This is the amazing thing Yishan misses. He claims there's no difference between spam filtering, moderation and censorship.
How come he's been in charge at reddit all these years and never looked at it through the lens of "consent"?
Ask, can you consent to this? For spam filtering, the answer is obviously hell yes. That's pretty much how we define spam: stuff we don't want, and which essentially no one wants.
Moderation is when it's still about you and what you want for yourself, but where you concede that some people may want it. And it may be more or less OK that some people want it, but this is not the place for it. If you don't want religion or politics in your game discussion group, that's moderation.
Censorship is about controlling what other people want, in order to shape their opinions and beliefs. You can't coherently consent to it. You're not worried that there's some magically seductive piece of propaganda that will turn you into a Nazi, or a furry for that matter. No, you're worried that there's a seductive piece of propaganda that will work on other people. That's the defining aspect of censorship, that it's for other people's sake, not your own.
Now, censors will often claim that they're only doing it for themselves, that they just get so disgusted by furries (or whatever) that they just don't want to deal with it. A way to test that, is to see how transparent they are about their supposed moderation. If it's moderation, being transparent about it is perfectly fine. But for the censor, transparency is not possible, because even letting the poor flock know that the seductive information exists, could tempt them to go look for it.
Another way, of course, is whether they are content with moderating their own spaces. People that try their damndest to eliminate the thing they hate from existence with DDoS attacks, targeted harassment, or preventing communication they're not even a party to, are obviously censorious, not merely "moderating".
Now, there's a separate discussion of when, if ever, it's appropriate to censor. Maybe if we're talking about people who can't meaningfully consent and are easily manipulated (i.e. children). Maybe if there's some sort of existential issue at stake (e.g. national security).
But let's not pretend, like Yishan Wong does, that consent doesn't matter.
How come he's been in charge at reddit all these years and never looked at it through the lens of "consent"?
Ask, can you consent to this? For spam filtering, the answer is obviously hell yes. That's pretty much how we define spam: stuff we don't want, and which essentially no one wants.
Moderation is when it's still about you and what you want for yourself, but where you concede that some people may want it. And it may be more or less OK that some people want it, but this is not the place for it. If you don't want religion or politics in your game discussion group, that's moderation.
Censorship is about controlling what other people want, in order to shape their opinions and beliefs. You can't coherently consent to it. You're not worried that there's some magically seductive piece of propaganda that will turn you into a Nazi, or a furry for that matter. No, you're worried that there's a seductive piece of propaganda that will work on other people. That's the defining aspect of censorship, that it's for other people's sake, not your own.
Now, censors will often claim that they're only doing it for themselves, that they just get so disgusted by furries (or whatever) that they just don't want to deal with it. A way to test that, is to see how transparent they are about their supposed moderation. If it's moderation, being transparent about it is perfectly fine. But for the censor, transparency is not possible, because even letting the poor flock know that the seductive information exists, could tempt them to go look for it.
Another way, of course, is whether they are content with moderating their own spaces. People that try their damndest to eliminate the thing they hate from existence with DDoS attacks, targeted harassment, or preventing communication they're not even a party to, are obviously censorious, not merely "moderating".
Now, there's a separate discussion of when, if ever, it's appropriate to censor. Maybe if we're talking about people who can't meaningfully consent and are easily manipulated (i.e. children). Maybe if there's some sort of existential issue at stake (e.g. national security).
But let's not pretend, like Yishan Wong does, that consent doesn't matter.