The Great Debate

[Darth_Payn]

Oh, you guys want to see moronic comments on something? Go too any Yahoo!News article and read THEIR comments section. It's where conspiracy theories are born.

 

[Right Hook]

Sure there is a LOT of idiocy in the comment section on YouTube but there is also a fair share of good opinions and decent arguments, depending on the video of course. It seems when the uploader disables comments they are either trying to avoid hate, which seriously it is the internet and you should get a little tougher if it bothers you or they are biased one way and they don't want to see someone giving an alternate opinion.

 

[V3rtig0]

I'm all pro-comment, since I've found many answers to questions I got from watching a video simply by scrolling down and checking if other people have also got a similar question. And if not, I just ask it myself and so far I've got a reply every time.

 

[Legion]

You know.

I don't really love Anita. I'll listen to her, but she... frustrates me sometimes.

And yet, even I think the notion of disabling comments = 'silencing debate and discourse' is a load of crap.

Why?

Because... that notion is stated, usually, within threads discussing her and her videos. Which whenever a thread about Anita is brought up, (especially on the escapist) drag on for over a dozen pages. Every time.

So yeah. 'Censorship/Silencing discourse" my ass.

I think people are referring to the fact that she releases videos discussing issues in gaming, and then disables comments so people cannot counter her. There are discussions elsewhere, but not in the places she will see and read them.

Personally I don't see anything wrong with removing comments. I have a problem with people only allowing the ones that make them look good to be shown, while deleting any that make them look bad, or prove them wrong in any way. It comes across as somebody not being comfortable with their work, and having a large ego to feed by only allowing sycophants to respond.

 

[Something Amyss]

Doubly so when trying to debate a complicated, delicate issue in under 500 characters.

This is what kills me about the idea of Youtube "discussion."

Oh, you guys want to see moronic comments on something? Go too any Yahoo!News article and read THEIR comments section. It's where conspiracy theories are born.

Why? Why would you wish that upon people?

 

[Something Amyss]

There are discussions elsewhere, but not in the places she will see and read them.

Unless she's on the internet in any way, shape, or form.

 

[Tohuvabohu]

I think people are referring to the fact that she releases videos discussing issues in gaming, and then disables comments so people cannot counter her. There are discussions elsewhere, but not in the places she will see and read them.

I dunno about that. She is quite possibly the most popular and most discussed woman in gaming media as a whole right now. Even for someone like me, who doesn't even try to keep up with any Anita related news - am still subjected to threads/articles about her everywhere in gaming media.

Personally I don't see anything wrong with removing comments. I have a problem with people only allowing the ones that make them look good to be shown, while deleting any that make them look bad, or prove them wrong in any way. It comes across as somebody not being comfortable with their work, and having a large ego to feed by only allowing sycophants to respond.

I would've actually thought much less about her if she took that route. I've seen channels where users attempt to debate complicated issues, and end up only approving comments that agree with them. That stuff bothers me significantly.

 

[The Inquisitive Mug]

"Look at my video...just don't talk about it"

That's called television, and no one ever says that they're "silencing the debate" by not having a scrolling 1-800-OPINION line at the bottom of the screen.

It really doesn't matter how inane and idiotic the comments end up being.

Disabling them completely shows weakness. It's just that simple.

Besides, there is no legitimate reason to do such a thing unless you specifically don't want people insulting you.

Turning off ratings is even worse.

My god, why would people want to NOT be insulted? What madness is this!

Because they're thin skinned.

Even if there is a SINGLE constructive comment among 10 million insults, cutting off the comments is still silencing that opinion because you can't deal with people typing mean things.

The O'Reilly Factor doesn't have a comments section (save for when he shows a hate letter or two), but we all seem to have come to the consensus that Bill O'Reilly is a massive douche without it. [del]Censorship would be going into a comments and removing the ones which offend you.[/del] This is not "silencing opinions." This is simply not giving said opinions a floor on your video, which is perfectly reasonable. The idea that anyone who wants to share an idea must then be honor-bound to host, or even listen to, the opinions of the masses is not reasonable. Just as we are free to voice opinions, we are also free to not give a damn about the opinions of others.

