Further Thoughts On Moderation v. Discretion v. Censorship
from the playing-semantics dept
Welcome back to Techdirt's favorite faux game show, Playing Semantics! This week, we're diving back into the semantics of moderation, discretion, and censorship. As a reminder, this bit is what we were arguing about last time:
Moderation is a platform operator saying "we don't do that here." Discretion is you saying "I won't do that there." Censorship is someone saying "you can't do that anywhere" before or after threats of either violence or government intervention.
Now, if we're all caught up, let's get back into the game!
A Few Nits to Pick
In my prior column, I overlooked a couple of things that I shouldn't have. I'll go over them here to help everyone get on the same page as me.
-
anywhere — In re: "you can't do that anywhere", this refers to the confines of a given authority or government. It also refers to the Internet in general. Censors work to suppress speech where it matters the most (e.g., within a given country). Such censors often carry the authority necessary to censor (e.g., they work in the government).
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violence — "Violence" refers to physical violence. I hope I don't have to explain how someone threatening to harm a journalist is a form of censorship.
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government — This refers to any branch of any level of government within a given country. And anyone who uses the legal system in an attempt to suppress speech becomes a censor as well. (That person need not be an agent of the government, either.)
From here on out, I'll be addressing specific comments — some of which I replied to, some of which I didn't.
One such comment brought up the idea of a headmaster as a censor. Lexico defines "headmaster" as "(especially in private schools) the man in charge of a school." We can assume a headmaster is the highest authority of the school.
In a reply to that comment, I said the following:
If the headmaster is a government employee, they're a censor. If they're the head of a private institution, they're a "censor" in a merely colloquial sense. The privately owned and operated Liberty University (henceforth Liberty U), for example, has engaged in what I'd normally call "moderation" vis-á-vis its campus newspaper — which, despite it being a frankly immoral and unethical decision, Liberty U has every right to do as a private institution. (Frankly, I'd be tempted to call such people censors outright, but that would kinda go against my whole bit.)
But the example I used gave me pause to reconsider. Jerry Falwell Jr. (the "headmaster" of Liberty U) and free speech have often come to metaphorical blows. I noted this through a link to an article from the blog Friendly Atheist. The article has a quote from a former editor for Liberty U's school newspaper, who describes how Falwell's regime ran the paper:
[W]e encountered an "oversight" system — read: a censorship regime — that required us to send every story to Falwell's assistant for review. Any administrator or professor who appeared in an article had editing authority over any part of the article; they added and deleted whatever they wanted.
That raises the important question: Is that censorship or editorial discretion?
After reading the Washington Post article from which that quote comes, I would refer to this as censorship. I'll get into the why of my thinking on that soon enough. But suffice to say, "editorial discretion" doesn't often involve editors threatening writers with lawsuits or violence.
But though I call that censorship, some people might call it "moderation" or "editorial discretion". Falwell is, after all, exercising his right of association on his private property. What makes that "censorship" are the at-least-veiled threats against "dissenters".
Censorship Via Threats
Speaking of threats! Another comment took issue with how I defined censorship:
Why should it be "censorship" to threaten someone with a small financial loss (enforced by a court), but not to kick them off the platform they use to make the bulk of their income (independent of the government)? Is "you can speak on some other platform" fundamentally less offensive than "you can speak from another country", or is that merely a side-effect of the difficulty of physical movement?
To answer this as briefly as I can: A person can find a new platform with relative ease and little-to-no cost. No one can say the same for finding their way out of a lawsuit.
But that raises another important question: Does any kind of threat of personal or financial ruin count as censorship?
As I said above, the Liberty U example counts as censorship. As for the why? The following quotes from that WaPo article should help explain:
Student journalists must now sign a nondisclosure agreement that forbids them from talking publicly about "editorial or managerial direction, oversight decisions or information designated as privileged or confidential." … Faculty, staff and students on the Lynchburg, Va., campus have learned that it's a sin to challenge the sacrosanct status of the school or its leaders, who mete out punishments for dissenting opinions (from stripping people of their positions to banning them from the school).
