And now I’ve gotten a tweet that says “so all comments most agree with you or they are evil? I remember a certain dictator having the same view…”
HAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Okay.
This is not a free speech issue. Moderating or disallowing online comments is not an issue of rights bestowed on you by your government, or your inalienable human rights, being stripped away.
If I own a restaurant, I can refuse people service for any reason, and there might be times when I should refuse people service. If some patrons start loudly spouting homophobic language, for instance, this might make other patrons uncomfortable. I am well within my rights to ask them to either stop doing so or to leave. If I do nothing, it is a tacit endorsement of their behavior. Other customers may not feel welcome.
Maybe they stop coming to the restaurant because my lack of action makes it clear that I’m not interested in creating an environment that is welcoming for them. And perhaps the homophobic assholes tell their other homophobic friends that there’s a cool new place in town where they can all hang out and say whatever shit they want, and it seems like the owner is cool with it because she never says or does anything about it.
This is what happens in comments sections when hateful perspectives are allowed to pass unchecked. People who would be targets of that hate don’t feel welcomed or comfortable, and are understandably a lot less inclined to participate.
Maybe you don’t want to tell the assholes to leave your restaurant because they’re some of the biggest spenders. Maybe some game sites don’t want to moderate their comments sections too strictly because the people leaving the awful comments are largely from the same demographic that advertisers on their site are paying big bucks to reach, so they let them get away with a lot of stuff. But if you’re the owner of that restaurant, or someone who is making decisions about comment policy for a website, you don’t have to. And you shouldn’t, if you have any interest whatsoever in creating a place where all kinds of people feel welcome.
Notes
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pack-yr-romantic-mind said: Oh wow what does it say about our historical education in the U.S. that people think Hitler is just a device to win any Internet argument?
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