The Great Debate

[Entitled]

The New York Times isn't practicing censorship when it chooses not to print a letter sent to it, you aren't practicing censorship when you choose not to forward a chain letter to 10 of your friends, I'm not practicing censorship when I choose not to scream every thought that comes into my head stream of consciousness style while I'm walking down the street, and Anita isn't practicing censorship when she turns off youtube comments on her videos.

One of these is not like the others. Not saing something, is not the same thing as actively stopping something from being said.

Anita isn't just not posting misogynist rants against herself, but categorically bans the posibility of those rants being said by others in a cerain context

A definition of censorship that would apply to those situations is meaninglessly broad. Part of freedom of speech is the freedom to choose what you don't say, what opinions you don't express in your own words or your own publications or spaces.

Censorship is not just a "freedom of speech" issue. Governments that allow freedom of speech, still practice censorship.

While the opposite of "being censored" would be "being able to speak freely", the informal concept of being able to speak freely is not the same thing as the legal concept of "Freedom of Speech", which has it's limits, and these limits are what censorship enforces.

Just as the government can censor obscenity, or hate speech, because that way of speaking freely is not protected by freedom of speech, likewise, individuals and corporations can censor their forums because that isn't protected by Freedom of Speech either.

You imagine that as if it would work like this: North Korea doesn't have Freedom of Sppech, therefore North Korea has censorship. The USA has freedom of speech, therefore the USA can't have censorship. Posting comments is not a Freedom of Spech issue, therefore banning comments can't be censorship.

"Censorship" is not a meaningless word, just because it's not the legal opposite of Freedom of Speech, it's still a useful phrase for all cases of communication being forcefully silenced, with or without violating freedom of speech.

 

[1337mokro]

The difference for me is moderation. If after watching Jim's first episode, I commented with "Get raped Jim!" I would be banned or at least given a warning. So the next time, I wouldn't be there to add irrelevant comments. Freedom of speech or a lack of censorship doesn't mean a freedom from consequences.

Besides, I always have the right to say something and walk away. Why can't I have that option on youtube? Not even the default setting. Gosh knows I use that setting all the time in League. There was a Zilean 2 days ago pretending to be an Islamic Bomber... I hit the mute option.

It was just a rebuttal restating what had been said in the thread.

My point was that youtube has certain rules. Which allow people to tell you that they are going to "Put on a strap on and screw you in the ass", apparently the Escapist is fine with that to so as long as it's between ""

The Escapist has a different code of conduct. They are both forums owned by businesses, they are not public areas so yes they are allowed to refuse users based on certain things.

But that is also the difference between blocking/filtering comments and following a set of rules to use the service provided by the company. Youtube has no such moderation, therefore using the services of youtube should go along with the expectation of getting allot of crap.

If you don't want to hear it you can switch off notifications. Your video could be BOMBED with rape threats, peanut butter innuendo's and whatever else and you would be none the wiser. However that is the again the difference between the mute button and kicking someone from the server. People seem to defend disabling comments when at the same time if they don't want to hear them, they could just flick on the no notifications switch. You don't have to deal with the shit and people are still able to spew the shit. Everybody wins!

 

[Malisteen]

Anita isn't just not posting misogynist rants against herself, but categorically bans the posibility of those rants being said by others in a cerain context

When that context is 'in my space that I have implicitly endorsed by making available and that I must subject anyone to by linking to my video' no, that situation isn't any different from the others I mentioned. The comments section of Anita's videos is Anita's space, and if she doesn't want to make it available to you, that's her business.

You are responsible for your own speech, but when you publish someone else's speech, you're taking responsibility for it, too. You are effectively re-saying what they say by broadcasting it. Speech in youtube comments is the responsibility of the speaker, but also of those who chose to give them that platform in the first place - both youtube itself and the video poster in whose comment section the speech is taking place, in exactly the same way as a newspaper still shares responsibility for the speech within letters that they choose to publish. It doesn't matter what the 'default' settings are. Checking a 'don't allow comments' box when comments are the default is no different from not checking the 'allow comments' box when they aren't, and its no different from simply choosing not to go out of your way to set up a commentary method when one isn't built in.

