Hacker News Reader

Comment by fallingknife | Hacker News Reader

People say this, but not long ago Twitter/Reddit/Youtube were basically a free for all for anything except porn. And their user numbers were skyrocketing at the time.

View on HN

> anything except porn

That's moderation. Both because they are actively excluding certain content, but also because 'porn' can be subjective and so decisions have to be made about what does and does not qualify.

Porn is and has always been very political

And after they attempted to clean up, they were able to attract more advertisers and mainstream users the advertisers wanted to reach. Doesn’t the story of those sites back the person above you’s point?

That’s just saying “until it became a problem, it wasn’t a problem”. Those sites were a free for all, up until it became a problem. And then they were no longer free for alls.

Yeah, this is exactly right. Stronger moderation started happening because more and more toxic/abusive BS became prevalent. I only really experienced true "hostile attacks from a complete stranger" on Twitter in the last year or two, and I've been a heavy user of it since 2007. (tbh my usage has dwindled and I'm wayyy more focused on Mastodon now, which thus far fosters a stronger sense of community than Twitter will ever be able to)

Reddit is still a free for all - including porn

It's not even close, admins ban subs all the time, mods are under strict grip of admins on how they need to mod thing otherwise they get replaced, there are cases where admins straight up say that mod teams need to get more people in the team or they'll lose the sub, i've seen subs with automods straight up saying that they need to be careful with what is written otherwise they'll be banned.

The huge Aimee Challenor thing, that lead to people being banned anywhere the name was uttered is just the super high profile example I know, i'm sure reddit users would be able to show more smaller cases.

Just want to make it clear, I'm not claiming this control is good or bad, there are good reasons for and against moderation, but reddit is not even close to a free for all.

[0]: https://www.newsweek.com/reddit-aimee-knight-challenor-fired...

Exactly. The court isn't saying you can't moderate out the cesspool posts. They are saying that you can't choose political sides.

Every decision is inherently "political"

I often see this sentiment associated with those who wish to regulate political speech they find offensive. It's convenient if everything is political so that everything said can be regulated.

Regulating political speech for whatever reason (including offense), should be considered a legitimate exercise of moderation. It happens on Hacker News all the time - political speech is only considered on topic if and when it contains evidence of a "new or interesting phenomenon," and even then, users will mod down anything they don't like. And given the quality of most political threads here, I don't think many people here would prefer it if that were allowed to run amok.

If I'm running a car forum, I should be able to ban pro-Nazi rhetoric if I want, regardless of whether I find it offensive or merely technically off topic. Not every space on the internet needs to be /pol/.

Yeah, internet content laws are becoming increasingly conflicting. On one hand, you have places that are making it more difficult to legally moderate websites. On the other, you have legislation like SESTA and FOSTA where websites are being held legally responsible for content that others may post on the website.

Section 230 was an unusually great piece of internet legislation, and it's not great to see it start to crumble with these new changes. Just let every site be its own site.

I think quite literally lots of things are political. This discussion is political. Anything to talk about h1b visa is political. Immigration is political. The most offensive speech is arguably political speech, such as advocating for genocide.

There's a bit of a gap between "everything" and "lots of things" though. I agree with you that lots of things are political, but everything?

If you want to sell X to group Y which coincides mostly with party Z and has little overlap with the opposite party, it is worth your while to make buying X a political activity, however you can go about doing that.

I think the only thing that is clearly not political is people sharing pictures of pets. Everything else including Insta Thotts and what have you have been co-opted.

Using the widest definition, "affairs of the citizens", it's literally about everything outside of your private home. The twist though, is that since pretty much everything has consequences (including inaction), you are not safe from eventually having an outside impact even there. As the meme goes, "we live in a society". (Also why you should want to keep good relations with the other citizens...)

Perhaps in the technical definition of political, but not in the layman's definition of political.

The definition of political used by the populace is almost always the narrow subset of societal/cultural fights that are actively being argued. Generally speaking these arguments are headed by politicians.

There is also a space in the definition for arguments directly impact the structure/scope of the government. Although this may be separate enough that it may warrant being considered a second definition instead of an additional category within the first definition.

Exactly, grey zones can happen really quickly. For example if someone says "I think Candidate X from Party Y is a total a-hole." Is that a political statement or a cesspool comment? I see legitimate arguments for either.

And this is why the us supreme court will throw out this appellate ruling. They really don't like grey zones.

> For example if someone says "I think Candidate X from Party Y is a total a-hole." Is that a political statement or a cesspool comment?

That's not even remotely gray, it's both a political statement and a "cesspool comment"; you're suggesting a false dichotomy.

Whether or not pineapple on pizza is acceptable can technically be brought to a political argument but anyone not turned into a rage monster by current social media can tell that it isn't a political debate in the current environment.

Where did they say you can't choose a side? It's also possible that I moderate content, the majority is conservative, and I'm not choosing a side.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com