School leaders don't have the power of government to back their decisions. But they can still use their power and authority to coerce other people into silence. ("Stop writing stories like this or I'll kick you out of this school and then what will you do.") Even if someone can move to another platform and speak, a looming threat could stop them from wanting to do that.
And the threat need not be one of financial or personal ruin. Someone who holds a journalist at knife point and says "shut up about the president or else" is a censor. The violent person doesn't need government power; their knife and the fear it can cause are all they need.
Money and Speech
A comment I made about companies such as Mastercard and Visa elicited a reply that pointed out how they, too, are complicit in censorship:
I cited Visa and Mastercard specifically because they are at the top of the chain and it's effectively impossible to create a competitor. If they say something's not allowed it isn't unless you want to lose funding. Paypal has been notoriously bad about banning people for innocuous speech over the years, but there are other downstream providers that aren't Paypal (although if all of them throw someone off, it still erases the speech). I am of the opinion that high-level banks should be held to neutrality standards like ISPs should due to their position of power. Competitors would be preferable, but the lack of either is frightening.
They make a good point. Companies like Visa can legally refuse to do business with, say, an adult film studio. So can banks. This becomes censorship when all such companies cut off access to their services. An artist who creates and sells adult art can end up in a bad place if PayPal cuts the artist off from online payments.
As the comment said, creating a competitor to these services is nigh impossible. Get booted from Twitter and you can open a Mastodon for instance; get booted from PayPal and you're fucked. That Sword of Damocles–esque threat of financial ruin could be (and often is) enough to keep some artists from creating adult works.
It's-A Me, Censorship!
Ah, Nintendo and its overzealous need to have a "family-friendly" reputation. Whatever would we do without it~?
Remember when Nintendo of America removed, or otherwise didn't allow objectionable material in their video games until Mortal Kombat came about and there were Congressional hearings and then the ESRB was formed?
Would you call what Nintendo did censorship or moderation? There's an argument for moderation in that it was only within their purview and only on their video game systems, but there's also an argument for censorship in that once the video games went outside of the bounds set by Nintendo of America, they were subpoenaed by the Government with threats of punishment. The ESRB made their censorship/moderations policies moot, but it's an interesting question. What do you think, Stephen?
This example leads to another good question: Do Nintendo, Sony, etc. engage in censorship when they ask a publisher to remove "problematic" material?
Nintendo can allow or deny any game a spot on the Switch library for any reason. If the company had wanted to deny the publication of Mortal Kombat 11 because of the excessive violence, it could've done so without question. To say otherwise would upend the law. But when Nintendo asks publishers to edit out certain content? I'd call that a mix of "editorial discretion" and "moderation".
Nintendo has the right to have its systems associated with specific speech. Any publisher that wants an association with Nintendo must play by Nintendo's rules. Enforcing a "right to publication" would be akin to the government compelling speech. We shouldn't want the law to compel Nintendo into allowing (or refusing!) the publication of Doom Eternal on the Switch. That way lies madness.
Oh, and the ESRB didn't give Nintendo the "right" to allow a blood-filled Mortal Kombat II on the SNES. Nintendo already had that right. Besides, Mortal Kombat II came out on home consoles one week before the official launch of the ESRB. (The first game to receive the "M" rating was the Sega 32X release of DOOM.) The company allowed blood to stay because the Genesis version of the first game — which had a "blood" code — sold better.
That's All, Folks!
And thus ends another episode of Playing Semantics! I'd like to thank everyone at home for playing, and if you have any questions or comments, please offer them below. So until next time(?), remember:
Moderation is a platform/service owner or operator saying "we don't do that here." Personal discretion is an individual telling themselves "I won't do that here." Editorial discretion is an editor saying "we won't print that here," either to themselves or to a writer. Censorship is someone saying "you won't do that anywhere" alongside threats or actions meant to suppress speech.
