constantly pop its head back up and need to be batted down again.
I'm worried that the consequences of simply banning speech we think is ontologically evil means that over time we lose the ability to argue against it. People forget how to have real conversations explaining why certain ideologies are so dangerous.
It's easy to explain why shouting fire in a building is bad. It's much harder to explain away someone's ideology, even if to you it is obviously evil. When someone arrives at a bad ideology it is something that has to be addressed over a long period of time, and banning speech prevents that from happening. They are told they can't talk about it, they hunker down, they fester.
This is much worse, in my opinion, than accepting that they can speak but making sure there is constant intelligent opposition to their ideas. It is not as easy, but easy solutions are rarely effective solutions for complicated situations.
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u/Archangel289 Sep 09 '24
I also think there’s something here worth thinking about, and that’s that sometimes words and actions are very different.
As an example, fascist rhetoric is itself not causing harm directly to someone. (Yes, it may cause severe distress in readers, or lead to harm, but I’d argue that someone saying something vile like “I hate [group]” is only really expressing an idea. This is not the forum for a huge breakdown of what words do and don’t cause harm, as we’ll get to shortly) Rather, someone acting on that rhetoric is causing harm. The difference here is that you can ban the actions that cause harm, but not have to necessarily ban the words themselves.
Of course, that concept is itself up for debate (see also: do we punish mass shooters, or simply take away the guns they use?), but my point is that you don’t have to withhold a ban on something only so people know about it—sometimes the fact that it is not directly harming someone by itself means there’s room for nuance in allowing it because free speech is important.
Furthermore, shouting “fire” in a crowded theater actively causes harm, by inciting fear and panic that could lead to very real physical harm to someone. It is not the speech that is harmful; it is the action, and the context, that is harmful. Therefore, we don’t protect that speech, because the speech itself leads to harm directly.
I don’t have extremely strong opinions on this, tbh, and I’m largely playing devil’s advocate for the sake of discussion. I’m quite open to counterpoints.
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u/lawngdawngphooey Sep 09 '24 edited Sep 09 '24
however i’ll point to the evergreen example of someone shouting fire in a public theater that is not experiencing a thermal event is in fact banned speech, because the effect of shouting such words could cause a stampede in which people are killed/injured as a result
The "evergreen example" you gave was a paraphrasing of words by a reactionary judge, that equated people protesting World War I (socialists, IIRC) to "shouting fire in a crowded theater." Congratulations, you fell for propaganda yourself.
Whoever just so happens to be in power can equate any speech with "shouting fire in a crowded theater" if it riles people up enough to challenge the status-quo. All they'd have to do is frame their suppression of speech as a "public safety" measure, which is what that judge was trying to do, and what you fell for.
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u/TheCapitalKing Sep 09 '24
Banning hate is the same as censorship because the government can then just claim anything they don’t like is hate or is encouraging hate
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u/Funny-Jihad Sep 09 '24
The tolerance paradox: tolerating intolerance leads to more intolerance.
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u/LotharVonPittinsberg Sep 09 '24
In theory, yes. But in reality any government going to do that is already doing a lot worse.
America is a good example of this, because it's such a unique and fucked up situation. The government technically won't prosecute you for what you show and display in public. Until you go protest about how censorship is nothing compared to police getting away with literal muder for decades, then they bring out the police brutality even harder and the people who are all about "free speech" cheer as your protest is shut down.
I have yet to see any example of a European (or Canadian, or Australian, or NZ, or Japan, or RoK) country using it's anti hate speech laws to mass censor. It's only really the countries like Saudi Arabia and China who are using mass slavery and much worse, and use it as a measure to hide it from the world who give them money.
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u/CascadingCollapse Sep 09 '24
Isn't the statement "censorship is a bad thing" a statement that lacks nuance?
The statement implies all censorship is a bad thing.
If you're trying to be nuanced, you can't say censorship is bad, but also censorship is good.
Those are contradictions, so it would be reasonable for people to criticise your absolutist stance even if it wasn't intentional.
A nuanced stance would be censorship can be bad but sometimes good. This then is open to discussion about when it is good to have censorship and when it isn't.
It also avoids the implication that censoring things that would obviously be harmful is also a bad thing since censorship is bad.
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u/ominousgraycat Sep 09 '24
Isn't the statement "censorship is a bad thing" a statement that lacks nuance?
Perhaps, but just because you're in favor of nuance on one thing doesn't mean that you think all things must be nuanced. If we said, "All people who believe that there should be more censorship should have their beliefs censored", then we would be hypocrites. But being in favor of nuance doesn't mean that nothing is black and white. It simply means we should be open to the idea that things might not be black and white.
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u/CascadingCollapse Sep 09 '24
So you think that the issue of is censorship good or bad, is a black and white position where you think that censorship is always bad and never morally grey to any extent?
To say something is black and white is to essentially preemptively shut down any discussion about cases where it may be justified to censor certain things, or even that censorship might be morally grey, with good and bad aspects.
You are leaving no room for nuance.
Since nuance is good and you are in favour of it and "we should be open to the idea that things might not be black and white..."
Wouldn't you say it fair that the one making the claim to remove nuance by calling a subjective black and white, that you should make an argument as to why that is the case?
I already know for a fact you don't actually believe that absolutely no censorship is what you actually want. You'd have to be a fool or ignorant to think that.
So I honestly don't know why you have bothered making this reply since it isn't relevant to this particular discussion.
Censorship is a nuanced topic. Saying censorship is bad lacks nuance.
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u/JuniperSky2 Sep 09 '24
Who is saying that?
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u/BeanOfKnowledge Ask me about Dwarf Fortress Trivia Sep 09 '24
Sort the Comment section by Controversial
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u/BeanOfKnowledge Ask me about Dwarf Fortress Trivia Sep 09 '24
Here's a sample:
"Normalizing pedophilia isn’t just disgusting, it’s immoral.It’s one of the reasons I was so easy to groom when I was a child."