Where individual moderation is unfeasible - as is often the case on the internet - the options are either to make space available or not, but neither choice constitutes censorship, because there is no reasonable obligation for that particular space to be open in the first place. Censorship is restrictions on speech imposed by an outside force, but while you're in Anita's space you're the outsider, not her. Nothing she can do in her own space is censorship, even choosing to block only the posts that disagree with her, because that's her space and her speech as much as it's the speech of those allowed to comment.


There's this assumption in the internet generation that everyone is entitled not only to say anything they want, but to say it any where they want, including other people's private spaces, and that other people are obligated to make their spaces available to you. And that's just ridiculous. As mentioned earlier in the thread, "preventing you from shitting on my lawn isn't policing your toilet."

 

[Entitled]

The comments section of Anita's videos is Anita's space, and if she doesn't want to make it available to you, that's her business.

Yes, it is her business. She can choose to leave such comments be uncensored, or she can, you know... censor them.

Censorship is restrictions on speech imposed by an outside force but while you're in Anita's space you're the outsider, not her.

That's both a spectacular case of moving the goalposts, and one that is ridiculously incompatible with the common usage of the word "censorship".

The problem is, that you are basically argue about semantics. You agree with the comic that youtube commets should be censored, and I agree with you about that, so all that you personally have contributed to this discussion is a terminology debate about whether we should call that "censorship", or make a new euphemism for it and limit the phrase censorship towhat is now known as "freedom of speech violating government censorship". So I guess the "bleep censor [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleep_censor]" that many TV programs use is actually misnamed since it's done by the programs' own self-censorship [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-censorship], and in fact, the concept of self-censorship itself is a contradiction.

Now let's start citing dictionaries, and debate about descriptive vs. prescriptive linguistics, as if this discussion wasn't pointless enough until now.

 

[duchaked]

I've completely stopped reading IGN article comments. It's just too terrible.
YouTube is...well I stick to channels where the viewers aren't usually huge crapheads. Yahoo is hilarious when it's the sarcastic cynics making jokes, but even then...

In general I avoid these 'debates' on the Interwebz. Of course being in a university where people are always arguing stuff, I just don't like it in general haha...but hey anyone who wants to debate on campus should do it in person and within punching range. >:/

 

[Yuuki]

I see nobody has managed to answer my question yet lol, so I'll ask again:

I see why Anita turned off comments, she wanted to avoid a huge sea of trolls and hurtful comments.

But then why did she turn off ratings?? EXPLAIN THAT.

There is no room for trolls or hurtful comments in ratings, you will only get an idea of how many people agree or disagree - nothing more. So there is no excuse (but please, do explain if you can come up with one).

As I said before, Anita is well-known for only speaking/presenting (or "preaching" as I prefer to call it) in events where feedback or debate isn't allowed. She does this with almost all her content to avoid getting criticism and I'm sick of people defending her bullshit. Her MESSAGE may not be bullshit, but her her PRACTICES certainly are bullshit.

Stop defending her poor practices Cory Rydell and Grey Carter (assuming both of you are responsible for this comic). Maybe I don't feel like uploading a whole fucking video because Anita's work is just not WORTH that much time/effort! Maybe I just want to drop in a rating after I've watched it. Writing some random article somewhere or posting in random forums doesn't have anywhere near the same amount of impact as leaving some form of feedback (if not comments then at least RATINGS) on the video itself.

I heartily disagree with the message in this comic and recommend the editors at least think for a minute before they post stuff like this. I'm not against opinions and stances, but I am against irrational opinions and teaspoon-narrow perspectives - especially coming from the more influential people on sites like these.

 

[Nurb]

I don't know see the issue as so much "obligations" as just being a good sport. Yea, you get the nasty comments but it comes with the territory. Gamers are a nasty bunch as a whole, we all know that, but it's some unwritten internet rule people have adopted where if you put yourself out there to say something, you put yourself out there for all responses. Unfortunately, there's a lot of shit mixed in with the non-offensive replies.

However, in the case of Anita Sarkeesian, she disabled comments on all videos, except for when her kickstarter was nearing the end of its run, THEN she enabled comments for her kickstarter video, getting all the trolls to do their thing and posting the results on feminist blogs.

