Discussion It really feels like the internet is dying

[Fragile]

for those of you who don't know, reddit recently banned over 2000 communities without warning and under the pretense of racism. admittedly, there was rampant racism in some of them, but when you dig deeper you will realize that what they really banned was not the racism, it was the criticism of the platform and an obvious attempt at silencing certain political views. they even banned large feminist and lgbt groups that are critic of certain ideologies that are being pushed as facts or simply because they politically align more to the right.

this is not the first time that something like this has happened on an internet platform, youtube and twitter have done it many times and now there's a lot of pressure from advertisers to make facebook follow the same path. censorship is now rampant on the internet and it's only getting worse and worse by the day. remember 10 years ago when you could say whatever you wanted on the internet and if you didn't like something you could just look away? those days are long gone by now.

feels very weird when big tech and ultracapitalistic companies are in control of almost the entire political discourse, there is no place for a common ground when thinking differently means that you no longer have a voice. And I don't identify myself with any political group, if anything, I'm left in my country but apparently far right in the shitty US politics where extremism is the norm nowadays.

My issue with this is not about the politics involved, the problem here is that freedom of expression is dying a slow and painful death. and the people supporting this shit should know that when they are done censoring and deplatforming voices that they don't like, the big companies are going to do the same for them.

 

[Soulless_Angel]

I get you totally, Unless you follow the crowd you are not allowed a voice, Similar but not, the other night a social media page shared a link and asked for thoughts.
I was blunt said, I didn't like it, (they asked for thoughts, right) within half hour I had so much hate, how dare I say something so horrible, my words could cause the person who did the article to go harm themselves, then one dick pulled out my mental health blog and started ripping me!
After the 40th comment I removed my original post, though I had nearly triple figure likes, all other comment's were loving the post,
It was almost anger making, Just because I openly stated I did not like the post, I was not allowed a voice,
What the original question should have said was *Thoughts, but nothing negative because we don't like to hear it*

How is society supposed to grown and evolve if we are not allowed a different voice, how can we move with times when you are constantly being censored and deleted, when posts that go against the grain are removed.
Don't get me wrong, I do feel the true hate, the true racism and other heavy shit needs to be monitored and when gets to bad removed.

As I write this, I can hear my husband listening to a podcast with similar mindsets, (he doesn't know I am writing this)
this is what he is listening too

 

[alizee]

A few subreddits banned were hateful towards transgender people. I'm transgender myself and one of the main reasons I'm committing suicide this year is because I had hateful parents while living in a community that had similar hateful ideas about transgender people. Kept me from transitioning young and where I didn't get to prevent puberty ruining my life. What lgbt subreddits are you referring to OP?

 

[Fragile]

I get you totally, Unless you follow the crowd you are not allowed a voice, Similar but not, the other night a social media page shared a link and asked for thoughts.
I was blunt said, I didn't like it, (they asked for thoughts, right) within half hour I had so much hate, how dare I say something so horrible, my words could cause the person who did the article to go harm themselves, then one dick pulled out my mental health blog and started ripping me!
After the 40th comment I removed my original post, though I had nearly triple figure likes, all other comment's were loving the post,
It was almost anger making, Just because I openly stated I did not like the post, I was not allowed a voice,
What the original question should have said was *Thoughts, but nothing negative because we don't like to hear it*

How is society supposed to grown and evolve if we are not allowed a different voice, how can we move with times when you are constantly being censored and deleted, when posts that go against the grain are removed.
Don't get me wrong, I do feel the true hate, the true racism and other heavy shit needs to be monitored and when gets to bad removed.

As I write this, I can hear my husband listening to a podcast with similar mindsets, (he doesn't know I am writing this)
this is what he is listening too

Exactly, people these days seem to confuse different views and opinions with hate towards them. It's reqally sad that there is no way to speak about our differences and reach a common ground, now the moment that you comment anything other than absolute compliments and adoration is considered hate speech or ______phobia.

And things are not likely to change, both sides seem to be equally extreme now. and I say both sides because having a neutral viewpoint on things is apparently no longer an option.

A few subreddits banned were hateful towards transgender people. I'm transgender myself and one of the main reasons I'm committing suicide this year is because I had hateful parents while living in a community that had similar hateful ideas about transgender people. Kept me from transitioning young and where I didn't get to prevent puberty ruining my life. What lgbt subreddits are you referring to OP?

I'm sorry about your situation.

The lgbt subs I'm walking about were mostly right wing lgbt and all the gender critical ones, which had a lot of vocal lesbians on it, I think I'm missing a few but those were the largest ones.

I know, I know, radical feminist can have some... strong opinions on trans people and even I disagree with some of their views, but don't they have the right to be open about them?
but the issue is, the real reason why they were silenced was because of the politics behind the gender narrative. aparently, this is one of those topics that you don't get to disagree with even if you support the right of trans people to do whatever they want with they bodies and respect their pronouns.