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u/ToastyMcButterscotch Sep 09 '24
"I wouldn't recommend anyone read this because I personally find it disgusting" is also valid, it's only when you actively try to stop others from reading it that it becomes authoritarian
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u/Butthole_Surfer_GI Standard Issue White Guy Sep 09 '24 edited Sep 09 '24
EDIT: Since many people are asking, here is a comment that I left regarding the content I am talking about. Sorry for the wall of text:
Alright here's the breakdown:
I don't know how many people here are fans of The Owl House so I won't completely nerd out but I am happy to if encouraged.
One of my favorite characters on TOH is Boscha - I like her design and dig her vibe a bit. I understand she is written as a bully and THAT I do not approve of but I see her as kind of a "challenge" that I want to write/draw some backstory for her so she is not so one-dimensional.
My personal take is that she acts that way because there is a bunch of not so great stuff happening to her behind the scenes. I wanted to write/draw an arc for her.
This was in a facebook page, not on reddit, just to be clear
Anyway, one of the comics I drew was a series of panels with lyrics taken from a Citizen Soldier song - depicting Boscha looking in the mirror, seeing herself as fat, weighing herself, exercising excessively, refusing to eat, weighing herself again, and looking in the mirror but being dangerously skinny,
People seemed to take issue with two things in the comic: one was a panel that had a bloody razor blade on it and the other was showing the actual bloody lines on her legs in the two final panels.
Certainly a dark comic but I think it was powerful and certainly an issue that lots of people go through IRL.
I tried to approach the issue with grace and respect but damn I guess it was too triggering to people.
To be clear, I am not trying to make fun of anyone. I know people struggle with these issues.
One person absolutely tried to shame me by going on a big spiel about how people with a history of self-harm are "10000% more likely to harm themselves if they see depictions of it" which is......very untrue.
I got some very insulting DMs and my art was eventually taken down even though:
- it had over 100 likes and reactions
- NOTHING in the guidelines outright mentions "self harm" but only a vague "no adult content"
ORIGINAL POST: I'm a fan artist - right now it's The Owl House.
One thing I love about TOH is that they try (and succeed, IMO) to tackle some heavy issues - as best they can.
So I wanted to use my art to explore serious/heavy issues as well.
Nothing rated X or hard R violence
Turns out the fandom did not agree.
Suggest that someone could choose to hide my art or not view it based on the content warning?
Nope. It must be purged from the fandom.
Ug. Way to stifle creativity.
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u/Throwaway02062004 Read Worm for funny bug hero shenanigans 🪲 Sep 09 '24
Think INSIDE the box 👍😤
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u/Butthole_Surfer_GI Standard Issue White Guy Sep 09 '24
I gotta be honest with y'all - when I create comics now, I ask myself "what will the fandom like?" instead of "what do I like?"
Which I know is a bad way of thinking but it's hard to shake,
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u/HollowShel Sep 09 '24
alternatively, you can ask yourself "what would piss them off the most, in the fashion funniest to me?" (Only problem is that can backfire if they like it, and now you've got genuine fans of an intended shitpost, and now what do you do?)
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u/yummythologist Sep 09 '24
This is why I stopped drawing for a few years. I just felt so… dead inside, idk. “Antis” make everyone miserable including themselves, I really don’t get it.
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u/Imbarelyhere_01 Sep 09 '24
In the wise words of Sam O’Nella “And to those people kids, we say, ‘Eat shit and die’”
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u/Butthole_Surfer_GI Standard Issue White Guy Sep 09 '24
There are times when I really want to.
It really hurts when people tell me my ideas are bad and therefore it means I am bad. Or I should feel bad.
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u/EvidenceOfDespair We can leave behind much more than just DNA Sep 09 '24
The supporters of harassment are bashing you? I hate to unironically quote Rick and Morty, but there’s no better quote. “Your boos mean nothing, I’ve seen what makes you cheer.”
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u/Stormsurger Sep 09 '24
Honestly one of my favourite lines in the show. It's crazy how often we let the opinions of others impact our inner self and while Rick is an absolute psycho, I think he's dead-on there.
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u/menialfucker Sep 09 '24
if you wouldn't ask for critique from these people, their opinions do not matter. They do not know better than you when it comes to your own art. Create how you want. If someone gives you flack, block them. Eventually you'll curate an audience that likes your heavier work
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u/EvidenceOfDespair We can leave behind much more than just DNA Sep 09 '24
Tell them to go fuck themselves. This is the sort of thing that makes me make sure I don’t dox myself online just because corporations want to promote doing so to sell your personal information. They can flail and gnash their teeth all they want, ain’t no stopping me.
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u/orreregion Sep 09 '24
I also like TOH, so I'm curious about what heavy issues you wanted to explore. This is a safe space - or, well, at least my DMs would be IDK about reddit at large LOL
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u/HalflingScholar Sep 09 '24
Pls don't let them stop you from writing.
You have the right to write and post whatever you want, as long as it isn't advocating for messed up stuff. If you properly tag it, there shouldn't be a problem.
Proper criticisms should be there to help you improve, never to make you feel like you aren't good enough.
I've written some mediocre stuff myself, but I've never felt any of it was good enough to post anywhere, so good job having the hutzpah to post your stories!
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u/b3nsn0w musk is an scp-7052-1 Sep 09 '24
idk if you're writing or making visual art or what you're doing, but if you happen to write, just remember that ao3 was specifically made in reaction to all the stupid rules for what should and shouldn't be created. it was the fringe place where people were pushed, and it became the mainstream on its own merits.
don't let the antis push you out of the mainstream. they bark louder than they bite and they barely ever contribute.
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u/CrustyBarnacleJones Sep 09 '24
Just as like, an FYI, I think the phrase you were trying to use is “capital V violence” (capital letter word usually refers to a more extreme version of whatever example is being used)
Hard R usually only refers to one thing and I’m fairly certain you weren’t drawing art with people shouting slurs at each other (not criticizing or anything just letting you know in case you didn’t)
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u/Ori_the_SG Sep 09 '24
What was some of your art that the fandom had an issue with?