EDIT: Strikethrough on my censorship example because THIS:

No meaningful definition of censorship limits it to anti-democratic government-instituted censorship.

Censorship is the ereasal or limitation of communication. If I'm quoting your post, and replacing a word with asterisks, then by most common definitions, I am "censoring" your line. If I'm asterisking out my own words, I am prcticing "self-censorship". When the Escapist is deleting forum posts, they are censoring commenters.

I'm not saying that all these forms of censorship are wrong, they might be necessary, but first of all we need to admit what it is. If you are blocking comments from your youtube page, then you are censoring your youtube page. You are limiting other people's communication. And just because you do it in a way that is within your legal rights, doesn't change that basic fact.

To deny that, just because censorship sounds like such an unpleasant word, is a pointless euphemism.

 

[Hagi]

It's not really a bad thing to do, disabling the comments.

But seeing as with the same amount of effort you can disable the notifications, thus never being bothered by them anyway, and allow other people who do enjoy the comments to still have their fun I'd say it's a lesser good though.

Nothing wrong with disabling the comments, but you could do better.

 

[Entitled]

disabling youtube comments isn't censorship. Not by any meaningful definition of the word. Freedom of speech doesn't guarantee the right to speak in someone else's private space.

No meaningful definition of censorship limits it to anti-democratic government-instituted censorship.

Censorship is the ereasal or limitation of communication. If I'm quoting your post, and replacing a word with asterisks, then by most common definitions, I am "censoring" your line. If I'm asterisking out my own words, I am prcticing "self-censorship". When the Escapist is deleting forum posts, they are censoring commenters.

I'm not saying that all these forms of censorship are wrong, they might be necessary, but first of all we need to admit what it is. If you are blocking comments from your youtube page, then you are censoring your youtube page. You are limiting other people's communication. And just because you do it in a way that is within your legal rights, doesn't change that basic fact.

To deny that, just because censorship sounds like such an unpleasant word, is a pointless euphemism.

 

[Erttheking]

I don't know, as someone who posts content onto the internet myself, part of the process is having to deal with jackasses. I have had to deal with jackasses in the past, to the point where I've ended up banning a couple from commenting on my work, not as many to be honest, but I'm just saying that putting up a video series with no way for her to get feedback seems a wee bit pointless. Not to mention she took it an extra step and disabled ratings. Not to mention other people have gone through this stuff in the past, TotalBiscuit actually got stress related illness from his youtube comments but he didn't disable them, he just doesn't read him and he has his wife and friends comb through them looking for comments that they think he'll actually want to see.

Yes, you have had to deal with jackasses, but you have not had a massive hate campaign against you. It's not just `what comes with the internet` and it's not okay.
Like I said, feel free to disagree with her decision, but after all that- fuck, I would have done the same thing.

I can understand why she did what she did, I just don't agree with her.

 

[Storm Dragon]

Frankly, I find YouTube comments to be a source of endless amusement.

 

[The Inquisitive Mug]

I don't know, as someone who posts content onto the internet myself, part of the process is having to deal with jackasses. I have had to deal with jackasses in the past, to the point where I've ended up banning a couple from commenting on my work, not as many to be honest, but I'm just saying that putting up a video series with no way for her to get feedback seems a wee bit pointless. Not to mention she took it an extra step and disabled ratings. Not to mention other people have gone through this stuff in the past, TotalBiscuit actually got stress related illness from his youtube comments but he didn't disable them, he just doesn't read him and he has his wife and friends comb through them looking for comments that they think he'll actually want to see.

Yes, you have had to deal with jackasses, but you have not had a massive hate campaign against you. It's not just `what comes with the internet` and it's not okay.
Like I said, feel free to disagree with her decision, but after all that- fuck, I would have done the same thing.

I can understand why she did what she did, I just don't agree with her.

I agree, mostly because her series of videos was crowd-funded via Kickstarter. This implies that she's willing to accept money from her investors, but not their criticism. Also, disabling ratings does nothing to stop the hate campaign against her. There's nothing vulgar or violent about a thumbs up or a thumbs down. Although a two-way rating system can't be called constructive, she's clearly not willing to listen to criticism of any kind.

