Minoa wrote:The North Polish Union wrote:Perhaps its because I come from a different cultural background than many of the users here, but I again disagree that a harder line needs to be taken. Although not in 2009 precisely (but closer to it than to our present day), the Arab Spring protests and Occupy Wall Street movements of 2011 and the Euromaidan protests of 2013 were all heavily linked to the ability to share information hostile to the established order online, and detractors of each movement accused them of using the internet to spread falsehood ('misinformation' in 2021-speak) and particularly for the Arab Spring took steps to ensure information was not accessible.
Of course, this can be used by bad actors as well. In 2011 the US and French governments used massive manipulation of public perception (including the internet) to justify the invasion of Libya and toppling Qaddafi; similarly, the Russians engaged in massive manipulation against Euromaidan, and this is even where the 'Russian troll' concept originated on the internet well before the 2016 US election.
There is not a huge difference between an Egyptian poster on NS in 2011 that protests Hosni Mubarak and the American poster on NS in 2021 that is critical of vaccine mandates. There is a huge difference between either of them and both the 2011 Egyptian that advocates jihad and sharia law as a replacement for Mubarak and the 2021 American that advocates for the violent overthrow of Biden.
Although all 4 imaginary individuals are expressly criticizing established authorities, the first two are likely within NS' rules while the second two are likely not. I think it should stay that way.
As someone coming from a country where for decades the Communist Party tightly controlled discourse and authorities dictated what was truth and what was misinformation to the populace, I prefer dealing with someone that hates water fluoridation to dealing with a Ministry of Truth that silently deletes all 'misinformation'. Keep the rules against advocating violence, but please do not punish users that post views other than what the Beloved Party says they can hold.
I understand this is a very difficult situation, but I do have legitimate concerns about the site being a target of bad actors such as the promoters of dangerous conspiracy theories that justify racism, xenophobia (unrelated to immigration policy) and violence — there is no excuse in my opinion for anyone to justify such things in a democratic society. The developments in TRR’s RMB are concerning to me.
I have stated COVID-5G as an example, due to the conspiracy theory leading to
a wave of arson attacks on critical infrastructure. Nothing in my post suggest suppressing the criticism of the established order, especially with the Pandora Papers which exposed misconduct in taxation by many world leaders. I am myself very critical of the Brexit, and China’s attitude to Hong Kong, but I know there are ways to counter that without justifying racism, xenophobia or violence.
At the end of the day, it will take more than me to figure out how exactly we are going to deal with the promotion of dangerous conspiracy theories that have resulted in racism, xenophobia (unrelated to immigration policy) and violence. It is not an easy task.
The problem I have is that someone has to decide what groups are promoting racism, xenophobia, and violence. Using the examples I mentioned in my previous post, both the Occupy Wall Street and Euromaidan protesters were accused of being white supremacists/neo-Nazis and the Arab Spring protesters were accused of being jihadis/Muslim fundamentalists; in several cases these accusations were made by powerful state actors. As I said earlier, in cases when concessions are made to avoid 'conspiracy' they will tend to favor the established order, but that is not every established order since governments and other powerful actors are often in conflict; criticism of China's Hong Kong policy may be acceptable (and even encouraged) here but it is certainly not in China and NS has little (or no) presence in mainland China.
In the protests in Iran in late 2019, Ayatollah Khamenei blamed the protests on a conspiracy of
"all of the centres of villainy around the world that oppose us." While most of us would disagree with his assessment (which is itself likely rooted in anti-Semitism), a hypothetical Iranian NS poster could have come and requested that expression of support for the protests be prohibited as "dangerous conspiracy theories that have resulted in [...] violence". Both sides may have a case here, and is it better if the Western consensus prevails and 'support for violence' is permitted, or that said such 'violence' is banned and critical discussion of the Iranian state is stifled? Likewise, should NS have platformed 'neo-Nazis' by allowing posters to voice support for Euromaidan, or should they have cut off that discussion and avoided such 'neo-Naziism' but also avoided discussion of the Yanukovych government's corruption?
Having an 'outside perspective' from a non-English-speaking country it seems to me that much of the controversies of the past several years stem from alarm in the English-speaking world that the use of and actions encouraged by the internet that has been occurring for many years outside the West has finally caught up to them. Where in the past governments were criticized by the West for restricting their internet during national crises or otherwise sanitizing it, now there are calls to do exactly that at home to prevent violence, which has been the claim for nearly every country that previously restricted internet content. For me personally, not being American or Russian, it is difficult to see an objective difference between the US protest on 6th January and the Russian protests that began roughly 3 weeks later; both are accused of being rioters and far-right-wing conspiracy-theorists by their governments and both wanted the resignation of the
de jure leader and a return to what they believe is a 'more democratic' form of government. These are simply the facts, anyone is free to disagree with the true motivations of either group, but it is certain that even on this site support for the different protests is viewed very differently. Ought discussion of one necessarily be regulated more strictly than the other to void supporting violence?
Obviously in this case the discussion is more philosophical than concrete. As was mentioned on the first page, none of TRR's RMB posts were actually reported. No matter the rules, posts need to actually be reported to be acted on. However, I would say that the existing rules prohibiting the encouragement of violence are more than adequate. My understanding is that encouraging NS users to burn down 5G towers would be prohibited currently but if the crazies that think 5G is a conspiracy are shut out of the site simply because
some of them
may commit IRL crimes, then critics of Vladimir Putin would need to be shut out as well.
Frisbeeteria wrote:Lord Dominator wrote:Would it be possible to perhaps link the GHR form onto RMB posts more directly, rather than the current two-click/kinda hidden way until then?
[v] likes it hidden. She doesn't want to put a [report] button visible on every post. I think the two-click system is here for a while. If the Comms Dev Mgr wants to raise it, fine by me.
One problem I have is that the GHR system is more un-intuitive than it needs to be. Is there a middle ground between putting a report button on each post and hiding the GHR link at the bottom of the FAQ page?
Posted: Tue Oct 12, 2021 2:45 am