The Great Debate

[ThisGuyLikesNoTacos]

Hey, if breaking into other people's houses is considered limiting my freedom of expression, then so sure as hell is disabling comments on a video in the interwebs.

 

[1337mokro]

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.

I think you meant to use the word Hear instead of Listen, because listening implies something else than hearing. You see nobody has a right to force you to listen to something. As in take heed of it or follow orders or something, so in that you are correct. However there exist no right to not hear an opinion. There exist no right that protects me from hearing bad music that I hate or hearing a public official spew hateful things.

You don't have a right to not hear something. You can ignore something, remove it if it is in infringing on your privacy, when a guy is following you or sending you unwanted letters and messages or showing up screaming in front of your house, but there is no right of not hearing. Because by that same stretch that right to not hear becomes a right to silence others.

Now expand turning off the discussion to the entirety of youtube. Then to other sites. Then to the entire internet. The supposition that disabling one comment section does not impede discussion is a flawed argument. That if youtube removes their discussions all together, the rest of the internet will allow for people to discuss. So what happens when every forum decides that they are done with the trolls, the whiners, the idiots and so on? They are using the same arguments and if they are valid on one site they are valid on another, so what would happen to your argument if everyone just decided that they were sick of hearing? For example what would happen if I had the power to just turn off the comments anywhere and I didn't want to hear your opinion? It wouldn't exist now would it, you'd have to find some underground forum where I had no power simply to express your dissent against me.

"Disabling comments is not censorship if youtube does it. We can just go somewhere else to talk about it!"

Unless there is no such place left. What you are saying here is possibly because you have an abundance of free speech. You can choose out of a slew of places to discuss your opinion and whatever else. However you may not be so fortunate when all the motivation you need to remove the ability to say anything is that someone simply doesn't want to hear it.

On youtube you are essentially taking a soapbox and standing in a park voicing your opinion. By disabling the comments you essentially forbid the people listening from saying anything. It would be akin to me getting a roll of ducktape and slapping a piece on everyone's mouth before I continue with my speech about whatever. The weak and flimsy excuse that you just don't want to hear it or that they should go to the other park to discuss what you just said is simply lazy and a self defeating statement when that other park imposes the same rules and the next one does the same and the next one and the next one and repeat ad nausea.

Because I live in this particular Park (read Country) I can say that the King of Thailand is a corrupt inbred mongrel resulting of a dated tradition that should be abolished. In Thailand I go to jail no matter WHERE I say that because of the king's "right" to not hear what I think of him.

Sure this is an extreme example, but it shows you that the slope is not just slippery, but that it is buttered up with 56 different types of grease and we are barely holding on. Your blase attitude to youtube comments is possible because you have other options. Just imagine if you didn't have those.

 

[TTYTYTTYYTTYTTTY]

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.

Finally someone with sense, was reading too much "lol youtube comments" when many escapists comments are the same or similar only with moderators with ban-hammerers around. There are many an insightful debate to be had even with 500 words apiece. In a conversation do you ever go on long winded monologues?

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.

And why are we to feel sad about this? She profited far more from her kickstarter than she would've without those "trolls" giving her free advertising and pity from the general person. She also only received those 1 million views, due to those "trolls".

We all have to deal with "trolls" and get over it, it's called life.

 

[Phasmal]

And why are we to feel sad about this? She profited far more from her kickstarter than she would've without those "trolls" giving her free advertising and pity from the general person. She also only received those 1 million views, due to those "trolls".

We all have to deal with "trolls" and get over it, it's called life.

She actually doesn't have to deal with them, that's why she turned off comments. So she doesn't have to.
And we don't all have to deal with hundreds of people viciously attacking us.
Either way, I don't really care. She'll do what she wants, people will cry about it.