Bam! Over $100K in the bank and interviews on TV to promote herself. From then on she hasn't enabled comments. She knew what she was doing. She knew she could rile up the gamer trolls and exploit the feminist community for money and exposure through victimhood. She's a good marketer, and a little underhanded in how she does things.

 

[KelDG]

If you can't take the heat, fair enough disable the comments. But who hasn't had "death threats" from kids who want so sound hard on the internet?

What's wrong with this situation is disabling the ratings. This obviously shows a lack of confidence in the validity of her work. Not everyone wants to send her hate mail, there are people who just think she is plain wrong and want to click a thumbs down to show their opinion.

 

[TTYTYTTYYTTYTTTY]

But then why did she turn off ratings?? EXPLAIN THAT.

Not very familiar with how YouTube videos work, but possibly after receiving too many down votes it'd be harder for people to find?

That's a pointless reason though as she knew everybody would know her name and YouTube channel, after the "trolls", interviews, articles about her and her tedx talk.

So in my personal opinion, she just doesn't care at all about any criticism or differing opinions.

 

[Razhem]

Did anyone call for a white knight?!

Really, it baffles me how much people are confusing supporting Anita for taking deranged amounts of bullshit and plain becoming white knights of her.

Her work has been decent, yet sketchy, I agree with some of her points (how Lego has changed it's publicity strategy for boys and girls) but at other times it seems she is looking for ghosts over her shoulders. She has her points, but tends to take it to the extreme. As for her tropes vs women, the first episode is pretty crap considering how much she is supposedly representing the female gamer with it and how base all her comments are (yes, there are a lot of games that use the trope, now tell me something I don't know), I mean, not going into the big fat elephant in the room known as Japanese culture and how their games are plagued with these tropes is pretty damn huge.

Anyway, thing is, yes, she got harassed and still gets harassed, it's horrible, deplorable and the people doing it are pathetic excuses of existence that should get their heads out of their asses and learn how to express themselves. That on the other hand does not make Anita be right on what she says and posts and doesn't stop her being a coward to a degree for avoiding critical debate,because all I've seen from her is usually purely onesided discussion and I'm also in the camp that find it amusing that the only time she has allowed comments on her youtube videos was during a short time during her kickstarter when it seemed like it was going top flop hard.

Basically, yes, she deserves support in the sense that she was a person that received surreal amounts of attacks from a bunch of bigots, that does not mean she is immune to critical analysis because people were assholes to her. She is very much susceptible to critic and if she doesn't pick her shit up, she will become an utter waste of time for all involved and will leave those people that supported her wondering why they even bothered, because yes, there is a lot of stupid shit against women in the medium, but if her form of tackling the problem is what we have seen at the moment, then she'll lose relevance in a heartbeat and will only be preaching to the choir.

Anyway, stop being bloody white knights, it only makes her become a "damsel in distress" and undervalues the strength of women everywhere with the whole "I HAS TO PROTECT" skit, I already watch enough anime and manga already to have to see it everywhere else.

 

[Orekoya]

I have a very valid concern for disabling comments on videos like this: one less hotbed of stupidity that could be harvested for Youtube Reacts [http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAE3324F1A53CA85E].

 

[zidine100]

i dont see why anyone's complaining, here, it just means that if we go watch one of her videos, we wont see constant make me a sanvich comments at the bottom.

and you know for a fact that most would just bomb the ratings without bothering to watch it so why bother.

Really it makes perfect sence, there's a difference from constructive criticism and just plain foul mouthed mind numbing hatred that some people put out just because shes doing this.

 

[Razhem]

If you don't show your face and take a few for the team, well frankly, what the hell are you doing representing a demographic? Problems are solved by confronting them, not by hiding from them, simple as that.

Also, an amusing video I found, a bit rambly but with some nice content

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL8wJvlmpRI

 

[Yuuki]

Anyway, thing is, yes, she got harassed and still gets harassed, it's horrible, deplorable and the people doing it are pathetic excuses of existence that should get their heads out of their asses and learn how to express themselves.


Basically, yes, she deserves support in the sense that she was a person that received surreal amounts of attacks from a bunch of bigots...

etc etc

Just to point out something, Anita isn't the only big name out there who is getting "harassed" the shit out of and receiving "surreal" attacks. As far as I know fuck-all has happened in real life, these "attacks" people speak of is nothing more than cyber drivel.
There are countless big names who get death threats (along with rape threats if they're female) on a daily basis on the internet. For anyone who is ready to deal with it, it is of zero concern. It's literally part of being a celebrity or well-known name, especially on the internet where anyone can say anything without consequence.

