Now that this community has mods, I think we should come to something approaching a consensus on whether there should be a rule against posting “nice” comics from transphobic and other kinds of bigoted artists. People like Stonetoss and Jago who have a lot of innocent-looking relatable comics, but also post the most mean, bigoted propaganda.
And I’d like to present a third option besides yes and no: one might post comics from bigoted artists after removing the artist credit, if the mods think that’s a good compromise.
Anthropologists observe societies, writing about them dispassionately and adopting a non-interference, non-judgement policy.
At some point a group of academics decided they wanted to include moral discussions (particularly about their own society), on how things come to be a certain way, and how they could develop differently. Thus Sociology was born.
Anthropology still exists, Sociology eclipsed it, it didn’t kill it. They’re aspects of each other, not in competition.
This is the censorship debate in a nutshell. A community picks a side, and the other side is free to branch off. The choices here are: Comics can be anything, even 3D printed gun files, or porn! No limits! We’re all here to just observe.
Or; we need to advocate some limits, some values. Some values are better for the world, and some are worse.
I believe the no-limits crowd have the less considered standpoint. No group is free from having standards and values. We already moderate, it’s the nature of social groups with implicit rules and ideals.
In my opinion, we’re here to do more than just observe the chaos. We adopt a stance. Improving the world as best we can. So we must decide what improves it, and what doesn’t.
I don’t think totally uncensored free speech improves the world. It still imposes a set of values that impact the world - even if advocates pretend that no choice has been made.
I am a firm believer in “There is no better disinfectant than sunlight.”
I want to see the most vile aspects of people, I want it to be on full display so we know who they are, and we can counter them directly.
I think the algorithm has done a MASSIVE amount of damage by cordoning things off and creating little pockets of filth festering in darkness out of view until it overflows and spills out on us all.
You’re mistaken in thinking “The Algorithm” is some objective equation. I can’t stress this enough -
It’s not.
It’s a lever, a programatic tool billionaires can adjust to control public opinion. What’s more there’s evidence of this. Internal leaks from Facebook/Meta reported that they were fully aware certain types of commercial beauty standard promotions embeded in social media in an unmoderated fashion on their sites were inadvertently causing young girls to display suicidal ideation.
They didn’t stop it (because of the ad profit). There’s a whole two part podcast on this (and other forms of confirmed algorithmic damage here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIR0Kd27RhI ).
Likewise, YouTube prior to Trump’s election were very much aware that their algorithm was leading young men through a pipeline to far-right ideas and Nazi content (again, this podcast episode discusses the news and facts of this case: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IekScPTekz8 )
I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH, the idea that Sunlight will disinfect our views, is no-longer (and I believe the sources cited in those two podcasts show this), is no longer a viable opinion. It’s really an abdication to a higher power, without anywhere NEAR enough awareness of what that “higher power” really is: A loaded version of free speech, where the richest promote and demote views that best suit their interests.
I’m not saying I have a solution, but it’s really fucking important that we all strongly recognize the gravity and extent of the problem. Because people are now growing up in, and entire social circles are being actively politically groomed by these algorithms in a way that’s never happened to this extent before.
The free market of ideas is a convenient LIE which benefits the wealthy and most people do not push back on at all (they see it as objective and impartial). We need far left radicalism but there are no billionaires interested in allowing that into their algorithmically walled gardens - where they control the “sunlight” of what your feed thinks is popular.
They aren’t accusing the left of indoctrinating the young because it was happening. They were accusing them, because they were doing it themselves already, algorithmically.
The “indoctrination” is just another Satanic Panic, the dumbest things you have ever heard being repeated enough by “trusted” sources it becomes fact to them.
It’s Meta and Xitter now, though, not James Dobson on AM radio.
This describes how society in general has handled all vices, since long before the Internet.
Sadly accurate, but it has been wilful ignorance, now it is enforced by what the machines think we want to see.
I think it is worse now, than before, it was a lot easier to pick up that “other” newspaper than it is to break out of your algorithm.