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The rules say no hateful speech. Does anyone know what exactly does that entitle because that term is very vague and very subjective
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6 Replies
Reply by Dustin
posted
It's probably meant to be a blanket term on purpose, so that it can be determined if the speech in question fits the role of hate speech. You can probably safely assume that any communication with another user on the website using derogatory terminology that attacks them as a person based on their religion, race, nationality, sexual orientation, age, physical or mental disability can be considered hate speech. Additionally, using any type of symbolism on your profile or any other profiles such as swastikas, a noose, confederate flags, burning crosses, etc. could be considered hate speech.
With an ever-expanding slang vocabulary, it's hard to define every facet that can be construed as hate speech, but it's pretty easy to avoid being hateful to other users.
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Reply by Ramiro
posted
With the ever growing easily offended population it is not easy not to be "hateful" to someone. It is very concerning that that term is in the rules because it is a slippery slope. Anyone can cry wolf and its the mods deem that specific thing to be hateful to them too even though for another majority it is not you can be banned for the subjective analysis of a comment you made.
Reply by EngiQu33ring
posted
It is significantly easier to be nice to people than not to be. The rule is left vague intentionally so reports can be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
Reply by Ramiro
posted
It is vague, again, because it allows the reviewer to be as subjective as that specific reviewer wants to be. That level of vagueness does not leave room for a consistent application of the rules regardless of the person behind the screen. It leaves the room open for discrimination depending on who is enforcing the rules at that time.
And in this contemporary society that we live in where everyone thinks they are offended by the most insignificant things, makes it harder to "offend" or engage int he made up term "hateful speech". Any thing can be labeled hateful speech since at the end of the day that is a subjective term due to its vagueness
For example I can say that your opinion is dumb, as that is my opinion. And you might not consider that "hateful speech" but a third party reading our conversation might do and that person can report me for hateful speech. And if the day my comment gets reviewed and the reviewer just happens to have a bias against me or my opinions then I might just get ban for "hateful speech". And the opposite can be true
Lastly, it is also significantly easier for you to just block someone that you find is engaging in "hateful speech" why leave it to an ambiguous system to decide what something is "hateful speech" or not? Just don't engage...
Reply by EngiQu33ring
posted
It sounds like what you want is content moderation via checklist. Those kind of systems go one of very few ways:
- A human moderation team that spends an unreasonable amount of time arguing with internet pedants who, more often than not, are trying to find some loophole to avoid the consequences of whatever crappy thing they did
- A robot moderation team that can, and almost certainly will, be leveraged by a small group of individuals coordinating over a group chat to get users they don't like kicked off the site by exploiting potential faults in the bot design
- Some combination of the worst aspects of the other two
It's important to also note that checkbox moderation allows moderators acting in bad faith off the hook for doing exactly the things you described. A system that has moderators make decisions within a set of guidelines means that they have to explain their reasoning if a user appeals a ban, rather than falling back on the excuse of, "well technically they violated this rule, so I didn't do anything wrong."
At any rate, the notion of, "just don't engage," is good for most situations, but in some circumstances engagement by the mods is absolutely necessary. A few days ago, someone spammed most of the forums with pro-nazi holocaust denialism and started going onto threads in the Religion and Philosophy forum about Judaism to harass people. We can't just ignore stuff like that when it happens, it has to be addressed or it only gets worse.
Reply by Ramiro
posted
You completely missed the point of my reply. I DO not want either of those systems in place. Nowhere in this site does it specify the mode of enforcement for this rules including this vague one. I do not want another reddit nor twitter with a myspace skin
And again you missed the point, when i said to not engage I meant whoever is being offended by "hateful speech".