 

[Brick In The Wall]

This issue is much deeper then the internet. We live in a cancel culture now where it easily applies to real life as well. Enjoy the little "freedoms" you have now because they're being taken away one by one at a staggering pace.

 

[alizee]

I'm sorry about your situation.

The lgbt subs I'm walking about were mostly right wing lgbt and all the gender critical ones, which had a lot of vocal lesbians on it, I think I'm missing a few but those were the largest ones.

I know, I know, radical feminist can have some... strong opinions on trans people and even I disagree with some of their views, but don't they have the right to be open about them?
but the issue is, the real reason why they were silenced was because of the politics behind the gender narrative. aparently, this is one of those topics that you don't get to disagree with even if you support the right of trans people to do whatever they want with they bodies and respect their pronouns.

I think the issue specifically with gender critical was that the subreddit/community was designed around harassing transgender people. I assume most don't realize how much of the content was baiting transgender people to commit suicide and straight up devaluating a person that is attempting to fix an issue with the sex they were assigned at birth by medical intervention.

It's really disingenuous to express what they did was arguing an opinion in good faith. Everyone has an opinion and society has the right to free speech but not when the speech threatens the health of others.

I'm unsure how anyone can justify not banning what they did to be honest. Gender Dysphoria isn't a new a thing medically and was even known during world war II in the medical field. A lot of people get uptight about it because of religious views that "God makes everyone perfect" and while ignoring the medical community doesn't adopt that ideology because birth or later in life defects do harm a person throughout life; thus doctors prefer to fix the problem and assuming it will help the person contribute better to society as a more functioning person.

It's really sad while being a transgender person myself that I never see politics target other classifications of mental illness but for some reason transgender people should be treated badly. It used to be people that were gay and being gay used to be considered a psychological illness. Anyway I could write more about it but you likely aren't a hateful person but someone that just assumes free speech is being harmed without knowing the harm that the speech was doing to transgender people.

 

[CynicalHopelessness]

remember 10 years ago when you could say whatever you wanted on the internet and if you didn't like something you could just look away? those days are long gone by now.

They are not, it's just common discussion platforms have aggregated, centralized. You wouldn't be using reddit 10 years ago alone, you'd also usually be a member of a bunch of ad-hoc thematic forums. We mostly gave up our small communities in favor of social networks which purpose has become to sell you to advertisers. Thank capitalism for social networks being commodified in favor of advertisers.

But it has never been impossible to have the old technology and approach. It's just not too common these days, but this forum is an example of such thing. It has its own rules but still manages to avoid censorship, unlike e.g. some reddit suicide communities.

 

[Fragile]

I think the issue specifically with gender critical was that the subreddit/community was designed around harassing transgender people. I assume most don't realize how much of the content was baiting transgender people to commit suicide and straight up devaluating a person that is attempting to fix an issue with the sex they were assigned at birth by medical intervention.

that's quite a dangerous claim to make, It's true that there was some harassment, but they were also being harassed by many trans activists in very shitty ways. that place was mostly a space for women who believed in biological sex and rejected the new gender ideology or being replaced by trans people in woman spaces. now they no longer have that place. and the suicide baiting is something that I never heard about, although admittedly, I only started paying attention to this debate for a couple of years now.

It's really sad while being a transgender person myself that I never see politics target other classifications of mental illness but for some reason transgender people should be treated badly. It used to be people that were gay and being gay used to be considered a psychological illness. Anyway I could write more about it but you likely aren't a hateful person but someone that just assumes free speech is being harmed without knowing the harm that the speech was doing to transgender people.

the real issue is, trans people have plenty of spaces online where they can express themselves while being protected, but women and LGBT people who don't want to take part on the whole gender narrative are not allowed to have similar spaces, and as I said before, they can be very supportive of trans people and still get silenced just for a single belief. and for some reason is perfectly fine to say stuff like 'kill terfs' or send them death threats on all big social media.

the sad thing is that normal trans people who just want to be a part of society are being damaged by both the radical feminists and the very vocal trans activists who don't really represent their interests. I know that this is a very complex topic and I don't see good arguments from either side.

 

[alizee]

that's quite a dangerous claim to make, It's true that there was some harassment, but they were also being harassed by many trans activists in very shitty ways. that place was mostly a space for women who believed in biological sex and rejected the new gender ideology or being replaced by trans people in woman spaces. now they no longer have that place. and the suicide baiting is something that I never heard about, although admittedly, I only started paying attention to this debate for a couple of years now.



the real issue is, trans people have plenty of spaces online where they can express themselves while being protected, but women and LGBT people who don't want to take part on the whole gender narrative are not allowed to have similar spaces, and as I said before, they can be very supportive of trans people and still get silenced just for a single belief. and for some reason is perfectly fine to say stuff like 'kill terfs' or send them death threats on all big social media.

the sad thing is that normal trans people who just want to be a part of society are being damaged by both the radical feminists and the very vocal trans activists who don't really represent their interests. I know that this is a very complex topic and I don't see good arguments from either side.