 

[Darks63]

Considering what i see underneath many vids maybe she was right to disable the comments section. If you look at any vid over say 1000 replies you will see a trend of people commenting on one thing that can often have little to do with the actual vid. For example someone posts a vid of Static x I guarantee the comments section will be derailed by a Beiber is a no talent fag hate chain or any vid that has anything to do religion will get derailed into god vs god is dead.

Also lets not forget the 400 pound gorilla in the room and that is the user's ability to downvote someones comment to the point of it not showing up unless you click on it. Any good point or any point which might be seen a being in any way in favor of her point would likely suffer that fate. Not to mention moderating her vids with a likely one hundred thousand plus comments would be pretty time consuming she would likely have to start another kickstarter to hire a staff to handle that.

 

[The Inquisitive Mug]

I think you meant to use the word Hear instead of Listen, because listening implies something else than hearing. You see nobody has a right to force you to listen to something. As in take heed of it or follow orders or something, so in that you are correct. However there exist no right to not hear an opinion. There exist no right that protects me from hearing bad music that I hate or hearing a public official spew hateful things.

You absolutely have a right to protect you from hearing bad music or hate speech. You can wear headphones that play music you enjoy, wear earmuffs or earplugs, or even stick your fingers in your ears and yell "LA LA LA LA LA LA." All of these things are not only possible, but well within your rights. Saying that everyone has to hear everything you say is the opposite extreme of saying no one should be able to say things you don't like. If YouTube contributors don't want to hear (rather, READ) comments, they disable comments. They are able to do this. They do not get arrested and their accounts are not deleted for doing so, so clearly they do have a right not to hear things they do not want to.

You don't have a right to not hear something. You can ignore something, remove it if it is in infringing on your privacy, when a guy is following you or sending you unwanted letters and messages or showing up screaming in front of your house, but there is no right of not hearing. Because by that same stretch that right to not hear becomes a right to silence others.

Why should they have to hear things that they don't like, but they cannot do things you don't like (disable comments)? You were the one to bring up what rights we do and do not have. No one on YouTube has hand-picked your rights. I understand if you are not in favor of such a thing, but to say that they do not have the right to do so is more oppressive than the very thing you're criticizing them for.

Now expand turning off the discussion to the entirety of youtube. Then to other sites. Then to the entire internet. The supposition that disabling one comment section does not impede discussion is a flawed argument. That if youtube removes their discussions all together, the rest of the internet will allow for people to discuss. So what happens when every forum decides that they are done with the trolls, the whiners, the idiots and so on? They are using the same arguments and if they are valid on one site they are valid on another, so what would happen to your argument if everyone just decided that they were sick of hearing? For example what would happen if I had the power to just turn off the comments anywhere and I didn't want to hear your opinion? It wouldn't exist now would it, you'd have to find some underground forum where I had no power simply to express your dissent against me.

You're only providing an example of your slippery slope argument, not providing evidence that one exists.

"Disabling comments is not censorship if youtube does it. We can just go somewhere else to talk about it!"

Unless there is no such place left. What you are saying here is possibly because you have an abundance of free speech. You can choose out of a slew of places to discuss your opinion and whatever else. However you may not be so fortunate when all the motivation you need to remove the ability to say anything is that someone simply doesn't want to hear it.

I don't see how I could have an "abundance" of free speech. Free speech is just that: free. To say that I have an abundance of it implies that having a deficit of free speech is possible. To have a deficit of free speech would be to limit what I am and am not able to say. It would no longer be free speech. Besides, we're not talking about limiting WHAT people say, only where they say it (an argument you seem to have agreed with in your "showing up in front of your house screaming" statement.)

On youtube you are essentially taking a soapbox and standing in a park voicing your opinion. By disabling the comments you essentially forbid the people listening from saying anything. It would be akin to me getting a roll of ducktape and slapping a piece on everyone's mouth before I continue with my speech about whatever. The weak and flimsy excuse that you just don't want to hear it or that they should go to the other park to discuss what you just said is simply lazy and a self defeating statement when that other park imposes the same rules and the next one does the same and the next one and the next one and repeat ad nausea.

