Should offensive opinions be censored from discussion?

[Twintix]

Absolutely not.

If opinions are censored, no matter how "wrong" they are, there's not much discussion left, now is there? All we'll be left with then is an echo chamber. Also, it might depend for some on what you define as offensive. As we know, some are more sensitive than others for a variety of reasons.

You know the "Dear Fat People" video that that woman (What'sherface) made last week? Well, I think she is a humongous ***** for how she chose to put her opinion[footnote]And then took down her own channel to make it look like Youtube censored her. What a ****.[/footnote], but then I read she was fired from her role in a movie because of that video. I don't agree with that decision. Some disciplining might've been in place, perhaps a thorough discussion on how not to be a dick when expressing your opinion, but firing her for being an asshole is not something I can get behind.

And at the same time, while I don't agree with the decision, I understand why the film makers fired her - To prevent being associated with controversy and negativity. Why give yourself a bad image when you don't have to?

 

[zinho73]

Of course not.
With censorship there is no discussion.
Also, people can get offended with practically everything and almost every forum would end up being heavily censored and useless for discussing anything.

What all forums must have is guidelines to avoid abuse.

Some general ones: don't attack people, only their ideas; be respectful, avoid derailing the topic, do not post pictures of yourself nude and so on.
And some specific: do not discuss religion in the sports section.

Those guidelines help to keep the debate civil and to the point.

In rare contexts, some form of censorship might make sense for some private institutions or people.
PewdiPie (don't Know if the name is correct) blocked comments on his videos, and it kind of makes sense, since his show is not about debating anything and he was tired of keeping track of what was useful what was not.

Anita Sarkeesian blocked her comments also and it feels like a coward thing to do and it certainly damages her credibility because she was trying to promote a discussion. Also, she cannot receive the death threats anymore and might suffer a surprise attack now (roll eyes).

If you are not prepared to ignore the trolls and to listen to the arguments against yours with an open mind, you are not prepared to debate.

 

[cthulhuspawn82]

An the best part is that we have entire fields of psychology devoted to this.

Yes, like psychotherapy, cognitive therapy, or any kind of positive psychological help which all revolves around helping people control their emotions and feelings. You can choose to say, "I'm not got to let those kinds of insults get to me anymore". If you could not control your feelings, then most of psychology would be moot, and depressed people might as well give up and commit suicide. Fortunately, people can control their feelings. You can choose to not get angry every time you hear an opinion you don't like.

 

[Bat Vader]

Hmm no it's more like "That offends me", and when asked why there will be a myriad of reasons.

For example shouting at a girl that she's a fucking n***** that needs to die will most likely offend her because it's telling her you would rather she's dead due to extreme racism. There's zero she can do to change that, and it's generally terrifying.

I can show why the argument about feelings is circular. Let me show an argument in a series of statements. Each statement will be numbered with a (#).

(1)Girl 1: "When someone calls me a f****** n*****, I have no choice but to be offended."
(2)Girl 2: "Why dont I get offend when someone calls me a f****** n*****"
(3)Girl 1: "Because you dont have my feelings"
(4)Girl 2: "How do you know I dont have your feelings"
(5)Girl 1: "Because you dont get offended when someone calls you a f****** n*****"
(2)Girl 2: "Why dont I get offend when someone calls me a f****** n*****"
(3)Girl 1: "Because you dont have my feelings"

You should be able to see that statements 2-5 will repeat to infinity. I.E. the argument will go 1,2,3,4,5,2,3,4,5.....

This creates and endless loop of circular reasoning.

Not looking to start an argument but anyone that calls someone else a racist term with hate behind it is a piece of scum sucking trash. They have every right to say it and I have every right to call them a piece of shit and scum of the earth.

 

[Guffe]

Someone once said "Offense is not given, it's taken". I think those are pretty smart words. Sure if I've discussed with someone before and know what they get offended by, I can start trying to push certain buttons if I feel like an ars. But generally you can't offend someone unless they get offended by what you say. Then again someone can, as stated earlier, get offended by pretty much everything, so maybe the person talking should be a bit careful depending on the situation, whilst then again people should not get offended by every little minor thing said.

More On Topic:
No it should not, if someone thinks the argument is valid, for example, that everyone who has done a school shooting has CoD in their shelves, means that only people who play CoD = killers. Then they are entitles to this opinion. You can't start throwing these guys out, because that means in the end, that there will be 3 people only agreeing on stuff in your club, not much to argument then is there?

Also there is a difference in saying "this is my opinion, gamers are all 30-year-olds living in their parents basements" versus "I'm going to kill you you fucking ****** fucking jerktwat". That second one, depending on context of course (let's say here that line comes after someone has countered with a good argument and the person is known to have a slightly violent history) is already illegal.

But just not having people with different opinions because argumenting might get a bit hectic sounds pretty far fetched for me. Unless they actually cause trouble.

I hope I understood the OP correctly.... <.<

 

[cthulhuspawn82]

So basically, if someone tells you that you deserve to die solely due to the fact you were born, you should just choose to not be offended by it.

I wouldn't be offended at all. Words cant force you to be offended. Its suggest someone can control your mind using "magic words". Whats the difference between saying a voodoo witch can use magic words to make me sick and that a bigot can use magic words to make me sad/depressed/angry/etc.

I am frightened by the concept that people posses words of power than can lay terrible curses on me. I don't want to believe that someone can invoke magical incantations on my Facebook page to emotionally devastate me or drive me to suicide.

 

[Christian Neihart]

Why give hate an audience? You don't owe them anything.