I disagree with your opinion that gender critical attempted to do more than harass transgender people. I can still look at what they did with the internet wayback machine. A few of their members even PM'd transgender persons from looking at supporting transgender subreddits. The PMs would be getting their target to look at a post on GC or just blatant harassment with post history showing the harasser as an active GC member.

I agree the whole terminology is bad on both sides. I've never used the word "terf" and I know what it means. GC did target both ftm & mtf and had insensitive terminology they invented for both ftm & mtf.

Trans people in general just want to live as any normal person. The concept of needing or having a safe space is kind of ridiculous if you live in a reality where people think that's how it should be or as if it satisfies other people attacking your very existence. It's like if people made a community to express schizophrenia cannot be real and go on rants about how the person suffering must just be making all of these thoughts by their own will. Then expressing that they have a safe place with support groups or some other nonsensical excuse for acting hateful towards them.

I think people only care about someone changing their sex because of religion if I'm honest. I've seen people rant about how transgender people go against god. I've even had someone scream that at me in public. I'm not really phased by much nowadays from what I've lived. The one thing that was interesting somewhat because I'm not capable of competing myself. Was the topic of transgender people in sports. I believe there is no difference between either sexes before puberty when it comes to sports and so puberty blockers would be acceptable to prevent any theoretical advantage from the wrong puberty. But then what happens for the unlucky transgender person that couldn't get on puberty blockers? I myself wouldn't compete but I think it's still debatable. Everything in life is predetermined anyway. So someone complaining about any advantage seems silly because genetics with how life transpires from event to event.. makes the winner.

 

[mediocre]

[QUOTE/}"the sad thing is that normal trans people who just want to be a part of society are being damaged by both the radical feminists and the very vocal trans activists who don't really represent their interests. I know that this is a very complex topic and I don't see good arguments from either side.
[/QUOTE]
So true. Trust me there are a lot of trans and gay people that don't subscribe to this nonsense. I'm gay and I can attest to the fact that a lot of these people are insane. Especially the ones on Twitter. None of their views are based in reality and what's even scarier to me is the fact that their bizarre gender theories have become mainstream. It's now controversial to state biological sex is real as JK Rowling found out recently! Or that they are only two genders: male and female.

I feel like we've been living in an alternate reality recently free of facts..

 

[ReallySillyOtter]

I think far too many people define "hate speech" as "an idea, thought or opinion I disagree with".

 

[mediocre]

I think far too many people define "hate speech" as "an idea, thought or opinion I disagree with".

This is so true.

 

[waived]

 

[Fragile]

Not allowing racism, mysogeny, discrimination is a way of enforcing that all members of the community are respected and protected.

You are confusing censorship with moderation. The subreddits removed encouraged hatred, disrepect, bullying and harassing of others based on race, religion, ethnicity, ideology, gender, sexual orientation or sexual identity. They were of different political ideologies and that of itself (unless hatred of others was ideological) was not the reason for banning.

Having no limits on freedom of expression means allowing hate speech. Reddit is a private business and as such has the right to prohibit hate speech for any reason, ideological, commercial or other.

Even in this community owned by an individual without concern for advertising dollars, promoting hatred of others is prohibited by 2 simple rules: Show respect for other members and Do not harass, bully or insult other members

But do not worry, the internet is still growing and one can find sites that, on the grounds of allowing freedom of expression, allow hate speech, allow one to harass, bully and insult others. As mentioned in an earlier post, such activities are moving off mainstream sites and onto niche ones.

I would agree that some moderation is fine, but that's not what's happening at all. social media giants are clearly cleansing some political ideologies from their platforms while simultaneously taking power over the Internet's political discourse. there's a big gray area when talking about private business owning how people share their ideas while also being the only relevant places where you can share them.

It would be fair to ban hateful content if they weren't extremely hypocritical about it. what happened was extremely one-sided, and there's still rampant misogyny and other types of hatred on reddit, they didn't touch places that actively promote those ideologies, just the ones that don't politically align with their views.

and then again, I'm not right leaning or anything and even I can see the hypocrisy.