Slippery slope again, but I digress. Your point falls flat when you use the park for your example. The park is a public place. Your YouTube channel is YOURS. You may say "But YouTube is a public website!" True, YouTube is public. But if your channel is then also public by extension, why are we given the option to set our videos to "Private?" We own the intellectual property within them, we can control who sees and shares them, and we make money off of them. Our channels and the content on them belong to us. I shouldn't be able to say things on someone's channel against their will any more than I should be able to publish editorials on the front page of The Escapist, or someone would be able to show up at your house screaming incoherently.

Because I live in this particular Park (read Country) I can say that the King of Thailand is a corrupt inbred mongrel resulting of a dated tradition that should be abolished. In Thailand I go to jail no matter WHERE I say that because of the king's "right" to not hear what I think of him.

Sure this is an extreme example, but it shows you that the slope is not just slippery, but that it is buttered up with 56 different types of grease and we are barely holding on.

I agree, this is an extreme example, and I don't think it works in this context.

 

[immortalfrieza]

It's quite simple, if you don't want to hear idiots commenting obscene crap all the time on your video, DON'T POST THE VIDEO TO BEGIN WITH!!! If you are so sensitive that you can't just ignore what those idiots post like a mature human being and just read the comments worth reading, you shouldn't be putting videos on the net. Disabling comments because of idiots is no less a dick move than what those idiots themselves post to begin with. Worse, you're condemning everybody for the actions of only a few.

Oh, and the definition of censorship is: "Censorship is the suppression of speech or other public communication which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient as determined by a government, media outlet, or other controlling body." So yes, disabling comments IS censorship.

 

[danon]

Yeah people have fought countless wars over the ability to say and stand for what you want and died in the millions for it. But you know if people send some hate your way just blanket censor everyone because that helps. The new thing is censoring and it's going to get much worse.

 

[Requia]

Honestly, disabling youtube comments only does the world a favor. But its not as if Anita allows discourse on any other site, hell she could almost entirely dodge the trolls by creating a backers only forum. Plus she's perfectly happy to have youtube comments when she's after press attention for a kickstarter campaign.

 

[1337mokro]

Text Edited for brevity, or was it?

So what you just said was that you have a right to protect yourself from hearing something by ignoring it, doesn't really matter how you do it that's basically what you are doing . Congratulations you went 100% full circle! You however have no right to smash the other guys "insert music machine brand" or stop them from talking just so you don't have to hear it.

It's actually a very simple thing that I already explained and with the first paragraph explained it the second time. However I am a good sport and will thus repeat myself a third time. You do not have a right to not hear something, you can ignore something, block it out or remove yourself from the place where things are being said. However you have no right to prevent yourself from hearing something by taking away the ability to voice something from another person.

In less eloquent terms you could literally spread your cheeks and overpower the other guy by the sound of your flatulence drowning out their voice, thus preventing you from hearing them, but you can never duck tape his mouth shut just so you don't have to hear it. Therefore there is no right to not hear something, there is simply no law that says you have to hear them.

Did I not just give you a nice example? If a Thailander living in Thailand says something bad about the King Anywhere, they get arrested. In other words a person with the ability to silence a particular set of comments anywhere has done so and enacted punishment on those that did so. All for the sake of not wanting to be offending or having to hear critique. I think it actually fits quite perfectly. You see the King is a Youtuber, he doesn't like to be called an opulent dictator with a penis the size of shaven down pencil. So what did he do? He applied a national level filter to the comment section of his entire country. Making sure that no mean things were being said about him anywhere. Should anyone dare to do so though then that comment is quickly deleted with a nice jail sentence.

I don't think I could have found a better real world example than that. Now I deliberately did not go for the easy and even more extreme ones like China, North Korea or Russia, where dissenting journalists are liquidated. That would have been bad examples because those are basically censorship ruled regimes. They are however a nice example of how free speech is not just binary but a gradient where certain things are allowed to be talked about and other things aren't.