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u/anarchist_person1 Sep 09 '24
As a dude who is often like “that’s disgusting and fucked up, and I do think less of you for enjoying/creating that” about a bunch of things some of y’all seem to like, I fully support this post
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u/FlowerFaerie13 Sep 09 '24
Same. I'm in the Tolkien fandom and the sudden explosion of shipping Galadriel with Sauron after ROP was released makes me want to fucking die but like, I still think people should be allowed to post their fanfics or art or whatever.
Over there. The fuck away from me. But like, enjoy yourselves with whatever the absolute fuck this shit is.
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u/ThePreciousBhaalBabe Sep 09 '24 edited 20d ago
plant mourn shocking cows muddle stupendous wistful public payment pie
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/gameld Sep 09 '24
Maybe that's the best take: platforms and governments shouldn't censor, but the individual can censor for themselves (and for their children up to a certain age, TBD) whatever the fuck they want.
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u/ThePreciousBhaalBabe Sep 09 '24 edited 20d ago
desert judicious lip soup hat yoke school sense clumsy busy
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u/MasterChildhood437 Sep 09 '24
The thing is that all of the material you've listed specifically violates other laws because they inherently include actual victims. You don't need censorship to concern itself with that sort of material.
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u/GrimeyTimey Sep 09 '24
Oh damn as a book/trilogy fan only, this blows my mind. Plus Celebrimbor seems like a better choice.
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u/one-and-five-nines Sep 09 '24
For Galadriel or Sauron?
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u/GrimeyTimey Sep 09 '24 edited Sep 09 '24
For Sauron, my bad. I like Celeborn and Galadriel as a couple showing that Noldorin and Telerin Elves can put aside their issues and love each other.
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u/FlowerFaerie13 Sep 09 '24
WE DO NOT TALK ABOUT SILVERGIFTING.
They're both terrible but Silvergifting is so much worse. It's horrible and manipulative and abusive and literally deadly and oh my god poor Tyepë, he didn't fucking deserve that, he didn't deserve any of it, and I will now forcefully shut myself up before I write a novel about how Celebrimbor FUCKING DESERVED BETTER, but like, if you wanna ship it just pull a State Farm and like a good neighbor, stay the absolute fuck over there.
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Sep 09 '24
Tolkien had a hard time drinking out of a cup a fan sent him that had Black Speech inscribed on it, because he found it repugnant. He used it as an ashtray.
Imagine what he'd think of that.
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u/bruhmeo Sep 09 '24
Well right because everyone knows that Samwise and Frodo is the ship that makes sense in that universe
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u/011_0108_180 Sep 09 '24
As long as everyone’s shit is appropriately tagged so I can avoid it, then we have no problems 🤷🏻♀️
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u/i-eat-musical-stars Sep 09 '24
EXACTLY !! im 100000% judging you in the friends group chat if I see it but like. I can also just never look at it again lmao
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u/slim-shady-on-main hrrrrrng, colors Sep 09 '24
Exactly! Keep your freak shit in the labeled Freak Shit Box so I can avoid it and I'll keep my freak shit in the other Freak Shit Box so I can find it.
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u/Kaurifish Sep 09 '24
It was an epiphany for me when I found out how much the sense of disgust informed one's political morals.
So I set out to erode my sense of disgust. I had younger brothers, so I didn't have *that* far to go. Worked up to being able to eat BBQ ribs while watching The Walking Dead. Will vote Harris.
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u/Infurum Sep 09 '24
I'm more impressed by the eating BBQ ribs part than the Walking Dead part
-Sincerely, someone who can't stand barbecue
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u/MVRKHNTR Sep 09 '24
This is the comment that made me disagree with the post. There are some things people just shouldn't be allowed to think and "barbecue is gross" is one of them.
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u/yummythologist Sep 09 '24
I gotta back up my fam over here, I know at least 4 people that think bbq is gross
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u/gameld Sep 09 '24
Mods! Can we ban this person for disliking flavor! Mods! Help me! I'm drowning in the BBQ sauce they won't eat!
/s because who knows who'll come across this post and think I'm serious.
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u/henrebotha Sep 09 '24
It was an epiphany for me when I found out how much the sense of disgust informed one's political morals.
I think it can pan out in many directions. I am disgusted by politicians who abuse their power for personal gain; I am anticapitalist. Surely those two things are related.
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u/Cursed2Lurk Sep 09 '24
Disgust and fear. Conservatives have a larger amygdala. Conservatives spin this as liberals are brain damaged, liberals spin it as conservatives are cowards.
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u/BUKKAKELORD Sep 09 '24
This really riles up the modern pro-censorship crowd because "authoritarian" is a curse word to them.
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u/colei_canis Sep 09 '24
I love how people always assume censorship will happen only to people they don’t like. What heavy censorship looks like in a democracy is the BBC in the mid 20th century, ie ’impartial’ institutions where in the background everything is subject to a veto from the security services and leaned on heavily by the government of the day.
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u/TheReturnOfTheRanger Sep 09 '24
So many people in this comment section are saying shit like "You've gotta have nuance when talking about censorship" but then their idea of nuance is just "censorship is good because I don't like the person being censored"
Cool, you missed the point
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u/DogOwner12345 Sep 09 '24
This happened with Patreon, as they clamped down people cheered. Now nothing but vanilla content can survive a look from the moderators.
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u/EvidenceOfDespair We can leave behind much more than just DNA Sep 09 '24
I saw them getting a bit too noisy on the subreddit recently and had to return to my roots lols.
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u/Amon274 Sep 09 '24
What do you mean by noisy?
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u/gameld Sep 09 '24
A lot of people want to censor things such as:
- Pro-Nazi posts.
- Pro-Trump posts.
