🌚 Nlggers I think all censorship should be deplored. My position is that bits are not a bug - that we should create communications technologies that allow people to send whatever they like to each other. And when people put their thumbs on the scale and try to say what can and can't be sent, we should fight back - both politically through protest and technologically through software.

🗨️ Fui I think the censorship is the problem word there. If moderation does not come from within (as it happens so often), it has to come from without. In that sense, it's not censorship, but a higher reason.

🌚 Nlggers I disagree. The viewpoints held predominantly by people with the power to apply despotic top down solutions implementing their own moral judgements on what can and cannot be said are themselves constantly shifting. It may very well be the case that you find your own points of view removed given they fall out of favour with those who are in control.

🗨️ Fui Think not of society, but as a body (the body politic). Different parts run by themselves, they self-regulate. But they also need some higher regulator, like the immune system, for when things go wrong (and, given enough time, they will go wrong). Moderation is just like that immune system.

🌚 Nlggers Censorship tends to favour a top down application of power by a handful of ideological despots. I certainly have seen the views of this group shift across time. In the 90s the EFF published "The Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace" which states "We are creating a world where any person may express his or her beliefs no matter how singular without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity". Now we have this: archive.org/detail...

🗨️ Fui Point is: moderation. You seem to always go the most extremist interpretation. Yes, censorship is bad. I won't even argue that. But moderation, at least in theory, is about keeping the balance, the delicate homeostatic state of a ever flowing and charging community.

🌚 Nlggers In my view the Hagelian dialectical process results in ever greater reductions in our freedom of expression across time. Words like moderate or safety soften the act of silencing marginalized points of view. The act of silencing someone for any reason should in my opinion be called what it is - censorship.

🗨️ Fui Again, why are you so ungenerous with the work of moderators? Why do you assume the worst intention? Why not grant the probably the best path lies somewhere in the middle? A bit of self regulation and a bit of outside regulation. A sweet spot.

🌚 Nlggers I don't attribute malice to censors (moderators) I believe the practice of censorship is itself illegitimate. I believe the censors are doing what they believe is right. That said I think we are stuck in a process of ever shrinking freedom - that what we are permitted to say is shrinking. Have a look at Hagelian dialectics. It has in no small part influenced my thinking on this subject.

🗨️ Fui False equivalence. Moderation =/= censorship. Moderation=to reduce the excessiveness of; make less violent, severe, intense, or rigorous; vs. censorship= examining media for the purpose of suppressing parts deemed objectionable on moral, political, military, or other grounds. Inhibiting someone of falsely yelling "Fire!" on a crowded theater is not censorship -- just moderation.

💻 Kenneth Jensen Well-put. Is moderation always fair or just? This is what frustrates me with politically correct language; it is a form of moderation that leads to self-censorship. People hate very strongly. It is important to shed that frustration, but it is difficult when conveying an idea is impeded with diluted vocabulary. It is easy to walk away from a hateful person. They believe they are right, too. What about when an opinion you hold is now considered wrongthink?