Think of the gradient of free speech like the rules of conduct on the Escapist where I can admit to piracy, but on Steam forums I get banned even if it was a game not even available on their services.

I guess you think you own your facebook page and your videogames, how cute. No the same license bullshit they tack onto your games also applies to your channel. In reality your channel is on loan from youtube, they allow you this space to post content, view content, etc. in and can terminate, edit or change any content in it for any reason. In other words youtube is like a park in internet land, where everyone can go and talk, laugh, do whatever but the park is still owned by youtube. Your channel is just the soapbox you are standing on in that park

Sure we can bicker about the differences in places where you can exercise free speech and the ability to speak freely but that is all just semantics. Best left behind with the same notion that you own your youtube channel and that it is in some way a private area.

The thing being that if the notion that an offending or unpleasant remark warrants it's exclusion from a comment section or the closing of that comment section is acceptable then we really don't have much left do we? As I pointed out already had I enjoyed the power to filter comments I could have simply filtered yours out, you see people not agreeing with me offends me quite severely and this entire discussion would never have happened. You might have gone to some other forums I frequent but I would find you filter you out all the same, I might have gone a step further and started actively filtering out your comments on random sites, eventually silence you in almost all of the public forums forcing you to either give up or go deeper underground.

It is a slippery slope, especially when people think some compromises on free speech should be admissible for the sake of sparing someone's feelings.

(Also if you are just going to answer in chronological order, don't break up the comment in separate sections. Just a pet peeve of mine but it makes it harder to respond to and annoying to read.)

 

[dharmaBum0]

Freedom of speech means Sarkeesian is entitled to not subject herself, or her viewers, to the inane ramblings of illiterate morons in a comment section.

 

[1337mokro]

Freedom of speech means Sarkeesian is entitled to not subject herself, or her viewers, to the inane ramblings of illiterate morons in a comment section.

It actually means the exact opposite, that she can't prevent those people from saying insane things even if she wanted to. Thankfully though there is no law that says she has to hear them, meaning that if she ignores them nobody will force her to read them.

Though if that is all you are concerned about then she could just disable comment notifications on those videos and still allow people to comment. Best of both worlds, the idiots can scream and she doesn't have to hear them.

 

[NightmareExpress]

and its not like the voting system makes sure smart comments get to the top.

The most common comments that make it to the top (on Youtube) are;

a) directly quoted from the video
b) an unoriginal quip with varying degrees of relevency to the content of the video
c) a personal story that may or may not be true
d) some comment regarding the thumb rating system
e) implying that the content of the video is better than celebrity x
f) something incredibly crass

Based on an observational period of seven years.
"Smart" comments are rare and the Youtube democracy you speak of is as flawed as the concept is outside the internet.
If an idiotic idea is popular among an ignorant crowd that happens to form the majority, it's going to win. Meanwhile, something smart, meaningful and well versed is going to get buried by trash in the silent tragedy that is the comment section.

Basically, what I'm saying is that the voting system does not make sure a smart comment gets featured.
It grants it an opportunity and then throws the decision to the masses most likely looking for something crude and comedic.

 

[In Search of Username]

People can act like morons anywhere, censoring them doesn't help, ever. If you think all discussion that takes place in the Youtube comments section is automatically invalid, well, don't read the comments. That's still not a reason to stop them existing in the first place.

Censorship is always bad, no matter how mind-numbingly stupid the people you're censoring are.

 

[Grahav]

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

My view also.

But, to be fair I had a pretty inteligent conversation with a youtube commenter

in this video

 

[Kyogissun]

Yeah, better lock up those comment sections. I mean, without some form of a voting system for the comments or the ability to flag comments for inappropriate content, those comments can't be properly contr-

Wait... I feel like maybe there's something wrong with my above statement.

