I don’t know why you’re getting downvoted. I assumed this was a tongue-in-cheeck way of saying it shouldn’t be okay, but it is.
ITT: people who think “censorship” only pertains to “state-sponsored censorship”
Moderation tools are a form of censorship on lemmy.
If you tend to be a person who agrees with majority opinions without creating your own then you will likely self-censor yourself.
Censorship starts first in the mind way before it even gets to the point of being expressed where others can see it.
https://www.liberties.eu/en/stories/self-censorship/43569
People tend to focus on private and public censorship particularly when it comes to the first amendment. That doesn’t even matter if you create an environment where dissent or differing opinion isn’t allowed in the first place.
An oppressive government doesn’t need to censor everyone. They censor themselves. They don’t need to deploy agents to harass people. Your fellow citizens will harass you for them.
If you mean state censorship then not really, as the opinions of those in power are usually not the majority. One example would be climate change: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/22/spiral-of-silence-climate-action-very-popular-why-dont-people-realise
Another example from Czechia where I live - polls show the majority of people support marriage for all (gay marriage) and euthanasia, but the political landscape renders both quite impossible to be allowed in the foreseeable future.
The obvious flaw is that humans are dynamic and evolving and you may not always be in the majority. Therefore you should be fair to everyone.
John Rawls’s “veil of ignorance” comes to mind.
The idea of the thought experiment is the creation of a society with the designer behind a veil of ignorance, that is, after the society is created they do not know the circumstances that they will have when joining the society.
“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” —Voltaire (reportedly)
Bingo, Awesome point!
Consider the way we behave on Lemmy. We have moderators, removing posts, banning, and we have downvotes too. And the majority definitely approves of that stuff.
The majority opinion is that if you got censored, banned or heavily downvoted then you deserve it for being bad. Quite the opposite of Voltaire.
Look, another numpty who thinks that moderation in a privately run forum is the same thing as state-sponsored censorship!
Because of course getting banned for not following the house rules is totally the same as getting disappeared for talking bad about the government.
Moderation on a website is to censorship what getting kicked out of someone’s house is to deportation.
Being against people getting deported doesn’t mean that you think that anyone should be allowed to do whatever they want in the home of other people.
It’s a conversation. Try to engage.
No, it’s not. It’s a misconception on the very fundamental level of the concepts we are talking about.
Moderating an online forum and state-sponsored censorship are two wildly different things. The former is in many circumstances legally required while the latter is legally prohibited (in most cases).
Freedom of speech means that the government is not allowed to interfer with your speech (with exceptions). It doesn’t mean that everyone has to listen to your bad takes let alone has to host them on their privately owned website.
Who does something matters just as much as what is done. Same as you can’t claim that the police is kidnapping you when they arrest you for murdering your neighbour.
These basics are so basic that it is hard to believe you don’t understand them. If you really don’t understand them, read up on just the very basics of the concept of rule of law and the basic rights one has and how they apply.
It’s more likely though that you do understand but just want to argue in bad faith, in which case it is not a conversation either.
He did, you aren’t, thereby exposing your sophistry.
You’re uninterested in the truth, just in “winning an argument”.
Well the fellow disagrees with you. He says it isn’t even a conversation. Lol.
Have you considered that most people like an accurate reflection of how people think about your opinion? They don’t want you to shut up, they want you to understand your opinion is unpopular and confront you with that.
There’s a big difference between an opinion that’s unpopular and an opinion that’s actively damaging or inciting. One is worth a discussion, the other is actively stifling discussion in various ways.
In my experience with the public, in social media, the majority prefers agreement and dislikes contradiction. And any means to that is ok. I think it’s as simple as that.
Yes, that’s true, the majority seems to be for censorship. That’s no excuse for you to be, too.
The majority likes censorship and dictatorship. It may protest it, but it likes it.
That’s something to consider.
If everyone agrees, then censorship doesn’t exist at all. Like, it’s not censorship that nobody is saying “Humans don’t actually need to breathe.” Everyone just knows it is wrong, so they don’t say that.
Hmm, I forgot about the pedant factor. I’ll edit that.
First they came for {minority a} and I said nothing because {me! ≠ minority a}.
I’m sure that’s where that poem stops, so you’re good!
Yes, I’m familiar. But I’m speaking for the majority here. I think that the majority prefers agreement and crushes dissent.
I mean look at social media. Look at how the majority behaves.
It’s a hive dictator. It isn’t intelligent.
And that makes it ok?
See my previous comment.
From the perspective of the majority, yes it does.
I can’t even begin to tell you how fucking stupid that take is. And I’ve been on Reddit.
You are a diplomat as well as a poet
If you’re okay with censorship, you ain’t right in the head.
And yet censorship is immensely popular. We all prefer that the spam and troll be silenced. We all downvote the obnoxious fools. We all think moderation is necessary.
We all think that there needs to be some control there, right?
No. There is a thing called a nuanced opinion where just because you agree with some parts of a group doesn’t mean you agree with them all.
I think that the majority prefers agreement and crushes dissent. The majority might be an organic dictator. Like an anthill.
Bingo, Awesome point!
I don’t think I agree if I read this correctly. I’ll specific as to how I understand it.
If I have opinion a, and that’s the majority opinion, and any other opinion gets censored, I think I’m fine with that. Hard disagree. I wanna expose myself to nuance and other opinions. Of course there’s a time and place when people hate you for nuance and specific opinions but censorship implies a legal framework and enforcement. Sure, there’s a lot of majority opinions I hold but I don’t want other opinions to get censored or punished on most topics. I wanna hear and learn new things.
