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Just wanted to let you know that I deleted a member with the username 'richardspencer' today as it appeared to be setup as a fake account (email flagged). I don't know yet know what our policy should be regarding statements and opinions of Richard Spencer. It seems like discussing the arguments that lead up to extreme positions should be handled in a different way than others. What do you think?

Admin 8 Apr 4
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8

Free speech and let ideas be challenged if u censor on here then ur no better than twitter,Facebook, etc

Spam accounts can be dangerous to other members, what Admin did was far from censorship.

8

I'm a free speech absolutist, and I think this forum should be by and for real people who share and argue ideas in good faith rationally. To that end, fake accounts should expect to be deleted. Those are my opinions anyway.

How does one define "free speech absolutist" when they wouldn't allow Ben Franklin to publish some of his best work because he used a pseudonym?

@WingedRyno The word "absolute" comes from the Latin "absolutus," which means "unconditional." It means that I believe that there should be no restrictions on what can be said in a public space. Of course, that does not mean that I believe everyone should be able to say whatever they want with impunity (That's also from Latin: impunitas--freedom or safety from punishment). When we make public statements, we must also—if the right and privilege of free speech is to mean anything—be willing to take responsibility for those statements we make and be prepared to defend them in good faith with sound reason.

In this day in which we live, halfwits speak publicly in short sentences, making half-baked assertions based on nothing but how they feel at the moment fortified with misapplied illogic. Most people—perhaps they’ve always been this way—are little more than windsocks shifting with the prevailing breeze. Agent provocateurs know that and infiltrate groups like ours to sew discord and sidetrack. Only a fool would deny it.

I think it is important for members in a group like ours—especially in these days—to be committed to careful thinking, personal responsibility and good faith argumentation. As I said previously, “I think this forum should be by and for real people who share and argue ideas in good faith rationally.” That means: No fake accounts. We should be committed to free speech in this forum, but it doesn’t mean that membership is a free-for-all.

Finally, I am not very sure why you bring up Benjamin Franklin and his use of pseudonyms. He employed their use for any number of reasons, but the main reason he had to hide his identity was due to the social constraints of his day. Benjamin Franklin was not a gentleman in the traditional sense and for him to publish in his early years would have been thought inappropriate. I don’t have time to go into all the details here, but I do recommend the following book:

[amazon.com]

So once again, I am a free speech absolutist. I hope I have made myself clear.

Yours,
Q.

@DavidQDauthier I appreciate the clarification although I question whether a person can be deemed a free speech absolutist who believes that "fake accounts" should be deleted and therefore silenced. I brought up Ben Franklin because I don't think it's a stretch to see how somebody posting anonymously would get censored under the guise of "fake account."

Publius posting the Federalist Papers could be silenced along with Poor Richard simply for being a "fake account" which of course means a person using a pseudonym since it's unlikely that AI has run amok and is posting here.

@WingedRyno I see your point, but the question is about membership and not free speech. Just as not everyone has a right to citizenship, not everyone has a right to membership. Anonymity allows one to escape taking responsibility for what one says, and I don't think that is conducive to constructive discussion.

We all know that there is no shortage of people in this forum afflicted with weakened cognitive skills, and as long as they have legitimate registrations and post comments in good faith, no matter how fatuous, they must be allowed to say their say. No one is denying that.

Although, it might be a good idea to have a kind of probationary period before full membership is granted. As you say, AI may not as of yet "run amok," but if safeguards are not in place, it will only be a matter of time before it is.

@DavidQDauthier we are not discussing whether admin here has a legal First Amendment duty to respect free speech or whether anybody has a "right" to post here, we agree the forum owners have no such obligation and we have no such rights. We're discussing what the owners should do and giving our reasons why in response to them asking.

Anonymity allows one to escape taking responsibility for what one says? In what way do you mean? What is this "responsibility" that you speak of and how is it not able to be applied against those who post in ways you don't approve of?

"We all know that there is no shortage of people in this forum afflicted with weakened cognitive skills, and as long as they have legitimate registrations and post comments in good faith, no matter how fatuous, they must be allowed to say their say."

I don't believe they must be allowed to say their say. Again, none of us have any rights here. It's up to the forum owners. They should be allowed to have their say, in my opinion, even if it doesn't measure up to your personal view of "weakened cognitive skills" and you should be able to block them and go on your merry way and surround yourself with people who meet or exceed your rigorous intellectual standards. The rest of us who might not meet those high standards could perhaps benefit from talking to each other. Like basketball. Michael Jordan might not benefit from you and I playing basketball with our "weakened basketball skills" and might certainly opt out of a game with the two of us, but that doesn't mean that you and I couldn't make each other better at our own level.

