Who is in charge of what’s deemed “harmful”? How do they decide? Who put them in charge?
You’re being downvoted for a valid concern. I don’t disagree that we should block harmful content, but you’re putting that power into the hands of whoever writes the definition.
It’s a real problem with no real solution that few people seem to ACTUALLY want to try to solve.
There’s definitely a solution for it. Most people dont wanna hear it though because the solution would practically ruin their belief/economic system.
The four way test is a simple and effective tool for anything dealing with ethics or even business if you want to do things the right way.
Journalism has 5 guiding principles but a lot of “journalists” threw that away for more clicks and revenue.
The only practical answer is that users should be able to decide for themselves.
Anything else just devolves into government or corporate censorship.
There’s no such thing as corporate censorship. That’s largely been manufactured from some who have a persecution complex. The only way corporations can censor someone is if that person is accessing property or platforms that the corporation owns. At which point, they have freedom to do what they please when it comes to who they will host. That would be like saying your neighbor is censoring you because they won’t let you on their property or use their things. They can’t legally do anything more than remove you or deny you access to things they operate. The government censorship is a logically real thing in that they have the power to create laws that affect you regardless of property/object ownership
I think you are thinking of the american First Amendment, but just because corporate censorship doesn’t fall foul of that, it doesn’t mean it isn’t a thing. Yeah there is corporate censorship. Not only on the internet, but when even when it comes to traditional media, newspapers, publishing, studios, writers and artists often need to deal with censorship that companies they work for or with imposes upon them.
Considering that private companies control the vast majority internet communications, there isn’t even a public social media in the way that there are public physical spaces, and social media companies aren’t neutral parties in the way that mail and phone services are, as common carriers.
But I get the sentiment here, that platform owners have the right to control what happens in it in the same way a hosts can set rules of conduct and have the right to kick you out for not following them. But in practice it’s pretty messy. Some rules are reasonable for polite coexistence and others are just overbearing whims, or downright prejudice.
LGBTQ people regularly have to deal with their existences being deemed obscene. The most modest images and basic information about them is treated as unnacceptable. They get their posts hid, removed or they get downright banned. You could argue that the owners have the right to do this, but is it a good thing that this happens? Whatever you may think, it is censorship regardless.
At best of times it’s difficult to find a balance of how platforms ought to be handled, but unfortunately they aren’t always handled with good faith considerations for interests of the people in it. I believe that a lot of people are here because they had to face that.
Aye corporations can do no wrong, they’ve never tried to censor unions or the working class.
This is a semantic argument made to ignore the issue. The reality is that social media platforms effectively have become the “town square” where ideas are shared. Stifling legal speech in that environment is very effective censorship of ideas.
You can argue that corporations have that right because they own the network. I disagree. Curation of what can be said on their platform turns them into a publisher, not a communications provider. Any lawyer active in that space could tell you how insanely detrimental it would be for that distinction to be made, at least in the U.S.
Imagine your phone company deciding you can’t say certain words to other people using their service without facing dropped calls, suspensions of service, or being banned. All because your legal speech goes against the morality of the majority.
That’s essentially what social media does at the moment. They are legally defined as, and receive the benefits of, a communications service. But they are acting like a publisher, deciding what is and is not allowed to be said. It’s a serious problem.
There is no good answer to this question, because everyone has their own scale of what they consider harmful.
I think this is a fundamental problem with centralized social media a la Reddit, Twitter, Threads, etc. You’re forcing countless different communities with different values and beliefs to share a common space, moderated by people with their own set of values. Of course there will be friction and problems. No matter what you do, there will be groups that feel like they’re being censored, and other groups that feel like they’re being attacked.
Also, what may be harmful to one person, may not be harmful to another person.
If a thing is harmful to any person, it’s harmful. Pretty simple.
People say what you just said when they’re trying to justify harming other (usually marginalized) groups. Stopping another person or group from being harmed does not equal harm against you.
Edit: I understand it’s not that black and white. It’s not always the case, just pointing out that many people do use that argument in bad faith.
Every topic could be considered “harmful” to someone, somewhere on this planet.
Like someone else mentioned, content involving alcohol could be harmful to alcoholics. Content involving drugs could be harmful to addicts. Content discussing SA/Rape could be harmful to survivors.
Discussions on controversial topics will always be harmful to someone. Just a few posts up from this one was a discussion about Quran burning. That’s harmful to devout and fundamentalist muslims, should that be banned?
Then let’s not even get into the subject of humour. What one person considers banter could be considered harmful by another. Ironic communities suddenly become harmful as soon as the irony is lost on a single person (RIP 2balkan4u).
Harmful means something different to everyone. Trying to apply a blanket definition to it will just stifle all discussion, or turn your community into a pure hugbox.
It’s definitely a problem, I hope we can find a way to solve it without creating a mechanism for crushing dissent or privacy violations.
Why is this water so wet!
I’m sick of seeing Andrew Tate and this alpha male bullshit.
Same here. He’s a douchebag. But most of his crap is merely offensive, not harmful
I guess I make the distinction that he’s trying to persuade people to act toxic, which is different than other podcasters trying to persuade people to act in ways that cause disease or death
Surely if anyone can be trusted with the power of censorship, it’s the hereditary aristocracy.
