The Epstein case has a lot of evidence supporting a conspiracy, and I certainly think there is more to it than we know. But in recent days I’ve seen upvoted comments about (a) the NYC shooter not actually targeting the NFL despite all reporting suggesting otherwise, and (b) that Russia intentionally caused the Earthquake.
I think given the self-selective nature of a federated social network we already need to be vigilant about preventing any kind of 4chanification. I’m not calling for censorship of any kind, but I do find it raises some beige flags for me about Lemmy…
Ah yes, the most rational Lemming claiming that removing content isn’t censorship - rather than arguing that censorship can be good, actually
Censorship is saying that you aren’t allowed to say something out in the open. The fediverse is a wonderful place, where anyone can host their own server and say whatever they like out in the open.
There is nothing though that says that any one of us are forced to host your opinions, and none of us are forced to federate with a server that does allow it. In short, you may have the freedom to say what you like - but we also have the freedom to choose not to listen to it, and the freedom to not host it. None of that is censorship.
‘The freedom to choose not to host it’ is such an insidious way to frame censoring opinions you don’t like on your platform. So the tankie triad can censor anarchist opinions, and that’s fine, because they’re just choosing to not host your content’?
Correct, because on this world-wide-web you are free to host it yourself. I will be up in arms with you however if the internet changes and declares that we don’t have the rights to host our own servers.
If the instance or community guidelines state “X isn’t allowed,” then it isn’t censorship to remove X. It becomes censorship when mods start removing things for reasons other than enforcing instance or community guidelines. Until that point, it’s just content moderation.
If the c/Androids community guidelines state that “This community is about human-like robots. Posts regarding the phone OS are unwelcome” and a mod removes such a post, that isn’t censorship. Likewise for spam, or reposts, or any number of other things.
On the other hand if the mods remove a post about a human-like robot built in China because they’re sinophobic, that is censorship. Likewise if the human-like robot was built by Tesla, if the lead engineer were a woman, or anything along those lines. Likewise if the post were instead critical of such a robot - still censorship (unless it’s a news only community and the post was free text or a meme).
Likewise if a community’s guidelines state that controversial statements without reputable sources backing them up, statements known to be false, or statements that have been flagged as false by a fact checker are prohibited, then removing such statements isn’t censorship. It’s moderation.