Now if Mike is saying that you and I shouldn't be allowed to play each other in basketball because he is so good and so towering above us, well then in my view Mike has "weakened cognitive skills."

Normally I would say be like Mike. But not in this example.

@WingedRyno Thank you for the complete response. I appreciate the time it took for you to right it. I will reply to you in the other thread. You know the one I mean.

5

The best antiseptic to hate is exposure of their beliefs, not bottling them up (which will allow them to ferment sub-rosa and eventually explode in violent ways). If anyone like Richard Spencer wants a forum on this site, let their cul-de-sac ideology be on full view. Perhaps even some may be convinced to seek a different path by the respectful exchange of ideas.

5

In my view, if this site is going to go down the road of blocking and banning people, it's going to become irrelevant. I know that is difficult in execution and I appreciate that you transparently shared your action with the community. I also realize my comments are just input, this is your site and you will rightfully do with it as you wish. But the chance to be successful in this market has been granted by the stupidity of companies like Twitter and Facebook so it's best not to follow their lead that gave you this opportunity, especially as the majority here are likely here to give this forum a spin to see if it's an alternative.

But people who want to wreck conversations do exist and they can destroy forums. Here is a solution I suggest and it's one I have on my own coding back burner, but since you're executing (and well done so far) I'll suggest it.

We have a block function for users. If it doesn't exist, also add content filtering (keywords or topics) so that users can even block discussions that talk about a particular subject. But the best feature, I think, would be the ability for users to maintain block lists and for people to be able to subscribe to them.

That way a person can create a block list with a description (ie No Hate Speech: people who say X, Y, Z will be added to this list). Then a person who administers that list can add people to it. Other users, should they agree and want to grant some control of what they see to another they trust, can subscribe to that list and all those people in the list will be blocked for them.

These tools allow people to tailor discussion and avert their eyes so that people do not have to be silenced and the rest of us won't have to have our reality we seek curated by somebody we don't know choosing what we can and cannot see.

What do you think about marking the account "Probably Fake" and let them still post?

@Admin Unless you are going to go the route of Twitter, with their verified accounts, then best just to... leave it alone. Let whoever it was speak, and name their account whatever they want.

@Admin
I think you’re going to make an awful lot of work for yourself.
Why put yourself in the position of trying to make those decisions?
If you start, how soon before the Government begins to force you at their behest?
People who are numbnuts or rude or insulting by nature are sometimes fun to argue with ... or simply boring ... people will soon enough ostracize those who are not worth engaging with.

@Admin I agree with the commenters above, not enough juice for the squeeze and fraught with peril it seems to me. I would just allow users to block them as they wish. The "troll" or "fake account" won't know they're being blocked and will continue to speak to those who wish to hear and nobody else.

The real risk is that the Federalist Papers wouldn't get published here because Publius was a fake account...

5

Why not let the rest of us help you with that.

There is a report function and if "richardspencer" was offensive then we can report. If a post of his remains because no one found it offensive, so be it

A 'report' function is the wrong way to proceed, because it is based on the concepts:

  • censoring speech that some people don't like
  • admins can monitor all posts/responses, and will adjudicate properly

Instead, we need a downvote system so that:

  • people can say whatever they want
  • people can express disagreement without censoring
  • downvoted posts get pushed to the bottom of the stack, so that the better comments are at the top of the feed

@jneedler agreed. They could also code in the ability for shared block lists. That way HollyLouise or others who are apparently concerned greatly about what the rest of us can see and consider can create and publish and maintain a "block list" that other liked minded people can subscribe to in order to allow HollyLouise and others to control what they may see. Like the Southern Poverty Law Center does by outsourcing its opinion of what is "good" and "evil" to others who trust what they say and don't spend the time to do their own research.

And then the rest of us can ignore their block lists and make our own decisions. With these tools, everybody is a winner except those people who want to control what WE can view and consider and discuss.

@WingedRyno

I'm okay with the 'block' function being an option, and I suppose a 'block list subscription' option might have some usefulness, but I feel like blocking trolls just encourages the cycle of them making new accounts, requiring you to block them again, and again, and again .....