(untitled comment)
Fun thing to note in re: my comment — practically none of the usual suspects who whine about 230 and “censorship” (read: moderation) ever comment on articles about actual government censorship. Even when I give them the chance to air their grievances about the censorship they so thoroughly decry elsewhere, they don’t speak up. It’s almost as if their incessant whining about “censorship” would be rendered null and void when compared to actual instances of censorship. Imagine that~.
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Their size makes them vulnerable to a local level of fascism. Power in the hands of a small group of people reveals who they really are — and in cases like these, it reveals them to be petty assholes who abuse the power they have because they think that power lets them get away with it. They think no one will fight back or speak up because of fear.
And really, fascism is a philosophy of fear — of both the “undesirables” who are seen as “the problem” and the leader who fixes problems (political or otherwise) through violence (political and physical). Corrupt small-town police rule by fear: “Look, you don’t want me to arrest you and ruin your life, right? So stop getting in my way and I won’t get in yours.” Their brand of “justice” is less about justice and more about revenge. Since revenge is a confession of pain, that “justice” makes others feel pain they don’t deserve to feel.
What everyone in those towns seem to forget is a simple fact that would shift power in favor of the citizenry: The citizenry almost always outnumbers the cops. Even corrupt police can’t arrest/kill everyone in their small town without someone from the outside noticing.
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Gatsby is also available on Standard Ebooks, which does a hell of a job on formatting and the like. They even included the original cover art, Celestial Eyes by Francis Cugat.
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The United States was founded by colonizers who formed their “new nation” in part by using slave labor brought in from other lands to build over the lands stolen from indingenous peoples. Believing this country is above any cruel, dehumanizing, and violent act is to ignore its history.
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If you have to submit your comments over and over again and change your IP address while doing so just to get through the spam filter…what do you think that says about you, Brainy?
also lol at “form contract”, motherfucker please, opening a form to the public doesn’t make a contract or create a public forum
fuck off back to Gab
(untitled comment)
Koby will never do that because he knows doing so would immediately destroy his entire point. Why else do you think he’s not going to even try to answer the question I asked him about “conversion ‘therapy’ ” propaganda?
(untitled comment)
Accurately accused, no less.
Nobody would give a fuck about that if you’d limit that idea to private property you own. But you’re advocating for a change in the law that would allow people to speak on private property they don’t own regardless of whether the owner of that property wants those people there or wants to host the type of speech they espouse.
“Gays should be tortured into being straight” is a “differing viewpoint”, Koby. So yes or no: Should a queer Twitter user be forced to see “conversion ‘therapy’ ” propaganda in their mentions only so Twitter can say it doesn’t “ruin someone’s online viewing experience” by blocking such speech from even being on the platform?
(untitled comment)
Jesus. You really couldn’t resist making an ass out of yourself, could you.
SMS exists because of technical limitations of text messaging at the time. Nobody at the time — and certainly nobody now — even gave copyright infringement a second thought. Copyright limitations have nothing to do with that.
Twitter’s initial character limit was copied from SMS to make it easier for people to transition from texting to tweeting. Copyright limitations didn’t have shit to do with that.
Not an “innovation” so much as a logical step in thinking, and copyright limitations had nothing to do with it (obviously).
That’s not an “innovation” so much as it is a denial of a specific functionality on a specific IRC network. Not even remotely relevant here.
Copyright in and of itself isn’t responsible for the existence of Unicode characters in fonts. That those characters exist in fonts has more to do with getting accurate symbols in fonts and making them available to the masses (thus negating the need for substitutes like yours) than it ever has to do with copyright limitations.
you gotta be fucking shitting me son
you seriously gotta be joking here or else you’re just completely ignorant
okay maybe I can grant you this one
and this one
but now you’re being facetious
and ridiculous
and now I’m fucking done hahahahahaha holy shit are you really this fucking ignorant oh my god someone else gonna have to handle the rest of that shit I’m gonna laugh myself to death if I keep going aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahaha
(untitled comment)
A gay man refers to himself as “queer” in the context of reclaiming a word once considered an anti-gay slur. A homophobe refers to gay men as “queer” in the context of slurring all gay men. If rules against hate speech had to be applied equally regardless of context thanks to a legal dictate from the government, a social media platform might punish either both users or neither user for using the same word. After all, if “queer” is still considered a slur, punishing both users would be “fair”, and if “queer” isn’t considered a slur any more, punishing neither user would be “fair”.
