The Great Debate

[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)

 

[maxben]

Not a fan of disabling comment's mainly because while there are a bunch of horrible comment's you're also silencing the few good ones amongst them [like my self].
You also give the impression that you/your particular point/the particular subject of which the video is about can't handle criticism/other ideas which implies that you're/subject is in the wrong.
Also the argument "why bother letting [x]talk/discuss about [y] [x] don't know anything/are wrong about [y]" sounds like a copout answer that can lead to a slippery slope.

Arguments that use "slippery slope" are themselves slippery slopes. Once we accept that "action A can lead to something worse and therefore action A should not be done" is logically valid than we are forced to notice that all actions can lead to something worse and therefore no actions should be done.

Remember:
Eating hamburgers is on a slippery slope to eating babies.
A firecracker prank is on a slippery slope to a terrorist attack.
Watching porn is on a slippery slope to sexual violence.

 

[burningdragoon]

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-

Sure, except she's running her video series and website purely on donations. No ads on videos means all that doesn't really matter.

 

[triggrhappy94]

I prefer reading the comments at the end of news articles from major news networks. There's always something completely unrelated and super racist.
I remember I read an article about how confused towns people in England called the cops when they heard gun fire coming from the set of Tom Cruise movie--I guess no one told them they would be filming. The first comment below the article said something about how there should be nations just for white people like how there's nations solely for every other group. It was so random that it was funny.

EDIT:
I can't believe so many people care about the comment section on youtube. It's just youtube.

 

[Reeve]

Of course the uploader of the video has the right to disable the comments. However they ought to know that there are a lot of people, including me, who will down rate the video because of this, regardless of the content of the video.

 

[Evil Smurf]

The OP is a gay ******.

Good comic, I laughed.

 

[anthony87]

Screwed up a quote thingy, please ignore

 

[TTYTYTTYYTTYTTTY]

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.

So you'd rather everyone run crying or cover there ears going "la la la can't hear you", then advocating they grow up?
Honestly the way she handled the whole thing I doubt she even cares about the "trolls", but saw the easy and free advertising they'd give her.

 

[anthony87]

"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.

No, that's called Youtube and if they're putting a public video up on a public website and disabling comments then yes, they're silencing discussion/debates/general nonsense about it.

 

[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.

No, that's called Youtube and if they're putting a public video up on a public website and disabling comments then yes, they're silencing discussion/debates/general nonsense about it.

You missed the comparison. There is a network literally called Public Broadcasting System. You've probably heard of it; it's pretty famous. There's also CBS, NBC, ABC, and FOX, to name a few, that are publicly broadcast and free to watch. Why aren't you holding them to the same scrutiny?

 

[RJ Dalton]

This might be funny if it wasn't so damned true.

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

This is why I use plug ins to disable YouTube comments on my browser. Nothing pisses me off more than to watch a video on something I'm interested in and see a bunch of twattmuffins in the comments saying uneducated things

 

[Riobux]

Because you can't create a forum to act as a medium for debate and conversation. You can't tell your audience "if you wish to converse on this issue, just go to X place" (X place being a heavily regulated place, preferably neutral territory). It's just bizarre at best, and abusive at worse, to comment about something incredibly controversial and decide "nope, some people are abusive so NO DISCUSSING THIS SHIT WITH ME".