I think downvoting is different, because they can waste their time posting whatever they want .... but if 2-3 users on here read it and decide it's useless trash, they can basically kick it to the bottom of the list, where almost nobody even wastes their time seeing it any more.

It protects absolute free speech, but also lets us as a community, collectively promote intelligent discussion by 'upvoting' reasoned discussions, while also downvoting trollery.

@jneedler I haven't used the block function before, if you block somebody do they know that you've blocked them? If not, they would likely just post as normal rather than be encouraged to create new accounts?

4

We do have the option to block . If we encounter a problem , just make that user a non issue .

3

Determining the motivations of individuals is not as easy as many may believe, so trying to set up multiple accounts (I assume that is the matter here, at least) for the purposes of propaganda of one kind or another is different from the individual who wishes to be disruptive toward certain users. I do not remember reading Mr Spenser nor his comments on anything I posted.

One man's extreme position is another man's gentle truth. The fact that I have the ability to make a choice as to read or not read is critical to freedom of speech. I have noticed that YouTube tries to steer me into choosing their recommendations which tend toward progressive politics. Filters matter when browsing and categories help the individual to better define the material for which he is searching. So far, I have not been unhappy with what I have found on this site. I see that there are a few outliers trying to sell the same nonsense I've encounter over the years and this does not offend me. On the other hand if Mr Spencer was calling for the assinination of the president or the over throw of the government by violent means then your duty would be clear, call the FBI and report his actions and cut his access. I would expect the same if someone was running a sexual services business on this site, cut the access. There are a few activities that should be enjoined because they are contrary to your business plan. Multi-level marketing schemes that entice the reader into joining a pyramid scheme are not to everyone's liking. Let's face it, you and Minds, and a few others are the new attempts to replace Facebook. There is chat type people, individuals who want to vent some feelings about the world, and a few who look for some honest discussion. I hope this helps.

3

Wait till folks cut up before dropping the hammer. And again, we can all fend for ourselves as adults.

2

Are you so sure it was fake?

Yes, in this case, yes.

If a "fake account" posts here that "1+1=2" and a "real account" posts here that "1+1=3" which one should be banned?

I see a lot of real people saying really harmful and awful and untrue things. Why are so-called "fake accounts" any worse?

2

I'm not crazy about fake accounts. As far as Richard Spencer's opinions go. I detest them. That said, if they want to be here and they can keep it civil, let them be here. I have had a discussion with someone on here that has similar views. So, at least one is already here.

As far as the discussion went, it was very much like arguing with someone on the left. His side of the discussion was mostly name calling but, my feeling is that it went right up to the line without crossing it.

2

With all the smart people on here it'd be good to leave a few mice. Of course I'm opposed to Richard Spencer because I keep getting him confused with Robert. If we could just have a tool to automatically rename him to Dick I'd be good with that.

Transparency is key, but that's gonna be a lot of work. How can we help?

2

It's a tough call to have to censure someone where free speech is as celebrated as it is here. Where do we draw that line as a community? When does free speech become a problem? Each of us feels we are free to say what is on our minds and attempt to discuss what is relevant. Each of us also bears the responsibility to react to the inflamatory or "hate speech" accordingly as well. In my opinion, when that line is drawn in the sand and censorship of any type is introduced, the "freedom" is no longer available.

2

I think we all agree that free speech in this forum is paramount, considering that’s what so many of us came here seeking. There has to be rules though, otherwise, it’ll be anarchy. Blatant disrespect and hate speech is usually very distinguishable from expressing ideas as free speech, so as long as that’s defined in your TOS and the user agrees to it, I don’t see why someone in violation shouldn’t get the boot. I’m no guru on the subject though, so take all that with a grain of salt!

what does that mean ? ... i'm a censor so free speech as long as i'm not offended ... geee ...sounds familiar

@idoidoido judging by the previous post you made above, I’m not sure you and I could ever be on the same page....but that’s ok. The fact you don’t think it’s possible to speak freely, without being a complete twat, speaks volumes though. That does not equate to censorship.

Censorship and being respectful of another human being are two entirely different things. Hopefully, someday, you’ll realize that.

2

well that sort of sorted my search ... free speech does not apply here any more than it does on the other sites you run ... another bunch of PC dead shit collecting info in a click bait trap

How do you know they are fake acct. And not extreme free speech opinion

@Gerri4321 i've seen their other sites ... obscurantism by obfuscation ... no deletes ... agents of the dispossession industry ... be careful what you write here it may come back to bite

@Gerri4321 First of all, I was very open about deleting this member and the reason why. The member made 3-4 comments containing grammar errors, IP didn't match location, and used a Russian email service. I will work harder on a system to show the deleted member and posts (perhaps to level 5+ or so?). I want to be transparent here as much as possible.