But here in reality, human moderation tends to look at context — and act accordingly. Rules may seem to be “selectively enforced” precisely because examining the use of a word in context can often reveal the true nature of its use. In my example, the gay man uses “queer” as a word of empowerment, while the homophobe uses “queer” as a word of disparagement. Punishing one (the homophobe) without punishing the other (the gay man) is, in this example, the only fair act for a social media service that strives for the inclusivity of once-marginalized voices.
Their rules don’t affect civil rights. Their rules don’t affect whether people can vote or marry or have an abortion. And their rules don’t affect anything outside of their specific platforms.
You want to see people who invent rules as political weapons? Look no further than the GOP.
(untitled comment)
No, Koby does not.
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Power doesn’t corrupt — it reveals.
(untitled comment)
I can’t wait to see all the people who whine about “censorship” on social media decry this instance of actual censorship.
Any minute now… ⏲️
(untitled comment)
No, the point is you think preservationists asking to preserve your game is a signifier of quality or worth. It’s not. Hell, if you want proof that preservation does not indicate the subjective quality of what is being preserved, I have one movie title for you: Manos: The Hands of Fate. That film is regarded as one of the worst films ever made, but someone still spent a shitload of time and money to restore a long-lost workprint of the film and present said restoration in high definition. (Incidentally: Manos is a public domain film.)
What a preservationist thinks about your game is irrelevant. The only reason they’re preserving your game is because it exists, not because they think it’s somehow “worth preserving” due to its quality. When your only argument for the quality of your work is “someone saved it because it was there”, you’re owning yourself so hard that the only possible analogy I could make here would likely sound racist as fuck.
…fucking what
(untitled comment)
I’m more than happy to be corrected on that point. 👍
(untitled comment)
And if video cameras were only used by people making 20-second videos, you might have a point. But they’re not. They’re used by people making music videos and movies, filming police officers doing their jobs (or not), and many many other legal uses. Crippling a tool with numerous legal uses because someone might use it for an illegal act at some nebulous point in the future is lunacy — a move designed to placate the most hardline copyright maximalists for no reason other than “we make shitloads of money so do what we say”. You’re really that kind of bootlicker, huh, tp.
Name ten technologies that were created exclusively by this “copyright innovation”. Note that shorter/more limited uses of existing technologies — e.g., Vine and its six-second videos — do not, I repeat, do not count as an “innovation”.
(untitled comment)
Okay, let’s run down this list and—
…you’ve already lost the game.
Bittorrent, like many data transfer/communication protocols, is content agnostic. The protocol can’t tell whether the content you’re seeding is violating a copyright — nor should it be able to tell.
Ditto for VLC, Windows Media Maker, Source Filmmaker, and any other software that allows for the viewing/editing/creation of video files. To strip those apps of their primary functions because their primary functions could enable some form of copyright infringement — a stripping that you have endorsed in the past as a necessary part of a truly maximalist copyright scheme — is to make useless all of those apps.
Fair Use. ’nuff said.
As I’ve mentioned before: Taking the primary function out of an application because of copyright concerns is to render that app useless. Go ahead and help destroy all the code editors you use right now — then see how far you can get with Meshpage when you can’t even code it because the editor you used is rendered useless thanks to your own efforts.
Fair Use. ’nuff said.
Well there goes every Roku device (and every TV with Roku functionality built it).
Fair Use and format shifting. ’nuff said.
did you…did you seriously just…
…oh my fucking god you’re a full decade behind the times, minimum
neither of those apps were even “music players”, and neither of them have been a thing in years — hell, napster even went legal years after its original shutdown and nobody cared
jfc, tp, get your shit together in a backpack
The same tools used to create animations and games are often the same tools used to create those intros. Besides: To my knowledge, nobody does that shit any more. That was an ’80s/’90s thing, and it was largely limited to the PC scene for obvious reasons.
Two things.