So if you're going to prod a sleeping lioness (that's basically what Anita is doing here), you're going to get a reaction. A violent one.

Anita is no unique snowflake, reactions to her stuff are nothing special and nothing worth mentioning - it's just that she used that reaction very well, making big presentations out of it and glorifying the reactions. That's why you're using words like "surreal amounts of attacks!" - because Anita made COMPILATIONS of screenshots of said attacks (who the fuck goes through comments taking screenshots??) and presented it to the media as a "help me, I'm being victimized by people on the internet!".
She also did talk-show style interviews where she wept about receiving hurtful comments (from the fucking internet may I remind you), which sealed the deal.

That's all the media needed really, a cyber damsel in cyber distress.

BAM.

 

[Razhem]

Anyway, thing is, yes, she got harassed and still gets harassed, it's horrible, deplorable and the people doing it are pathetic excuses of existence that should get their heads out of their asses and learn how to express themselves.


Basically, yes, she deserves support in the sense that she was a person that received surreal amounts of attacks from a bunch of bigots...

etc etc

Just to point out something, Anita isn't the only big name out there who is getting "harassed" the shit out of and receiving "surreal" attacks. As far as I know fuck-all has happened in real life, these "attacks" people speak of is nothing more than cyber drivel.
There are countless big names who get death threats (along with rape threats if they're female) on a daily basis on the internet. For anyone who is ready to deal with it, it is of zero concern. It's literally part of being a celebrity or well-known name, especially on the internet where anyone can say anything without consequence.

So if you're going to prod a sleeping lioness (that's basically what Anita is doing here), you're going to get a reaction. A violent one.

Anita is no unique snowflake, reactions to her stuff are nothing special and nothing worth mentioning - it's just that she used that reaction very well, making big presentations out of it and glorifying the reactions. That's why you're using words like "surreal amounts of attacks!" - because Anita presented these comments to the media, made COMPILATIONS of screenshots of said attacks (who the fuck goes through comments taking screenshots??) and presented it to the media as a "help me, I'm being victimized by people on the internet!" plea.

That's all the media needed really, a cyber damsel in cyber distress.

BAM.

Oh, of course she manipulated everything to further her desires, but the truth is that a lot of jackasses gave her that material to be able to manipulate with. Basically, yeah, she's playing the damsel card a lot (Seems that every time she does a talk, she plays the harassment card to get pity points) but that does not change that she has suffered real harassment. Yes, it may be only of a verbal kind and yes, most people that re remotely famous have to deal with this shit constantly too, that still does not invalidate it being deplorable and needing to be something people should be made aware and told down about. Of course like I stated before, there is a big difference between that and her not being full of it.

 

[Kururu999]

You guys are a few weeks late. The thing you are supposed to be passive aggressive and smug about this week is the Dragon's Crown sorceress.

 

[Caiphus]

You know there is a reason I asked my main question in BOLD right? You didn't answer it in the slightest, you're just telling me the same thing everyone else in this thread is chanting - why she disabled comments. I KNOW why she disabled comments.

I'm not talking about comments, I'm talking about ratings. There is no room for trolling or hurtful comments in a rating - only an indicator of how people feel about the video.

Answer the bolded question.

If every time I posted something relevant to my interests on youtube, an army of spiteful twits invariably materialised, well I'd probably disable feedback as well. In all forms.

Sorry if that was buried in there.

My justification for removing the votes would be the same as for removing comments; if a bunch of people were bound/destined/compelled to come onto my video and downvote it regardless of its actual quality, just because they hate me or my message, I would probably take the arguably cowardly way out and just disallow them from doing it.

There's a point where criticism becomes more akin to vandalism.

And besides. Lots of people will downvote Anita's work regardless of its quality. I'm not a huge fan of her work either, so I generally just ignore her. But plenty of people will go onto her youtube page and downvote everything for various silly reasons.