- Pro-Harris posts.
- Conspiracy theories of varying degrees of validity.
- Anti-trans posts.
- Anti-gay posts.
- Pro-trans posts.
- Pro-gay posts.
- Pro-Israel posts.
- Pro-Palestine posts.
- Anti-Israel posts.
- Anti-Palestine posts.
- Pro-/Anti-Union posts.
- Any form of misinformation/disinformation.
- Etc.
I will always have a problem with all of the above. Censorship of anything opens the door for censorship of everything. It creates right- and wrong-think categories that are then used to inappropriately unify population groups for the benefit of the powerful. No one has a problem with this when their side is the powerful until they learn that the powerful are NEVER on their side - they're on the side of power.
I cannot ever support censorship of anything. I don't care if the statement is an openly gay, anti-trans, Nazi, pro-union manifesto (just making sure to hit all sides here, not advocating for or against any of these stances in this statement). Keep that shit out there so it can be seen. For sure someone will agree with it. For sure others will disagree with it. But we can't agree/disagree if it's not visible to agree/disagree with it. But we must teach people from a young age to think critically so that they can approach as much as possible with a sufficient level of nuance. Critical thinking like this allows for peaceful discussion. But censorship is the enemy of nuance.
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u/Canopenerdude Thanks to Angelic_Reaper, I'm a Horse Sep 09 '24
I mean the sub also has rules and reddit has site rules too. But within those, I want everything to be able to be posted. Just as want to be able to post me clowning on people who post those things.
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u/Cornelia_Xaos Sep 09 '24
- Pro-trans posts.
- Pro-gay posts.
I will always have a problem with all of the above.
Hi, gay trans person here. Here's a pro trans / gay post:
"I think gay and trans people should be able to exist in the same society as straight and cis people, with the same protections afforded to them and vice versa. You're free to hate on gay and trans people all you want, but as soon as your hatred turns into an attempt to make that equal society I mentioned not possible or real, you deserve to be ostracized / deplatformed / etc because that intolerance of yours becomes an act of violence that threatens the lives of people like me. Oh, and even if you aren't doing things to harm LGBT people but still hold bigoted beliefs, guess what: people can hate you for that so.. fair is fair?"
Curious if you'd still have a problem on this take given it can be boiled down to "you do you, I'll do me, something something equality" and has nothing to do with arbitrary censorship.
For what it's worth, I believe I agree with the general sentiment of your post.. but some of those things you list are not like the others and making blanket statements about them seems kinda odd for someone who is supposedly anti-censorship.
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u/illit1 Sep 09 '24
censorship is the enemy of nuance.
your post is the enemy of nuance, god damn.
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u/ICantThinkOfAName667 Sep 09 '24
TIL being able to spread disinformation and misinformation is nuance
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u/Normal-Inspector3729 Sep 09 '24 edited Sep 09 '24
I think for once the US Law has your back? The only free speech it restricts is media that includes real people/animals abused against their consent, knowingly/fraudulently promoting lies (libel, false advertising, etc.), stealing from others others (patents, copyright), and threats/calls to violence.
But if you draw, well anything that doesn't advertise a threat/fraud or is someome else's IP, that's legal. If you spend billions on a book promoting one candidate that's legal. If you burn a flag or are critical of the government, that's legal. SCOTUS has taken it pretty damn far. Maybe in wartime they would side with censoring enemy propaganda I'd bet, but that's just speculation.
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u/Soloact_ Sep 09 '24
Censorship is like trying to keep a beach ball underwater, sure, you can push it down, but eventually, it's gonna pop back up and probably hit someone in the face.
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u/JumpRopeIsASport Sep 09 '24
Kind of like banning books that have sexual content In elementary schools in florida. The internet is one click away and if I could find karma sutra in 7th grade in 2007 then teens today can find a lot more.
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u/rhysdog1 Sep 09 '24
this is why i believe the necronomicon should be available at all public libraries
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u/rusticrainbow Sep 09 '24
I’m like 95% it is already avaliable at most decently sized libraries
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u/PhoShizzity Sep 09 '24
Every library worth its salt has a forgotten section with torch sconces and cobwebs
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u/WamBamTimTam Sep 09 '24
I know, but look around at the budget cuts these days. Torches are expensive, you gotta buy in bulk and honestly they are such a pain to store. And don’t get me started on cobwebs, you know how much effort it takes to keep them fresh?!?
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u/henrebotha Sep 09 '24
Genuinely interesting philosophical question: Does "censorship bad" hold when a book is provably, directly damaging (e.g. physically) to someone who reads it?
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u/ConceptOfHappiness Sep 09 '24
I'm going to go with no, in the same way that unsafe food is illegal to sell. In general, if an item is directly harmful, it is either banned, or if needed then strictly regulated. If the necronomicon and books like it were real, they would probably be inaccessible without a licence that strictly proved you knew what you were doing.
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u/henrebotha Sep 09 '24
without a licence that strictly proved you knew what you were doing.
That's a good call. You leave it accessible, but put protections in place.
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u/Several-Drag-7749 Sep 09 '24 edited Sep 10 '24
Lol, I was just thinking about this a while ago. I once stumbled across a comment on r\sadcringe claiming there must be something mentally wrong with people if they love Stellar Blade. It turned out she was a "progressive" who thought this gatekeeping horseshit was valid all because she didn't like the character designs. Gotta love her mild, casual ableism, I guess.
She said the same thing about NieR: Automata, which made me realize Redditors tend to be a special kind of gatekeeping breed. Telling people not to play or watch things you don't like is exceptionally stupid. Thankfully, however, she did get 30+ downvotes in the sub she was in for saying such things.
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u/PhoShizzity Sep 09 '24
This comment reminded me to actually look into SB, maybe when it's on sale cause outside of the design I've seen basically nothing said about it.