Love the scare quotes around “downloading”. Really brings out the ignorance behind your eyes.
Well, then, say goodbye to Standard Ebooks. And the Internet Archive. And abandonware sites. And other similar archival efforts that are perfectly legal but must fall to appease the gods of Copyright. I mean, why give a fuck about saving our disappearing culture — music, books, games, video broadcasts, whatever — when Disney needs to make sure only Disney can still legally distribute nearly century-old cartoons?
yeah good fucking luck with getting rid of video cameras just because a few assholes use them to camrip the latest Marvel movie
So long as their apps have even one legal use and aren’t intended to be used as an engine of infringement, no court would (or should, at any rate) dare to say “yeah someone used this app to download an episode of a Netflix show, so you need to kill the app”. That you believe people using software with plenty of legal uses as part of an unlawful act is a good enough reason to annihilate that software — some of which you’ve likely used to code your own projects and even browse this site — speaks more to your sociopathic belief in copyright maximalism at all costs than anything else. None of what is being said makes you look even remotely good.
No, what’s clear is that the pirates have better (or at least more preferred) apps at their disposal. A pirate using a video player app other than VLC to rip a YouTube video doesn’t mean VLC can’t be used to rip YouTube videos — it means the pirate doesn’t use VLC for that purpose.
Every kind of DRM can be cracked. All it takes is time. But if nobody bothers to crack your DRM and pirate your app, the reason probably isn’t “the DRM is uncrackable” — it’s most likely that your app sucks more than a Hoover and nobody wants to even bother with it.
Again, tp: Bringing up the fact that pirates haven’t even bothered with Meshpage is a gigantic self-own that you probably don’t want to keep bringing up.
(untitled comment)
Admitting that pirates haven’t bothered to steal your shit is a huge own-goal, tp. You might want to reconsider making that point ever again.
(untitled comment)
I’m sure ROM sites that host Atari games have E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. That fact alone doesn’t make the game any better than it was back in its day.
True preservationists don’t give a fuck about preserving only “good” culture. They give a fuck about preserving all culture, regardless of what people think about it. Don’t mistake their archival of your game as a judgment of quality; they don’t care if it sucks, even if they actually believe it sucks.
I’mma get back to those last six words in a moment…
An archival/cultural preservation group will usually ask for permission because it’s easy and it’s always nice to have. But if permission either can’t or won’t be granted, such groups don’t always play by the rules you think they’re forced to play by. Consider the case of the archival of Flash movies/games in the wake of the death of Flash: Do you really think the archivists on those projects asked thousands upon thousands of people — some of whom may not be alive any more — for permission to archive works from the infancy of Flash animation to, say, last year?
Copyright is why archival efforts such as ROM packs are in a precarious position: The companies/people who published those games still hold copyrights on them, even though many of them are long out of print and will likely never be sold again for a myriad of reasons. (Hi there, Whomp ’Em for the NES!) Archiving such games still violates copyright, regardless of whether the archival is meant to be a true preservationist effort or just an excuse to distribute ROMs.
Do you want the archiving of culture to be made easier? Help change copyright law so it can be made easier. If you don’t? Fight to make copyright law so strong that not even your explicit and expressed permission would let someone archive your game. Your choice.
Oh, and one more thing: “placing it to the web page”? That phrase sounds an awful lot like…y’know…what you claim your Meshpage software does. Does that mean you’re admitting that this “teleporting” technology you keep ranting about isn’t some new “innovation” you pulled from your anal cavity?
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Wow, that looks…boring as hell, even for a action-puzzle game.
Also: ha ha, oh wow — nearly 20 years later and Meshpage still can’t make anything that looks more impressive than the crack group tag on that video.
(untitled comment)
🚨 UPDATE 🚨
The investigation has been dropped. He will be allowed to graduate.
Seems like maybe all the negative press around the attempt by a bunch of thin-skinned dipshits to cancel a critic (who was maybe more accurate than said dipshits would care to admit) was the big reason for Stanford’s decision to resolve the complaint “as expeditiously as possible”. 🤔
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