1

It will never cease to amaze me that when situations like this come up people's logic and reasoning go out the window. That account was determined to be spam/possible scammer, Admin did the right thing, no one was censored. Spam accounts like that have a tendency to cause grief to unsuspecting members who might be quick to divulge "critical details" of themselves.

1

Is it’s actually Richard Spencer let it be. Fake accounts not allowed. Free speech for all. Verified accounts only for prominent people.

Totally agree. I actually learned about his extremist opinions on this site when someone posted a video of him talking. Up until then, I had just assumed he was a poor conservative fellow who was being smeared by snowflake leftists calling everyone else "racist", "white supremacist". It's important to have honest discussions about ideas so that we can approve or disapprove with full understanding.

Dear Admin: If it's a fake account, by all means, delete it. But if it's actually him, I'd love to see what he has to say and debate him.

Also, I hope Faith Goldy makes her way here.

1

I don't believe there should be discussion handled differently from others unless it is mentioned first. Staying on the topic of a conversation should always be important though ( unless you are in one of the goofy groups that want to put seriousness aside a little).

Every discussions should be treated equally in a platform, but maybe allowing people who open post to choose a category like "serious" could help give "a reason" to stop trolling comments in a serious post.

1

Good going. Fake accounts are troll accounts.

1

As the administrator of the site, thats totally your call. Filtering users, because of a potential perception that their views are too extreme for users to handle, instead of the allowing community to correct, or shun them, could end up making reasonable users, with varied views feel marginalized. We are in turn, as users of this site, trusting that our views are not going to be used against us. Richard Spencer whom I had never heard of before, was so extreme, I couldn't tell if it was a gag or not. But for now, you have my trust that you will do what is right and that it will be for good. Sorry, I am a wordy sort, maybe some here would totally like me to be deleted, lol!

0

This ad for this forum from Facebook mentions "free speech" and I suspect many will come here looking for just that...

0

In a burgeoning community, I would guess, being labeled an alt right or white supremacy community would be a bad thing. I posted the comment for clarification also. I could really care less about some idiot being a ws but, I don’t really want to promote a WS community, whether it is one or gives the appearance of one. ????

0

Okay the hunt is over and now i know and can say i see truth in the terminology ... one person's terrorist is another's patriot and unction and obfuscation are how it plays here

0

I would think it would be relatively easy to code the ability for users to publish their block lists so that others could subscribe to them. Then admin could have its list that people could subscribe to, others could have their block list dedicated to their version of so called "hate speech" etc etc. Would be nice if somebody maintaining one of these lists that others can subscribe to (which blocks people in that list maintained by somebody else) had to link their decision to block the person with a post from that person and insert a little blurb on why. That way some people could agree to have the reality of views presented to them controlled by others. Which is what some want (always for "good" reasons of course).

So if I'm subscribed to the SPLC Block List that might be created and maintained (for example) I can every once in awhile peruse it and see who they have blocked (and therefore filtered from my feed) along with why linked to a particular post. Then I might see they blocked the username "Maajid Nawaz" for "being a hateful ideologue" along with an example post from that user which might say something like "not all Muslims are evil, but some are" at which point I might unsubscribe from the SPLC block list because I might determine they are stifling conversation and not actually filtering out hateful views or whatever.

Such a tool is not necessary because people can already block people they don't want to. But this is another tool that people could use to tailor content while not degrading the conversation for others. It's a win win.

Given the database tables already in existence and the existing block feature, I would guess it wouldn't take more than a day to add this feature. Perhaps users here would crowd source fund it if needed. I certainly would do my part if it would make this place a forum where free speech was respected (although not mandated by law since this is private).

0

I'm not sure who Richard Spencer is, is he the guy that runs jihad watch?

0

Well aprears to be a fake accout ans is are w diff thing's. And you aked for opinions if you did not want Question's and opinions on the subject then why Ask? Why suggestion is look to what is protected under free speech under the constitution.

@hollylouise yes i apologize ofen for my typos if you look at my profile you will see i had a head injury and now have nerve damage and the connections from the brsin the the eyes and other area's of the body do not function so well is this a problem?

@HollyLouise thanks better me then a child as i see it ?

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