 

[hentropy]

In the end, not everyone on Youtube is looking for it to be some kind of public discourse. It's just a depository for videos of all kinds, not a never-ending film festival and public square where people can discuss it. It can have consequences when every single video has some kind of vile hatred a few scroll-ticks below it, it's one of the reasons why other sites have simply but the comments on a separate page (sort of like this one, though still mostly unmoderated and uncontrolled). But you have no right to have your free speech facilitated right below the video, it's never worked that way in other mediums and shouldn't be expected on the internet.

 

[1337mokro]

You have CLEARLY never wandered onto a Creationist channel have you?

I honestly can't blame them for not wanting to be laughed at openly.

Then maybe they should research their position and not go out in public claiming ridiculous things as undeniable, unquestionable truths that are backed up by (forged) evidence that someone has in their basement and just can't show us (see also Mormonism).

I can't blame them for not wanting to be laughed at openly... but I can blame them for openly saying it, refusing to listen to any counter arguments and then expecting not to be laughed at when the evidence in the basement appears to be made in Peru.

It's kind of like the kid who doesn't really know the answer to a question, but then says it anyway and then refuses to admit that 2+2 =/= 5 but 4 and then quotes magic as his argument.

I can't blame him for not wanting to say the answer, but I can blame him for saying it and then stubbornly insisting that it must be true because leprechauns.

But they don't have to be laughed at, they can just block all those mean nasty people with their science and their facts from the youtube comments by only allowing approved comments.

On one hand, youtube comments can have importance, good criticism, and insight on the video uploaded. On the other hand.. more then 80% of the time they're unrealted to the video, debating with other users in the lowest ways, and can be seen as just bad overall.

I remember looking up Bioshock: Infinite trailer about Elizabeth's development, how she was to become a fully developed character that would have amazing AI programmed mechanics and can be very supportive only for the top comments to be like "I would tap that." (76 thumbs up)

.. *sigh*

Would you not like to tap that? She reminded me of early Elaine from Seinfeld which I would tap.

It really doesn't matter how inane and idiotic the comments end up being.

Disabling them completely shows weakness. It's just that simple.

Besides, there is no legitimate reason to do such a thing unless you specifically don't want people insulting you.

Turning off ratings is even worse.

My god, why would people want to NOT be insulted? What madness is this!

My god, why would people want to NOT be contradicted? What madness is this!

A very slippery madness my friend you see when you say such things you enter the Censorship zone. Where Offensive and Dissenting blur into one big mess where any opinion that does not echo your own soon flow into one big Offending blob that gets chucked out the metaphorical comment window.

As someone once said. I disagree with and am offended by your stupidity, but I will defend to the death your right to express that stupidity on internet forums. Or something along those lines, some freedom was taken in the exact wording.

Also there is no such thing as a right to not be offended outside of dictatorships

 

[Reeve]

Why stop at the YouTube comments section? What else on the web is better off censored... >.>

I'm sick of seeing ^this^ idiotic reasoning from the childishly sensitive Left. (What happened to the days where the Left were about freedom? They're as bad as the Right, these days.)

 

[The Inquisitive Mug]

Also there is no such thing as a right to not be offended outside of dictatorships

But there is absolutely a right to not listen to the opinions of others. Sure, you could simply not read said opinions, but let's not pretend that disabling the comments on a video that you own is some great slight in the face of free expression. The slope is not so slippery. Not all censorship is equal, or even necessarily evil by definition. No one is saying that you are not allowed to dissent; they're merely disabling your ability to dissent on the same page as the video.

If this were truly such an effective method of curbing discussion, we wouldn't be having this conversation right. Nor would the users above be having a conversation about Tropes VS. Women's disabled comment section. Clearly, disabling comments on her videos has not silenced the discussion.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

"Look at my video...just don't talk about it"

That's called television, and no one ever says that they're "silencing the debate" by not having a scrolling 1-800-OPINION line at the bottom of the screen.

It really doesn't matter how inane and idiotic the comments end up being.

Disabling them completely shows weakness. It's just that simple.

Besides, there is no legitimate reason to do such a thing unless you specifically don't want people insulting you.

Turning off ratings is even worse.

My god, why would people want to NOT be insulted? What madness is this!

Because they're thin skinned.