 

[faust]

Everything that was meant to make us free is enslaving us. Everything that was meant to give us knowledge is restricting us. Internet is not dying, it is dead. And the soil near the tomb has already dead flowers. I can't see any possibilities of improvements in the nearest future because people choose comfort over freedom. They think that material values is the thing they have to worth. But these are just numbers. Freedom implies doing not what they want, but what you want. Those who earn a month more than most people for the whole life want to guarantee themselves a stable income. When for many people money is a key to freedom, to leave this rat race, for minority money is power. They don't want to lose this power. Technology was meant to give freedom, however, was soon recognized as an incredible source of income. Art, music and all other things about culture and freedom of self-expression were meant to be a good will, not a source of income, that's why most popular things appearing every day are the successful marketing campaigns. Just imagine yourself closing your garage for a year and doing there a masterpiece... It is not possible anymore because you will run out of money very soon. Why? Because they want you to be a part of a rat race which gives them profit. Internet was not meant to be global at all, it was just a local network and it was not about money at all. When it became available for all people nobody expected an exponential rise of its users. However, when business and politics appeared in the net everything started changing. Seeing the perspectives of using internet as a propaganda machine, just because all other media became less relevant, it became regulated. Regulated how they want, because websites, servers are located in certain countries, thus they "have" to obey the laws. And the more oppressive governments we have, the more restricted will be access. I do remember there were some dark days in August 1991, when in former USSR on all channels were shown "Swan Lake" ballet and the only source of information was internet which then was available in one of universities in Moscow. People saw tanks out of their windows but did not know what was going on. I guess now if something happens, we will have to share information person to person, this may be the only safe way to do that.

 

[Deleted member 17949]

imo there isn't really a huge issue here. That's not to say that there is no problem and that everything is fine, but the world is not slowly closing in on freedom of speech as some people believe. The reality is that politics has never been fully fair. It used to be that if you spoke against religion or the leaders of the time you could find yourself killed - you still can in some places. We like to talk as if we've moved past bias entirely and live in a world where every opinion is equally represented and respected, but this is not the case by any means. Anyone that tells you that their views are all based on facts and logic with no emotion involved is probably lying; everyone filters what they hear, say, believe and tolerate based on how they feel about things. With politics often being so closely tied to people's personal lives and feelings it's impossible to get them arguing on a totally neutral plane.

 

[welkin]

I think the issue specifically with gender critical was that the subreddit/community was designed around harassing transgender people. I assume most don't realize how much of the content was baiting transgender people to commit suicide and straight up devaluating a person that is attempting to fix an issue with the sex they were assigned at birth by medical intervention.

Just outright lies about gendercritical. It was a feminism subreddit, women were constantly threatened with rape and murder by trans rights activists, actually. Check out terfisaslur.com to see what they endured from transwomen and their allies. Read what lesbians have endured from transwomen. It was in no way about harassing transpeople. Most feminists want to be left alone, they advocate female separatism, particularly lesbians harassed by transwomen via the wonderful concept of the cotton ceiling, the idea that the glass ceiling for transwomen is the cotton of lesbian's underwear, wtf. I have never, ever encountered a gendercritical radfem who would bait someone into suicide, given many struggle with depression and are humanitarian. You either severely misunderstand or wilfully misrepresent.

 

[alizee]

Just outright lies about gendercritical. It was a feminism subreddit, women were constantly threatened with rape and murder by trans rights activists, actually. Check out terfisaslur.com to see what they endured from transwomen and their allies. Read what lesbians have endured from transwomen. It was in no way about harassing transpeople. Most feminists want to be left alone, they advocate female separatism, particularly lesbians harassed by transwomen via the wonderful concept of the cotton ceiling, the idea that the glass ceiling for transwomen is the cotton of lesbian's underwear, wtf. I have never, ever encountered a gendercritical radfem who would bait someone into suicide, given many struggle with depression and are humanitarian. You either severely misunderstand or wilfully misrepresent.

You could go on trans subreddits and share your opinion while asking if people agree or not with what you just shared. I'm trans and I don't agree with what you experienced because I experienced different. I'm aesexual btw. I was instantly banned from their subreddit by asking a question of why they group every trans person together with people definitely abusing trans status. I was harassed by some users from there that PM'ed me horrible insults while they just found my account by searching trans subreddits. That was years after the posted question on gender critical. Anyway there was a lot of content on their subreddit I don't even want to think about anymore. Just makes me suicidal throughout the night.

 

[lostangel]

Greed probably has to do with it. I feel as though the internet will not die but become less entertaining.

 

[so tired or manic]

just posting on trans subreddits is enough to be targeted, followed, harassed, everywhere you post from then on. most have separate accounts, one for trans things and one for everything else because this is so common.

I just want to stop the anguish that dysphoria brings so that means I need surgery and hormones. the medical field agrees it helps or they wouldn't be covered by insurance.

reddit got rid of places that create and embrace and spread the hate. it's one thing to disagree, no one sees eye to eye, it's another to tell someone what they're feeling can't possibly be real. this alone is a common thought with depression. I hate to see it here.

 

[DeadButDreaming]

I've noticed a lot of banning occurs in the lead up to an election.