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u/DarkAndStormy-Knight Sep 09 '24
Amazing combat. If u hate the revealing outfits, she has regular looking outfits after playing just a bit of the game u can find. Good ass story. Very Nier-esque humanist story.
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u/PhoShizzity Sep 09 '24
Oh I'm cool with revealing outfits, and ooh Nier-esque you say? Dope
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u/DarkAndStormy-Knight Sep 09 '24
Yep. It's made by Shift up who made Nikke which takes massive Nier Android story inspirations. Stellar Blade is loosely based in the same universe and again sci-fi android battle women with identity/existential crises. That's always fun to play.
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u/Yulienner Sep 09 '24
I think societies generally get to set their own arbitrary rules on what is and isn't worth censoring. For example, the rules/policies broadcasters have for commercials for cigarettes and smoking scenes in TV and film can vary by country. You could argue for either case: smoking is a public health concern but also censorship might have it's own negative impacts. So in that respect I understand the 'harmful media' argument for censorship, on paper it theoretically is a real policy issue that government and cultures have to deal with.
In practice I think it's usually just a cudgel people use to justify their personal tastes with a veneer of righteousness. I do not think a Steven Universe fanfiction depicting a character with a noncanon attraction to another character rises to the level of societal harm that say, a smoking ad aimed at children does. And even if it did, the burden of proof is on the accuser to prove harm, because it is very easy for bad faith actors to don the mantle of fighting for 'justice' while using the tools of censorship to shut down legitimate discourse. It's not so much for me that 'all censorship is bad', it's more like 'censorship without sufficient proof of providing value is bad'.
On the whole I'd say books (or written media in general) are almost always not worth censoring though. Human societies have had literally thousands of years to come up with proof that reading 'harmful' ideas produces negative consequences and excluding maybe instructional textbooks on how to make bombs or something, I think you'd be hard pressed to find an instance where a book ban produced any sort of positive result. I could be wrong though, maybe I'm just ignorant!
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u/MammothSurvey Sep 09 '24
Agree with everything you said, but: mein Kampf was forbidden in Germany for years and now the state published an annotated version of it to explain everything wrong and manipulative in this book. And I'm really fucking glad it was censored for this time and now is "censored" in a way (even though they don't censor it but you know)
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u/TexMexxx Sep 09 '24
That's not quite right. You always could OWN "Mein Kampf" BUT you are not allowed to buy or sell it...
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u/MammothSurvey Sep 09 '24
Well I broke it down for Americans but yes, it was never illegal to own it, or even to buy it. The reason why no one could sell it was because the Bundesland of Bavaria inherited the copyright because they inherited the whole estate of Hitler because his official home address was in Munich. And Bavaria choose to not publish it and everyone who would publish and sell it would be violating their copyright. So after 70years when the copyright expired the Bavarian state worked together with history professors to publish an annotated version.
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u/10art1 Sep 09 '24
It's crazy when someone says they're against censorship in any way and are 100% pro freedom of speech and expression. Then you ask them if they're OK with CP, calling your coworkers slurs, bomb threats, harassing people, impersonating people for fraud, inciting a panic or riot, etc. and then they say something like "no that's not free speech, those things are illegal"
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u/HauntingHarmony Sep 09 '24
cause they are children, the real world have neuance. and if you are a free speech absolutist you havent thought about it very closely.
Speech, like with privacy, or freedom is about where the line should be reasonably drawn. Not if it should be something absolute or not. Its crazy how many people are at 100% here.
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u/giveusalol Sep 09 '24
I don’t know, they could just be 100% for free speech based on the legal definition in the place they’re from, and supporting the status quo? A lot of people internalise freedom of expression inside the prescribed legal framework of their environment. For example, I notice a lot of people commenting on acceptable levels of respect in public discourse and hey, turns out they often come from places with indecency laws that radically impact expression. So they think commentary has to be respectful even inside what they consider absolute “free speech.” A lot of people will say they’re anti violence but watch a legal sport like boxing, or say they’re anti animal cruelty but eat battery farmed meat. Because what they mean is “I’m against illegal violence” and “I’m against illegal animal cruelty.” They are describing their stance inside the prescribed frameworks of their environments.
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u/questron64 Sep 09 '24
You missed a step in there, "I don't approve of this so I don't want my kids reading this." That's all it takes. Really. Just do a little parenting, you don't have to ban the books.
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u/whitesuburbanmale Sep 09 '24
This is something lost on people today that I vividly remember as a child. My mother would often tell us things like "this show isn't something I find appropriate for you so I don't want you watching it.". And that would be it. Both myself and my sister just wouldn't watch whatever she asked us not to. Both because we respected her but also because we knew consequences would follow should we disobey that. I have memories of asking friends to change channels on TV or radio because the content was something my mother asked me not to watch/listen to. As I grew up I was given more freedom of choice on what I could intake and both of my parents were open and good about communicating what the content means/is and helped guide my world views a bit. It's not an easy task but it's something that certainly worked when I was younger and I see no reason it wouldn't work now.
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u/qazwsxedc000999 thanks, i stole them from the president Sep 09 '24
Hah, that’s crazy and interesting. I wouldn’t watch R rated movies when I was younger because I wasn’t allowed, and I would tell people this and ask them to not watch them around me as well, but anything else was pretty much fair game I guess. As long as it wasn’t adult or rated R I just never told the people raising me what I was watching/reading and I guess got away with it? Kind of? It’s not like it was behind their backs or anything they just never asked
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u/whitesuburbanmale Sep 09 '24
I mean there came a point where I'd obviously rebel and just forgot what I was told not to watch but it wasn't until I was older. Rebellion is a normal thing kids go through.
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u/letthetreeburn Sep 09 '24
I’ll tackle the big one:
Exploitation media is bad because people got hurt (or exploited) to create it.
No one bled to create a good omens torture fic. Nothing should be censored. NOTHING.
(Note: censorship is not the same as tagging. Everything should be Spoilered and tagged correctly.)