 

[Xanadu84]

Thank GOD for posting this comic.

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. Youtube isn't obligated to provide comment space, and as long as youtube provides uploaders the option to turn comments off, neither are they. It's like a newspaper or magazine or any other publication, they may print letters to the editor, but they're in no way obligated to print every or even any letter they receive.

Thank GOD for posting this comment.

Thats the long and the short of it. Anita has no obligation to provide space on her channel so 3 reasonable responses can be washed away in comments about rapeing her. If anything, she did her opponents a great SERVICE by not giving them the rope to hang themselves with.

Yes, some people with reasonable responses won't be able to post a comment on youtube...oh no, where on earth can this person discuss something about video games ON THE INTERNET? Just imagine how much discussion has been had about the lack of discussion caused by her disabling comments. The point begins to look comically absurd. Saying that disabling youtube comments is stifling the debate is kind of like saying that spitting in the ocean is contributing to rising sea levels. And quite frankly, saying that she needs to grow a thicker skin and not be offended by assholes on the internet when said assholes are threatening rape and violence is dumb, naive, involves a psychopathic lack of empathy for fellow human beings. Her disabling comments did nothing except improve the quality of the debate.

 

[burningdragoon]

I mean, technically, disabling youtube comments is a kind of localized censorship, just like telling a a Jehova's Witness to go away because you don't want to hear what they have to say is a kind of censorship. It's kind of silly to think disabling comments on your own video is an affront to free speech. People are free to make their own videos, write blog posts, email, shout from rooftops their responses to her videos. All of which I'm sure have been done.

Here's what she is censoring:
a) people who just want to troll.
b) people who want to troll her with female-centric inflammatory language (rape threats/wishes, etc)
c) people who do A and B with intent to silence her because she said stuff they disagree with
d) people who want to have an actual discussion who foolishly only use YouTube for that activity.

The irony of group C is delicious no matter how small it may or may not be.

That said, we do to tend to associate Youtube with being able to <more directly give feedback, so it does give a very slight (and irrational) sense that she is stifling discussion. I also don't think she wants to have a discussion with people even on her own side, but not because the comments section is disabled.

 

[Notsomuch]

I mean, technically, disabling youtube comments is a kind of localized censorship, just like telling a a Jehova's Witness to go away because you don't want to hear what they have to say is a kind of censorship. It's kind of silly to think disabling comments on your own video is an affront to free speech. People are free to make their own videos, write blog posts, email, shout from rooftops their responses to her videos. All of which I'm sure have been done.

Here's what she is censoring:
a) people who just want to troll.
b) people who want to troll her with female-centric inflammatory language (rape threats/wishes, etc)
c) people who do A and B with intent to silence her because she said stuff they disagree with
d) people who want to have an actual discussion who foolishly only use YouTube for that activity.

The irony of group C is delicious no matter how small it may or may not be.

That said, we do to tend to associate Youtube with being able to <more directly give feedback, so it does give a very slight (and irrational) sense that she is stifling discussion. I also don't think she wants to have a discussion with people even on her own side, but not because the comments section is disabled.

Disabling comments is stupid from an uploader's perspective because from what I understand, the number of comments tie into how videos are rated and listed. More comments, good or bad, is good. Hence why people are always begging you to 'like comment subscribe'. She doesn't have to read the comments and for every comment (Good or bad) she receives it is basically money in the bank. If I see comments disabled on a video I'll just assume it's bad by default because why else would anyone do that unless they are a silly whiny baby who knows they are wrong and knows no one will like their videos?

-Comments have been disabled for this post-

 

[Zipa]

Why is Ashley trying to feed liquor to a toy dinosaur?

Because that's what the English do.

We feed booze to models of extinct species.

Also robots.

All the English? Or just Ashleys?

Maybe it's just us Ashleys...

I might have to revisit this topic.

I can confirm that another Ashley does this.... (me)