Pretty much the title. If someone’s comment was flagged in the past I could click to reveal it and read it anyway if I wanted. This option seems to have disappeared. So if I understand correctly now if a single person decides they don’t like another person’s comment they can render it unreadable for everyone else with zero repurcussions for abusing this system?
Previously a flagged comment was hidden by default but you had the option to view and even like it if you thought the flag was unjustified.
This is a bizarre and absurdly, obviously bad change to the forums. What true genius of internet communication implemented this change? Can you revert it? Please?
Are we talking about the same company that, when there’s a troll in a forum thread, they lock the entire topic because the discussion went “offtopic” instead of just suspending the troll?
OK general question here, but i didnt think this was censorship , for me censorship is when you are actvely blocked from “speaking” be that a book being banned a TV show having to be edited or w/e.
a private company refusing to publish your speech but not actually blocking you from saying what you want elsewhere is neither censorship or frankly a problem.
Yo @alsozara I just messaged one of the CMs about this a few hours before you posted it, lol weird timing
Also curious what’s up with that change
From what I remember reading from random Hedge posts in the past, I believe Hedge is the main person interacting with the forums software so may be unintended?
All you said here is “i love when authority tells me what to believe”
This is a common belief throughout history and civilization so don’t feel too bad. But its still a violation of human rights.
In the united states forums are considered platforms. Which are psuedopublic spaces. We already have supreme court rulings that say just because a company owns, say, a town or a parking lot doesn’t mean they have the right to prevent you from speaking freely on it or in it.
I did not say that at all.
What i said is much closer to „i love it when liars get silenced“.
Following your logic here, pretty much every single law or rule should be abolished.
And that is quite obviously a pretty bad idea.
If all censorship is bad, people should be allowed to dox each other, falsely accuse each other publicly, post 18+ content anywhere…
You probably do not actually want that.
If you really think that having certain rules and some censorship, is always bad, you must either be a proponent of chaos, or you are far too optimistic when it comes to the unchecked behavior of some people.
Btw
Nobody has the human right to use anyone elses platform for anything.
It is aprivilege and privileges can be earned or taken away.
First this isnt a change we’ve made. We do not make the forum software. The developers push updates and our board inherits them.
Second, in many cases I believe it takes a number of reports to hide a post, however this depends on the trust level of the reporter. (Unless this has also changed - I’ll need some time to look into what controls have surfaced with these updates).
Lastly, this isnt some crazy push for censorship… it should be evident from reviewing the boards we lean heavily on the side of letting people post they want unless its truly deplorable.
Thanks for explaining Hedge! TBC I personally was not trying to suggest this was a push for censorship or anything of the sort from your end. It was just a noticeable and odd change that I feel worsens the user experience overall, glad to have a little more insight now where it’s coming from.
Why do you consider freedom of speech/expression a human right?
Freedom to believe what you want, sure, but the freedom to express it? If we’re talking about democratic countries freedom of expression and a free press are essential and should be constitutionally protected, but again, hardly a human right.
Reading a later reply, I think you may indeed lump together human rights and constitutional rights., but they are radically different. Another good example is the right to a fair trial and being considered innocent before proven guilty. It’s a fundamental approach for a fair and functioning judicial system and should be constitutional, but it doesn’t make sense for it to be lumped together with basic human rights.
From whence do rights originate? In America the constitution is not what provides or originates rights. It is a formal recognition of inherent, human, rights. Rights built into the fundamental structure of reality. In the terms of the declaration of independence “endowed by their creator” as in provided by God. The highest authority.
Rights are not granted by governments but rather governments are created to protect those rights. This is the entire basis of western political thought for the last 300~ years.
There can be no distinction between believing a thing and being able to freely express that thing. In fact fundamentally there is none in a practical sense. This should be obvious to anyone who has watched a dysyopian movie or read a novel about dystopian governments and tyrannies or read a history of such governments. The reverse isn’t true, of course, expressing a thing isn’t always the same as believing it (playing devils advocate for example).