Even if there is a SINGLE constructive comment among 10 million insults, cutting off the comments is still silencing that opinion because you can't deal with people typing mean things.

The O'Reilly Factor doesn't have a comments section (save for when he shows a hate letter or two), but we all seem to have come to the consensus that Bill O'Reilly is a massive douche without it. [del]Censorship would be going into a comments and removing the ones which offend you.[/del] This is not "silencing opinions." This is simply not giving said opinions a floor on your video, which is perfectly reasonable. The idea that anyone who wants to share an idea must then be honor-bound to host, or even listen to, the opinions of the masses is not reasonable. Just as we are free to voice opinions, we are also free to not give a damn about the opinions of others.

EDIT: Strikethrough on my censorship example because THIS:

No meaningful definition of censorship limits it to anti-democratic government-instituted censorship.

Censorship is the ereasal or limitation of communication. If I'm quoting your post, and replacing a word with asterisks, then by most common definitions, I am "censoring" your line. If I'm asterisking out my own words, I am prcticing "self-censorship". When the Escapist is deleting forum posts, they are censoring commenters.

I'm not saying that all these forms of censorship are wrong, they might be necessary, but first of all we need to admit what it is. If you are blocking comments from your youtube page, then you are censoring your youtube page. You are limiting other people's communication. And just because you do it in a way that is within your legal rights, doesn't change that basic fact.

To deny that, just because censorship sounds like such an unpleasant word, is a pointless euphemism.

That all may be true, but it doesn't change the fact that it makes a video look weaker if a person is downright EXPECTING a comments section filled with negative feedback.

Leaving comments on shows confidence in the video they are presenting.

 

[TreuloseTomate]

It doesn't matter. Disabling comments and ratings is just bad form unless you are advertising.

 

[Do4600]

Sure, you won't know "who is a ****** and why" but you'll also not get any feedback what so ever. If the video really is an opinion based piece you may be just insulating yourself to other opinions on the same subject, and I can't think of a situation where it's a good idea to isolate yourself from others opinions. Sure you may be called a ******, but is it really that difficult for an intelligent person to look at a comment like that and come to the conclusion that:

1. Someone calling you gay isn't really much of an insult unless you consider homosexuals to be unsuitable.
2. The only contact this person has with you is that they saw 10 minutes of your opinion.
3. If this person resorts to using silly insults than it probably means they're unable to form a well reasoned argument against your opinion.
4. Poorly spelled insults say a lot more about the person typing than the person they're aimed at.

These comments are no reason to disable all discussion on a video.

If you consider the audience that useless then you must also consider that trying to express your opinion to that audience just as useless. It would be like trying to teach an ape how to do complex astrophysics, it's a waste of the ape's time and also a waste of the teacher's time.

So really there's no reason to post on youtube if you're going to disable the comments, unless you plan on using youtube as a host to put the video somewhere else. If you consider the audience you're reaching on youtube to be so worthless that they could never say anything that could ever be meaningful to you, that the audience you're expressing your opinion to will never understand your argument or opinion and only call you fag, then why the fuck would you ever bring your opinion to that audience? It's a waste of your time.

If you don't care if somebody has something actually meaningful to say to you, and you still block their comments you're being as close minded as the people who call others fags on the comments section on youtube.

Going to another place on the internet to comment on the specific form of an individual youtube video is just...silly unless the video is extremely popular, like "Gangnam Style". If I just started a thread on this website to comment on (which has a comments section.) A person would have to first be interested in the subject to watch the video before it would make sense. Youtube has a complex system that arranges videos in a such a way that chain videos together by subject matter, this allows a person to be interested in a subject before they click the video link. Not so on internet threads. Worldwide this video has about 743,000 hits, how many of them were from people who also use the forums on for instance The Escapist? Of the people who viewed this video only 1 in 400 commented on it. How many of them were people who visit the Escapist forums? How should I expect a discussion of this video when the odds are such that only 30 people were interested enough to watch even the first minute? No, the perfect place for a discussion to happen on a youtube video is on youtube where the viewer base for the video is located. Where the only reason the video was watched in many cases is because a person had enough interest in a topic to either look the video up directly or follow a series of other videos that have comparable subject matter.