And at that point, the rating system becomes meaningless anyway, does it not? The rating system no longer measures quality, or the reasonableness of the video, or the intelligence behind it, because it's muddled by people acting in this way. So not only does the rating system become a bit pointless, it just becomes depressing for the author.

Because again, instead of criticism or anything meaningful, it just tends to become vandalism. So nothing is lost anyway.

Do you not agree?

 

[Yuuki]

Do you not agree?

1) People hate Anita because of her message
2) People hate hate the message because of Anita

Both seem equally valid reasons and accurately define "feedback" as far as I'm concerned. I mean there is a reason someone would come to Anita's video JUST to click the dislike button, Anita in general has pissed them off - what else could drive a person to do that? As an overall picture, you're still getting an idea of the PROPORTION of people who disagree/hate her compared to the people who agree/like her. And that proportion would be enough proof to give everyone visiting that video a general idea of what others things of Anita's message, without the need of a single comment.

I would also file troll comments under "feedback" (there is a REASON for trolling, always) but since Anita would simply make another compilation of those comments and sob even harder in the name of victimization, I guess we're all better for it.
But she can't do the same thing with ratings, trying to say "people dislike my video because they hate me and want to rape/victimize me!" would simply hold no water. See where I'm getting?

Eh, in the end I'm in the same boat as you - not overly concerned. And thank heavens the game industry isn't concerned either, only a handful of petty videogame journalists having slow news days

 

[Caiphus]

1) People hate Anita because of her message
2) People hate hate the message because of Anita

Both seem equally valid reasons and accurately define "feedback" as far as I'm concerned. I mean there is a reason someone would come to Anita's video JUST to click the dislike button, Anita in general has pissed them off - what else could drive a person to do that? As an overall picture, you're still getting an idea of the PROPORTION of people who disagree/hate her compared to the people who agree/like her. And that proportion would be enough proof to give everyone visiting that video a general idea of what others things of Anita's message, without the need of a single comment.

I would also file troll comments under "feedback" (there is a REASON for trolling, always) but since Anita would simply make another compilation of those comments and sob even harder in the name of victimization, I guess we're all better for it.
But she can't do the same thing with ratings, trying to say "people dislike my video because they hate me and want to rape/victimize me!" would simply hold no water. See where I'm getting?

Eh, in the end I'm in the same boat as you - not overly concerned. And thank heavens the game industry isn't concerned either, only a handful of petty videogame journalists having slow news days

Listen, I'm not going to presume we're in the same boat. But here we go:

I was raised by video games far more than human friends for the majority of primary/secondary school (ages 5-18). So when people like Anita come onto the scene and start implying that the things that raised me were sexist and misogynistic, well, it's really difficult to have a completely rational, objective response to that.

If someone you didn't know came up and called your parents racist, you'd have a poor reaction, even if they presented a ton of evidence. And I don't think Anita has emphasised fully with that side of her audience. I watched a few of her videos, and she just seemed to present her arguments (even if they were probably reasonable) in a way that made me feel bad for liking video games. Even if that wasn't her intention. When you're trying to convince me to take your side in a debate, that's not a great place to start.

But that's an emotional reaction. And I'd like to think I'm someone who can recognise that and either ignore it, or at least just pout to myself about it in the corner. But clearly there are people that can't do that, and will just either downvote out of spite, or I guess threaten to rape her.

Off topic ranting aside, people are going to have emotional reactions to content like Anita's. If she doesn't want a whole bunch of emotional shit flung at her (some more eloquent than others) then she can disable it if she wants. She still has a twitter feed, and there are still places like the escapist where we can discuss it and gauge the community reaction.

Although you're exactly right, there's always a *reason* for trolling. That doesn't necessarily make it helpful. Perhaps you think that emotional hate mail/hate downvoting is useful feedback for either the viewers or the content creator, but I don't think so.

You've already pointed out that Anita has a tendency to use negative feedback to further her cause anyway.
So she clearly doesn't give a dingy dang what kind of feedback she receives; she seems to be set in her ways as to how she presents her videos.

But you might be right. There's a place for this stuff, certainly. But if Anita, or anyone, doesn't want it next to their video, then I can't really bring myself to demand it to be there.

And that could just be the difference between us.

 

[Paradoxrifts]

Nothing quite sets off my absolute bullshit detector quite like disabling ratings and comments.