I love you for saying this just because it's mind-boggling how many times the argument people use for why a private company shouldn't restrict speech on their platforms is "Hurrr...Fweedom of Spweech!"
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- Thread starter Kal995
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- Nov 20, 2018
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I definitely don't disagree with you, although I can understand why a lot of folks might say that. In addition to the legal right to free speech in America, up until the last couple of decades there was also a cultural understanding of free speech. What that amounts to is effectively a social agreement: people generally treated each other with the same attitude that is mandated of the federal government. "You and I can disagree heavily — and even loathe each other — but we should still be allowed to say how we feel without trying to kill each other or destroy one another's livelihoods." Basically, "if you are gross in what you say, stay the hell away from me." It's only relatively recently that people have actually tried going after one another because of things they say.
Whether you agree with this idea or not, that's generally how it had been in America until the early 2010s. That definitely meant you might've encountered some people who made your skin crawl or about whom you'd imagine doing unspeakable things to with a tire iron out behind the toolshed. But unless you were a psycho it never used to mean you'd actually do anything in response. So, if a person then takes that traditional attitude about speech into a social space, they run into what you've described.
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- Jul 20, 2018
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I'm all for "writing law makers" and so on, but, if there's one thing I've learned after engaging with some Activist groups in the past... it's that the opinions of people outside of the US barely matter, or don't matter at all.
I live outside of the US. Worse. I live in some no-name post communist country of very little international relevance. My whole damn country could take a stance, and no one of note would give more than a shrug and "whatever".
That's a simple fact of life.
Right now, the only law that REALLY matters to VISA and Master Card is American Law, and it's Americans that need to take a stance on this. The only thing the rest of us can take a stance on is VISA and Master Card trying to apply their standards outside of the US, which will do jack and shit tbh.
That said, I get that taking a stance on porn of all things would be difficult. Hell, even if I had the opportunity to do something like that, it'd be difficult because I have at least one family member that might literally try to kill me if they knew I spend money on this sort of thing, much less try to take a stance about it in politics. How many of us would have issues with family or friends if they tried to take a stance on this and it inevitably became a public shit-show?
So instead, I believe that another angle needs to be used to approach this when it comes to law.
There needs to be a bigger focus in laws to distinguish fiction from reality, and to protect the freedom of expression in fiction, regardless of the subject matter and how screwed up it may or may not be. Worded correctly, and it wouldn't matter what sort of depravity people put in porn, because, well, it's fiction, who cares what happens there?
The fact of the matter is that this sort of crap happened before. Back when people were accusing GTA of causing school shootings. Before that too, when D&D players were accused of being satanists and whatnot. This is just a variations of the same thing. An inability to distinguish fiction from reality, and the stupid idea that fiction can get people to commit unreasonable acts in reality, even though that has literally never happened. (We obviously don't count people that are already insane here, because anything can trigger such individuals and they shouldn't be exposed to most forms of media anyway...)
At the end of the day, the angle that needs to be tackled is that a form of fiction can be discriminated against for whatever reason... then any form of fiction might be discriminated against for some reason or another. It's a gate that should be closed no matter what.
I live outside of the US. Worse. I live in some no-name post communist country of very little international relevance. My whole damn country could take a stance, and no one of note would give more than a shrug and "whatever".
That's a simple fact of life.
Right now, the only law that REALLY matters to VISA and Master Card is American Law, and it's Americans that need to take a stance on this. The only thing the rest of us can take a stance on is VISA and Master Card trying to apply their standards outside of the US, which will do jack and shit tbh.
That said, I get that taking a stance on porn of all things would be difficult. Hell, even if I had the opportunity to do something like that, it'd be difficult because I have at least one family member that might literally try to kill me if they knew I spend money on this sort of thing, much less try to take a stance about it in politics. How many of us would have issues with family or friends if they tried to take a stance on this and it inevitably became a public shit-show?
So instead, I believe that another angle needs to be used to approach this when it comes to law.
There needs to be a bigger focus in laws to distinguish fiction from reality, and to protect the freedom of expression in fiction, regardless of the subject matter and how screwed up it may or may not be. Worded correctly, and it wouldn't matter what sort of depravity people put in porn, because, well, it's fiction, who cares what happens there?
The fact of the matter is that this sort of crap happened before. Back when people were accusing GTA of causing school shootings. Before that too, when D&D players were accused of being satanists and whatnot. This is just a variations of the same thing. An inability to distinguish fiction from reality, and the stupid idea that fiction can get people to commit unreasonable acts in reality, even though that has literally never happened. (We obviously don't count people that are already insane here, because anything can trigger such individuals and they shouldn't be exposed to most forms of media anyway...)
At the end of the day, the angle that needs to be tackled is that a form of fiction can be discriminated against for whatever reason... then any form of fiction might be discriminated against for some reason or another. It's a gate that should be closed no matter what.
- Nov 20, 2017
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Are we here again?
I need to bring that up on the next meeting with Patreon Trust and Safety team.
Also from the whole "freedom of spech" debate. Yes, you can say what you want, but in turn you must accept the consequences of that. Thus if I say that Count Morado is a creeping pervert, I must accept what might come after.
I need to bring that up on the next meeting with Patreon Trust and Safety team.
Well, their banking system don't allow to have drug money transfered by wire. Thus the "new" law in California that allows Marijuana has the effect that companies needed to go to the local tax office to pay their tax on their Marijuana business in cash. This in turn leads that the tax office need more employes and cash counting maschines.
Also from the whole "freedom of spech" debate. Yes, you can say what you want, but in turn you must accept the consequences of that. Thus if I say that Count Morado is a creeping pervert, I must accept what might come after.
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- Jan 21, 2022
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Complete sophistry. As if I have freedom of bank robbery because all I must do is “accept the consequences.”
- Nov 20, 2017
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Of course, only your own conscience and your own estimate of profit vs risk is may hinder you. Also as this apply to any other too the law enforcement could kill you as they try to stop you or a accomplice after you success or... You get the general gist of it.
Life is free, you can do what you can do and only death is certained.
I always think of the musical The Music Man when issues like this come up on art. There was a part where they were singing a song about Marian the librarian who there were rumors alluding to an idea that she had slept with the owner of the library and he had left her books because of it. During the song the books by Chaucer, Rebelais, Balzac were mentioned. Imagine if all books that contained lewd content were banned. They don't even have images. It disturbs me at work a bit that so many people's jobs now are to moderate content. This was never the case before around 2015.
- Jan 21, 2022
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Chaucer has been banned in the past.
So has Rabelais and Balzac.
Here's a list of books most challenged (and many banned) in the 1990s in the US:
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You're aware of the Hays Code dealing with movie content from 1934 to 1968 before the advent of the ratings system (which is a censoring system, in itself)?
I don't think you're aware of how much you're mistaken about history, censorship, and content banning made by both public and private entities.
Heck, a simple Google search will have this as a result:
List of books banned by governments
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You're going to see a lot of dates prior to 2015.
EDIT: To add, your own example from "The Music Man" destroys your thesis... the Pick-A-Little ladies were bitching to Harold Hill that Marian allowed books in the library they did not want: “I shouldn’t tell you this, but she advocates dirty books… Chaucer… Rabelais... BALZAC!” Had it not been for Marian's advocacy - those ladies would have had those books (and many others) removed from that library.
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They may have been banned, but clearly they're not anymore. Where I live you can buy them. My point is that there's been lots of content in history that contains questionable content. Most of it can be easily gotten and most of the time is available for free or for sale. Even in the case of patreon with the crackdown on such content people are still producing it there.