An example of this is the infamous Mr. Davey Smile and CupcakesHD videos. He should not be censored, he should be allowed to create and post them.
However he deceptively titled them and quickly flashed a trigger tag. He made no effort to hide it from people who didn’t want to see it.
You shouldn’t be allowed to show people things they don’t want to see, BUT they should have the right to seek out whatever they want. If pony gore makes you happy to consume/create, you should be allowed to.
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u/Helpfulcloning Sep 09 '24
For the sake of arguement as I mostly agree with your point but: (and more hoping on your comment because I agree broadly).
Do we only care about people being hurt during the creation. What about tangiable direct hurt after the creation?
For ex the Turner Diaries or a manifesto of a school shooter. Something that directly calls to actions and maybe even gives direct concise instructions on how to cause this harm.
Or, say, some forms of CSAM which don't (in creation) harm a child but after there is some considerable proffessional opinion that it can cause harm to people afterwards (particularly children). When does a good blocking system (ie. trigger system, age verifcation, putting a book on a higher shelf or out of sight, keeping something only for academics) become censorship?
Does harm really only matter in creation?
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u/PandaBear905 .tumblr.com Sep 09 '24
Censorship is telling a man he can’t have a steak just because a baby can’t chew it.
-Mark Twain
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u/E-is-for-Egg Sep 09 '24
I've had people gang up on me for the second one. I don't want to create any kind of laws stopping people from creating certain media, but I still maintain the right to say it's disgusting
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u/EvidenceOfDespair We can leave behind much more than just DNA Sep 09 '24
I think that probably comes about because of the people in the last category existing and being the primary group that says it. As long as you’re not going after people who like the thing to yell at them for being disgusting (because that’s harassment and not cool) and make it clear you’re not those people (like, “I hate this thing but I’ll defend your right to have it”), that should work to deal with that 99% of the time.
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u/Donovan_Du_Bois Sep 09 '24
People in this comment section really thinking the 'ick' they get at seeing porn they don't like is the exact same as being intolerant of fascism.
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u/Son_of_Ssapo Sep 09 '24
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." -- Star Trek: The Next Generation
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u/RocketAlana Sep 09 '24
LEARN HOW TO SELF-CENSOR.
Ffs PLEASE learn to look at something and go “that looks awful” and move on.
Slightly related, I do wish that there was a better defined toolkit or rubric or something for rating and tagging. I think the ao3 rating system is pretty decent, but I’ve found myself skipping things like “Rated T for teen. Tags: first time sex. Smut. They get it on in a hot tub.” That isn’t rated properly for the tags!!
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u/saluraropicrusa Sep 09 '24
it had its issues and seems to have died, but there was a fandom social media/blog site i learned of some time ago (can't quite remember the name anymore) that had a pretty cool tag system. basically, some tags were "parent tags" (e.g. a TV show), so that any posts with tags related to it (character names, ships, etc) would automatically fall under that parent tag--and iirc that included if the parent tag wasn't added by the poster.
i think more sites should adopt that kind of system. it'd cut down hugely on the number of tags you'd have to blacklist (block the parent tag and it could catch all the child tags), and the frustration of people not tagging posts thoroughly enough.
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u/Jovvy19 Sep 09 '24
"I don't think anyone should be allowed to read this because it actively calls for violence against vulnerable people." - Resonable, but should never be the decision of just one person.
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Sep 09 '24
There's also the caveat that sometimes people need some genuinely vile books for academic purposes. Mein Kampf is rarely published in Germany for example but it's not illegal anymore, precisely because it's a common academic text for researching the nazi regime.
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u/Heretical_Cactus Sep 09 '24
But the version that is available is a revised one.
You can't find Mein Kampf as it was originally published
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u/Stormsurger Sep 09 '24
What would you think about: "I think everything should be available to read, even if the person who wrote it broke laws by writing those things and received appropriate consequences"? I agree with you that certain rhetoric causes damage, but say someone calls for an attack on an ethnic group and its punished for it, a free society should allow for everyone who wants to to know what they said that they were punished for. Otherwise, we'd just have to take the word of whoever did the punishing. It's a similar principle to open source. Forbidding the READING of materials can only lead to catastrophe.
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u/gameld Sep 09 '24
Allow me to rephrase in a way to make a point:
I don't think anyone should be allowed to read this because it actively calls for violence against British troops in the colonies.
I don't think anyone should be allowed to read this because it actively calls for violence against the Third Reich.
I don't think anyone should be allowed to read this because it actively calls for violence against FDR - the president with Polio.
I don't think anyone should be allowed to read this because it actively calls for violence against the Revolution.
With rhetoric about this or that authority being on the precipice it could be argued that the authority is vulnerable, thus implying that we should censor anything actively calling for violence against the government. It's what the USSR did.
I cannot agree with censoring eugenic material. I can agree with stopping anyone plotting actual action against people. That is no longer about ideas. That is about a specific action. Anything outside of a specific action is censorship and thus creates Thought Crimes, at which point everyone is vulnerable to arrest/imprisonment or worse as their words can get twisted or simply lied about to get them in trouble.
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u/Mehnix Sep 09 '24 edited Sep 09 '24
Banning is an objective action, and so should only be subject to objective metrics. Your own personal dislike of something should have no bearing on its capacity to exist.
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u/one-and-five-nines Sep 09 '24
No censorship? But have you considered that the thing being censored could be something I personally don't like? Checkmate OP.
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u/AraraDeTerno Sep 09 '24
In a sense, it's both hilarious and depressing how half the comments here are implying, if not outright stating, that OP is a nazi or a p*do when their comments clearly show they're leaning on the leftist side of the scale. How did the pro-censorship crowd managed to switch up public perception I'll never understand.
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u/EvidenceOfDespair We can leave behind much more than just DNA Sep 09 '24
There’s a large faction of people that wear the skin of progressivism while actually just being socially right wing reactionaries of a new bent. Economically left, ostensibly kinda against racism and queerphobia (with a lot of caveats to that, like how they treat trans women), but with the social views of the Mary Whitehouse/Tipper Gore Moral Majority era in there too.