 

[Cowabungaa]

Naturally, no. Apart from all the moral problems and whatnot that are already discussed, such opinions and ways of thinking would simply be pushed underground and fester there, not really getting dealt with in the proces. Censorship doesn't really work.

The problem, by the way, is not in the giving or taking of offense. Of course there's things that go out-of-bounds pretty obviously, but it's very nebulous area simply because everyone feels different and is set in different contexts. The old adage "You can't please everyone" applies. Offence can't be completely avoided.

Where the problem lies is, I think, how we deal with offence. Reacts to being offended seem to become more and more extreme. Take the case of a middle-aged man calling a younger girl "stunning" on LinkedIn. I can imagine her feeling offended by that in a certain way thanks to the context of the situation. And that's okay, personally I don't think what he did was okay. but then all of a sudden a human-rights lawyer gets involved and the man gets accusations of misogyny thrown at him and the whole affair gets thrown in the public sphere. On the internet too we see opinions being countered with everything from death threats to doxing.

And therein lies the problem. Yes, people can say stupid shit, but shouldn't we counter stupid shit with reason and solve it just as reasonably? What we should do, I think, is calm the hell down and be reasonable about getting offended.

An the best part is that we have entire fields of psychology devoted to this.

Yes, like psychotherapy, cognitive therapy, or any kind of positive psychological help which all revolves around helping people control their emotions and feelings. You can choose to say, "I'm not got to let those kinds of insults get to me anymore". If you could not control your feelings, then most of psychology would be moot, and depressed people might as well give up and commit suicide. Fortunately, people can control their feelings. You can choose to not get angry every time you hear an opinion you don't like.

This isn't really how it is. We can only control our emotions in a very limited manner. Large parts of psychotherapy are focused on dealing with certain emotions, how to work with them. Not to simply turn them off.

Simply choosing not be angry? No, it's not like that.

 

[sternduckling51]

"Offensive" is fine (well no not really but in this context it is) but "provoking and upsetting people purely for the sake of provoking and upsetting people" isn't ok and it's appropriate to censor that if it persists. Ignoring trolls works in some contexts but they can completely dominate a discussion if there's enough of them.

It might not always be obvious which is which to start with but it doesn't take that long to find out who is genuinely willing to explore and better understand and explain their own and others opinions. Those try to change other people's minds are usually fairly distinct from those who just want people who disagree with them to feel bad and give in, though there is grey area.

This might well be an unpopular thing to say and get me labelled as being biased but I don't think you can completely seperate out the acceptability of people's ideas from the acceptability of how people present those ideas. For example drowning out an anti-gay marriage demonstration with a music van bellowing "Pet Shop Boys" songs is both hilarious and (to me) acceptable but drowning out an Atheist's "seperation of church and state" speech with hymns isn't ok. I can't really think how those are different other than the fact that I approve of the first but not the second. You can analyse it in terms of "punching up" and "punching down" but I usually find that stuff to pretty perspective dependent anyway.

Basically I think the acceptability of your way of expressing an opinion will, in part, depend on how justified that opinion is. Some issues are worth getting angry about, some positions are ripe for ridicule, some issues aren't that big of a deal and I'm fine agreeing to disagree and some opinions make you a prick for having them in the first place.

 

[Cowabungaa]

snip

Actually, how to deal with those emotions (rationally) is exactly the kind of behavior I'm advocating in the first part of my post. So yes, on that I'm with you. Cthuluspawn sadly, probably, meant nothing of the sort, especially considering a post slightly below the one I quoted of his.

And yeah, when I picked that avatar I was a really angry dude too. I've mellowed a lot in the last two-ish years though, but I ain't gonna mess with recognizability.

 

[Magmarock]

Yes all offensive opinions should be banned and I think all opinions aside from my own are offensive. So I should be the only one who can speak. That's what I say. If you don't agree you are offensive and should be banned.

 

[Des-Esseintes]

This isn't offense particularly, but outside of spouting the usual self-righteous wank (which I and everyone else already agrees with), there's not much else to say on the topic of censorship in broad.

I'm a fan of reading feminist discussions (because I'm a boring twat), the arguments surrounding sex positive vs. sex negative, how to establish sex-workers rights without becoming too much of a nannying curse over a lady's body, writing Angela Carter fanfic - all that.

Buuuutttttt.....

Finding an active community with some deep discourse and well-written Bloody Chamber-slash-Firefly prose is nearly impossible without heavily curating the comments which are allowed to be posted. If you open the floodgates you're almost immediately inundated with "YOU'RE A WHORE" and "Hi, ladies, I was hoping to have a polite discussion about why YOU'RE A WHORE " messages. People who are there only to argue about how massive their totes rational e-boners are ruin any chance of actually having a meaningful discussion - you're constantly having to defend why you should be having the discussion in the first place. It's a real shitter. It's the same, which less vitriol, for pretty much any academic topic - unless you aggressively dump the garbage your well-meaning science forum is going to be filled with 'Guys, I got stoned and totally hi-po-toe-size that quantum mechanics is the solution to everything' and 'Scientists discovered the cure for AIDS for the eight time this week.'

Getting rid of them usually leads to cries of censorship and how feminists totally can't handle their 'But why aren't """"womyn"""" on the draft, huh?' and 'Why don't you just call yourself humanists? *smug face*' logic-bombs, but fuck em. I'd much rather censor then have to argue feminism 101 with yet another bad-faith douche who refuses to listen to anything but 'You're totally right - Anita Sarkeesian is a lie.'