Example of something I want censorship on: if someone just repeats NS dog whistles in a clear attempt to instigate, I think it might be good to censored them / punish them in some way. Not in a murderer way, but in a “do you know what you’re saying and can you grasp what it means?” way.
Example of something I don’t want censorship on: opinions political or societal systems. In fact I love discussing different ones, what they bring to the table, how they worked in practice and how they are bad so we can tweak them. On fact I invite people to tell me how capitalism itself is awesome, so we can discuss what we feel needs to be part of a healthy society and maybe we come up with novel ideas.
I guess if you wanna say “there’s some censorship that’s good” I might actually agree but that’s way more of a narrow statement than what you’re saying here.
I agree but my title speaks for the majority. I think that the majority does not appreciate free speech and the clashing of views. The majority is simple.
I’m not sure I understand. Are you implying that the majority are in favor of censorship?
No, I’m saying that if you agree with the majority then your opinions won’t offend the majority. And if your opinions don’t offend the majority then the majority won’t censor you. So any censorship going around isn’t going to touch you.
So any censorship going around isn’t going to touch you.
Censorship isn’t ok just because you aren’t personally being censored.
How popular do you suppose that opinion is? I think it isn’t very.
So you are ok with people being censored if they have different opinions than you?
I’m mixed on that. How about you?
While I think there needs to be some limits on speech (e.g. you can’t threaten people), “has different opinion than me” is not one of them.
Freedom of speech needs to be broad because as with so many other things, it comes down to who is making the decision and what there motives are. The obvious here is that the government shouldn’t be able to censor people for disagreeing or criticizing it.
More accurate if you agree with those in power. IE the censoring of say… jokes about the brian thompson killing, well liked by the majority. Not so well liked by the 1%.
And on Lemmy the ‘those in power’ that can and will censor you are the mods/admins of whatever community/instance you’re on that don’t like your politics.
and no ones denying the existance of such… Fact is at the end of the day no one actually winds up liking uncensored platforms. First and foremost is obviously spam, advertisements etc… But assuming just spam is blocked, a zero censorship platforms first wave will be people who’s views constantly get them kicked off other platforms. It’s not really possible to a have a platform welcoming to literal self identified nazi’s, that doesn’t quickly become exclusively nazi’s.
So yeah lemmy the thing I like about it overall is I think we are all in agreement, the initial showerthought is right… we generally are only OK with censorship that meets our own views of what should be censored, and lemmy offers the ability for people who disagree, to make their own instance. So you can have anything from tanky friendly to nazi friendly instances.
I’d rather censorship was entirely client side, but I haven’t seen any social media that does that.
It’s an idea I’ve considered too. And I’ve heard it from a few people and it isn’t too far out. Surely somebody has done a variety of Lemmy or that other thing.
That is not censorship.
As someone else pointed out, if I kick you out of my house because I don’t like the shit you say that’s not censorship or deportation - it’s merely me exerting my authority over a space I own.
Censorship is suspect, not inherently bad.
Freedom of viewpoint expression is a key part of democracy and modern society. But it’s not an absolute right of unfettered communication, since that would lead to no recourse when a racist troll projects a deep fake of you raping small children on the side of your house.
Being able to sue someone for libel is censorship. Property rights allowing you to control what happens on your house are censorship. And, yes, the government arresting that hypothetical racist troll for the production of child pornography is also censorship.
Of course, we could just define censorship as “suppression of protected speech” or something similar, but that just hides the game and helps folk who actually want to censor political ideas they don’t like get away with it.
Well central information control is out. And a democratic approach means putting the mon in charge, which is bad for a couple reasons.
I’m thinking that an overarching control is to be avoided. There is no good version of that. Control on the small scale. Individuals and small groups maybe. And keep the large scale uncontrolled and wild.
Putting the mob in charge is the least-bad form of government humans have ever conceived of.
Experts can and do establish reputations to persuade the masses or those chosen by the masses.
When we try putting the experts in charge directly, they invariably become corrupt and stop being as skilled.
There is a reason why America’s founding fathers put a wall between church and state. Not because they thought religion was bad, but because they learned from history that when you give a topic-expert political control they stop being good at either function.
Maybe nobody should be in charge. Just a federation of factions. I guess that’s Lemmy.
Yes. Having any one person 'in charge" who is not an immortal with superhuman morality and judgement will eventually lead to tyrannical suffering or the waste of a bloody civil war.
Lemmy (and piefed) is a great example of human societies done correctly. There are people who run things, and while they can establish whatever rules they want for the parts they run, everyone else is free to either ask for a change or go elsewhere.
For bad actions, options range from immediate negative feedback (downvote) and.corrective speech (public comment or private message), to negative consequences from those in power (ban account from instance), which can ultimately rise to community separation (de-federation). Heck, even the underlying software can be forked or replaced.
Of course, the stakes here are essentially trivial. Which means the consequences are too, but also we all have less incentive for bad action than in the real world where poverty and death are a possibility from bad action.
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That is an interesting thought experiment, but I would have say no. We all could be wrong, it has happened to me in past. Mass hysteria happens,
I’m thinking that maybe hysteria is the normal state of the masses. Or maybe its sanity is just very fragile. And social media is a rough place.
I understand what you are saying. The Internet is a BLANKhole, as my continued participation here is starting illustrate, but think a lot better of offline people.
Yes, that sounds like how I’m thinking too
With that shared, I must also add, as I have seen first-hand, from the people closest possible to me, roommates & brother & brother’s child-
Once they started spending way too much time online social media, verse online message boards & E-Mails & offline person to person or person to group, communicating, like their abilities to be good/respectful communicators, not just speaking to someone, & just generally their treatment of other people drastically changed for the worse. Like I said it is BLANKhole & it has a huge cost.