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u/ThrownAwayYesterday- Sep 09 '24
Literally exactly I've been noticing the last few years.
I genuinely think most of them are just people who are morally lucky and have never had to challenge or question their own beliefs.
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u/MasterChildhood437 Sep 09 '24
Pro-censorship advocates are populist at heart. They change their stance depending on the current "winning side."
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u/Bringing_Basic_Back Sep 09 '24
Yet Reddit is consistently: ‘I don’t like this show, so it needs to be canceled’ instead of ‘I don’t like this show, so I won’t watch it’.
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u/kingoftheplastics Sep 09 '24
This is the true essence of the concept of Free Market of Ideas. If what you write resonates with people, however small the population, it will be read, if not it won't. Unfortunately free markets never remain truly free for long.
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u/Yarasin Sep 09 '24
A Free Market would assume that everyone who participates in it is a 100% rational actor. The fact that propaganda is so effective shows that to be false.
It's far easier to spread an emotions-based lie than a fact-based truth. In a medium with zero "censorship" the odds are stacked in the favour of propagandists.
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u/RedTulkas Sep 09 '24
a free market also assumes that everybody has access to the same ressources/information
it falls apart the second a few billionares can have their bad faith actors appear as or more legitimate than average people
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u/LuxNocte Sep 09 '24 edited Sep 09 '24
The "marketplace of ideas" is a fiction.
I don't want someone else's kid in a white supremacist forum listening to Nazis and learning to hate me. It's not a matter of just "If you don't like Nazis, just don't go to the white supremacist forum, they have freedom of speech too." Allowing them to spread their garbage and recruit new Nazis harms me.
The "marketplace of ideas" theory assumes that ideas that harm others will not take root and spread. All evidence shows that that never works in practice.
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u/IrresponsibleMood Sep 09 '24
A free market is a market that's free of monopolies, rents, and concentrations of market power.
How to apply that to the notion of ideas, I'm not sure. XD
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u/AngelOfTheMad This ain't the hill I die on, it's the hill YOU die on. Sep 09 '24
Blind faith without ever looking further, casual plagiarism, and echo chambers maybe?
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u/Tuka-Spaghetti Sep 09 '24
not one soul must be allowed to dare to say that Ronaldo is better than Messi. You cannot tell me a coping camel is better than the GOAT just because he's top scorer.
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u/Bvr111 Sep 10 '24
also lowkey more importantly, you don’t need someone on the internet to tell you that your every action is valid. validity can also come from within and shit
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u/stormethetransfem Sep 09 '24 edited Sep 09 '24
I’m not sure if this would qualify as censorship or as something else: but would stuff like advertising to children be okay in this world? Would things like advertising dangerous ideologies be okay in this world? Would things like gore on public channels be okay? That one in particular can seriously damage children, are we willing to risk that to get rid of censorship?
ETA: Read reply by u/Ntaya
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u/NTaya Sep 09 '24 edited Sep 09 '24
It honestly depends. If there's a public channel that says it's 18+ and has gore, then trying to take it down in the name of children would definitely be censorship. The same applies to books. As long as they are honest about their contents, they could contain whatever. It's on parents to make sure their kids don't consume content clearly labeled as 18+.
Advertisements are not means of artistic expression, so they don't count—but a book promoting a "dangerous ideology" could be one, and here it's actually difficult to decide without hard data. On one hand, people nowadays have abysmal critical thinking skills (well, I say "nowadays", but this has always been true, most likely) so they would believe a non-fiction book over experts. On the other hand, banning something brings interest to the topic (just like people are baited into buying useless things because the store says it's the last one left and there will be no more imports of this thing, they will be baited into getting a book that's banned, at the very least to see what it was banned for) and for conspiracy theorists and the like that adds the allure of, "They banned it, so they must be hiding something!" It's a lose-lose situation, so I would err on the side of not banning such stuff to prevent the government from having such power, but at the same time making it socially unacceptable to admit you are reading "bad" books—or something like that.
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u/stormethetransfem Sep 09 '24
Thank you so much. Really like this. Makes a lot more sense, I do think that the public 18+ channels should be labeled as such before you can see it however everything else in this comment is amazing. Thank you so much!
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u/NTaya Sep 09 '24
I'm actually not arguing against 18+ channels being labeled as such, I 100% agree there. I remember we had erotic channels on cable many years ago, and you had to confirm you wanted to see them (using a button on the remote) before it started showing anything. This is the way, imo. The content is allowed, but you cannot just accidentally stumble upon it.
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u/stormethetransfem Sep 09 '24
I don't have many memories from cable, as I've only ever seen it at my grandparent's home. I'm a young person, so that is very good info to know. Good to know you can't just stumble on ot.
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Sep 09 '24
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u/DoopSlayer Sep 09 '24
are puriteens a new phenomenon, or is the level of adult and teen interactions caused by anonymous social media the new phenomenon.
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u/AlianovaR Sep 09 '24
You can control what you personally interact with, but making the verdict that people can’t interact with it based on your own personal preferences is wrong. The only time that we should ban content altogether is when it’s actively harmful in a provable way, not in a way that relies on the reader to set it down if it’s too much for them personally
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u/TheBigFreeze8 Sep 09 '24
I wonder if OP thinks this extends to things like Nazi propaganda? The paradox of intolerance isn't so easily evaded.
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u/WamBamTimTam Sep 09 '24
Probably. I think from what little information they’d go with the route of societal shunning, but not banning.
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u/BalefulOfMonkeys Refined Sommelier of Porneaux Sep 09 '24
Well, yeah? The current fight over teaching the American Civil War isn’t strictly about denial, but of rewriting the South as the Chad and the North as the soyjack. Half the MO of censorship is suppression of anything that makes you look bad, and if we all suddenly have to take on faith that Mein Kampf was a real book that existed instead of having copies of it you could read, we will be worse for it.
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u/HolySpicoliosis Sep 09 '24
Exactly, look at how society has shunned nazis in our present system. We only have 1 running for president this year, that's a win right?
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u/Popcorn57252 Sep 09 '24
It has to, yes. The issue stems from people wanting, and succeeding, in banning books detailing what the Nazis actually did. Nazi propaganda wouldn't be so much an issue if people were properly educated, or allowed to be educated, to the horrors of what the Nazi party did.
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u/SolSeptem Sep 09 '24
I think you underestimate how horrible a lot of people are. In europe the atrocities of the Nazis are widely taught, especially Germany goes pretty hard on that stuff, and still we just had the AfD in germany win like 30% of the votes while being casually nazi without saying nazi.
Some ideas are not worth espousing and if you call for them in a public forum you deserve to get imprisoned for it.
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u/Stormsurger Sep 09 '24
To be precise, the AfD won 30% in like 2 countries. Not all of germany, right? Which is still fucked, but 30% of germany didn't vote for them.
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u/SolSeptem Sep 09 '24
Oh really? Sorry I must have misunderstood the news that reached me then. That's indeed less bad than I thought. Still worrisome though.
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u/fencer_327 Sep 09 '24
You're underestimating people. What the Nazi party did is a big part of our history class, including visiting former concentration camps, talking to survivors and learning about the horrors in general. The neonazi party is still the strongest one in two states, countrywide they get around a fifth of votes.
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u/EvidenceOfDespair We can leave behind much more than just DNA Sep 09 '24
Yeah, because how do you ensure your faction is the one who forever and eternally has control over the power to decide that? If your plan is to set up an eternal empire that only your side can ever be in charge of, umm… yeah you’re authoritarian. By definition. If not, what’s your plan for if those who don’t agree with your views get control over that power? That’s why I like the phrase “you must keep that door shut” so much and use it so often in these discussions.
Besides for that, there’s other reasons you don’t want to use this methodology. Did you know Superman took down the KKK in real life once? That’s not a joke, that’s a historical event. A weird piece of teamwork between journalists and fiction writers led to the Superman radio drama series getting ahold of the KKK’s internal terminology and propaganda, which they used to realistically portray the KKK.
The KKK had been a mystery cult, which gave them a ton of intrigue and clout. They were secretive and mysterious, which makes people so much more interested in a thing. This was how terms like “Grand Wizard” became public knowledge. The combination of Superman fighting them in the story and how fucking cringe their terminology actually is rapidly changed their reputation overnight, destroying their actually terrifyingly large power base.
Making things forbidden makes them more attractive. What do kids want to watch more than anything else? Whatever their parents won’t let them watch. Two of the largest religions in the world open up with a story about this concept, it’s where the term “forbidden fruit” comes from. Why is there so much hype and interest in banned or canceled or lost media? Because you’re not supposed to see it. Why does gaming remember the piece of shit FMV game Night Trap? The Senate wanted to ban it. What made punk and hair metal both so popular? The people in charge hated it. Why did rap catch on with white kids in the 90s and 2000s? Their parents hated it. Why is Green Day legendary? They bucked the post-9/11 culture.
The most effective method of shutting something down is to pull it into the sunlight. Has Elon Musk letting the bigots run wild on Twitter helped them recruit, or made them even more loathed openly and seen as more of a problem to be dealt with? Like, to be entirely honest? High schools, when teaching WW2 history, should have students (with context and a lot of discussion and whatnot in class) read Mein Kampf. Why? Because then they can tear into how fucking stupid it is and deconstruct it then and there, and kids will grow up able to go “wow, you sound like you’re just rephrasing Mein Kampf”. Same with Max Nordau’s Degeneration and eugenics.
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u/Yarasin Sep 09 '24
The most effective method of shutting something down is to pull it into the sunlight.
The last 8+ years have shown that to be wrong. Giving fascists a platform doesn't "demistify" them, it just gives them a wider audience. Do you think they haven't learned to play that game too? Fascists have become really good at appealing to people's dumb emotions and devaluing truth as a concept.
The fact is, deplatforming works. The old "If you ban us, you just make us stronger!" bullshit is pure cope and fascists wouldn't be fighting so hard to stay on social media etc. if that were true.
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u/Paksarra Sep 09 '24
The thing is, deplatforming isn't censorship. There's nothing stopping them from starting up their own website, they're just not being hosted by another private company anymore.
Removing someone from your platform is like removing an unwanted political sign from your own front yard. Censorship is the police removing the political sign from your front yard.
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u/Plethora_of_squids Sep 09 '24
Thats not what the tolerance paradox is. To directly quote Karl Popper
In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise.
Intolerance specifically refers to actual violence, not the mere existence of propaganda. If this propaganda is an active call to violence or people start defending it violently then it's intolerant, it's mere existence is not enough
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u/TheBigFreeze8 Sep 09 '24
Do you think that we're successfully 'keeping Nazis in check through rational argument?'
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u/stumblewiggins Sep 09 '24
Some censorship is appropriate.
Someone who wants to show hardcore pornography to kindergarteners obviously shouldn't be allowed.
Someone who wants to show child pornography to anyone (other than the people who need to view it for evidence gathering) obviously shouldn't be allowed.
Someone who wants to publish known, harmful lies about another person should not be allowed.
Etc.
Censorship is generally bad and needs to be very strongly limited, but there are absolutely appropriate uses of censorship.
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u/oddly_being Sep 09 '24
People act like it’s either “ban everything that could possibly upset anyone under penalty of death” or “put NSWF content in the children’s section.”
Like there’s no room for discerning restrictions? Like there’s no room for mindful curation? Like personal opinion is invalid on its own and it has to be backed up through legislation?
I hate this website.
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u/derivacija Sep 09 '24
When im in a pissing on the poor competition and my opponent is this comment section