One of the big problems with Facebook, twitter, ticktok, reddit and snapchat is that its well known that they are loose in enforcing their own code of conduct.
This means that most people can be utter shits to each other and not have any repercussions.
In humans terms, they are the people that have loud house parties, and lets some people shit on the rugs. Regardless of the quality of the furnishings, the equality of the bill setup, the subtle neo-georgian architecture is all for nothing, because it's known as "the shit house."
Freedom of speech is important. But as a company when most of your reputation is defined by your users, hosting a forum which turns out you be a cesspool directly damages you.
The problem is when you have companies that bundle multiple services under an account and ban them wholesale.
Like, if I screw around on Reddit enough to get banned, I lose my Reddit account.
If I screw around on YouTube enough to get banned, I lose my YouTube account, my email account, my domain name, my cloud stored files, my music, and my cellphone apps.
I didn’t screw around on YouTube but I did get banned from YouTube for some odd reason last month.
The rest of my google account is still working.
You’re right though. I had this HUGE sinking feeling for the initial moments when realizing what had happened. Regretting not having moved my Gmail away yet and so on.
This is still a huge risk. Maybe if whatever YouTube trip I ran over was more severe, my entire Google account would have been banned.
And now remember that a substantial amount of us had accounts on both services before they merged. I'd like to see them slapped hard for this in the future. Was I supposed to read multiple dictionaries worth of legalese to understand that they now unilaterally have the right to ban my (now not so important) google account if I call someone a troll on youtube?
I think the problem is more that we lack laws and rulings for a fair treatment of users. A wholesome ban for a trivial reason should simply not be allowed, considering the importance of most services today. Something like an industry standard how to handle this, with proper escalation-phases should be the norm, instead of just nuking everything as it is now.
You flamed someone on YouTube? Ok, now you have lost the ability to chat on YouTube, instead of losing the whole account with all your videos, the gmail-account and all your android-apps you paid for.
Your username is Kaiser. That could be a bannable offense.
Now what if hackernews gets bundled with Gmail and that ultimately tied to your name and they just ban you from using a whole range of Extremely important services?
If this sounds far-fetched you're probably exhibiting the near sighted "if I have nothing to hide I have nothing to fear" fallacious thinking (or coping mechanism).
I think you are conflating enforcing rules with arbitrary rules.
given that there are literally streets with it on[1] I doubt its a bannable offense. plus, you'd expect that to be filtered out at the very start. Plus if they adhere to their escalations then it wouldn't result in a ban.
Hopping onto your wider point, Facebook et al are cesspools because they _don't_ enforce the rules well enough. if you look at Facebook's code of conduct, its actually really good. Readable, simple & comprehensive. (go read it, i promise you its good.)
the problem is, its not being enforced evenly. Us mortals only get automoderated. Popular posts (5m+ views, I imagine) will get the overworked human treatment. Politicians will be given free reign, because of reasons that are not immediately obvious.
> If this sounds far-fetched you're probably exhibiting the near sighted "if I have nothing to hide I have nothing to fear" fallacious thinking (or coping mechanism).
I have lots to hide, and a boat load more to fear. Again you are mixing in issues here that should be separate. Yes, I as a singular citizen should be able to hold any opinion I wish. I should be allowed to speak about it. Should that be free from consequences? In all but clearly laid out cases, yes. Should I be able to force that opinion or content onto someone else? no.
In the US, you are more or less allowed to say what you like, but I, crucially don't have to agree, or indeed agree to broadcast your opinion(whether you like it or not, a forum is a broadcast by a third party).
I am crucially aware that _true_ freedom of speech has never existed. I do not like that single corporations are given such power to censor things at will without oversight, but that's just newspapers and TV. That's before we get onto "fighting words" and the like.
I want people to be able to say most things all of the time. The issue we have with online/text discourse is that its really simple to bully people without consequences. Society does not work if there are no consequences for actions that cause harm and injury.
Do I want to curtail freedom of speech? no. do I want china style censorship? no. Do I want a multiplicity of services to cater to the wide range of thought and speech? yes. Should everyone be forced to carry all opinions regardless of impact or outcome? no.
> given that there are literally streets with it on[1] I doubt its a bannable offense. plus, you'd expect that to be filtered out at the very start. Plus if they adhere to their escalations then it wouldn't result in a ban.
Here in Atlanta, Georgia USA they're already changing street names that are deemed offensive [1]. Sometimes these are family names that were made famous by a historical figure tied to a "bad" thing but sometimes it's an English phrase where the implications are bad. I would be wary of general purpose words like Kaiser that make people think of "bad" things as those are also open to scrutiny.
In that article the streets being renamed are "Confederate <Something>". Clearly named after the Confederacy itself and not after people. Though they talk about possibly renaming streets named after people like Robert E. Lee or Nathan Bedford Forrest (founder of the KKK) later.
And an important clarification. To quote you:
> Sometimes these are family names that were made famous by a historical figure tied to a "bad" thing
These aren't streets that happened to share a name with these men, these were streets named for these men. The former (what you imply) is far less defensible (I'd say indefensible in general), but is not what is being discussed in your article. If you have another source where some non-Robert E. Lee named street is being renamed because it has the name "Lee" that would be a better example of what you're talking about.
Of course when the history of a name can be directly attributed to a bad person then it will be attacked but what happens when the history is less clear? Will assumptions be made?
Probably, but people can at least defend it, "This is named after John Lee, the 3rd mayor of the town from 1784. It is not named after Robert E. Lee and we can show you the street on a town map from before Robert E. Lee was even born." But your argument would still be better if you could show an example of that kind of issue, and not a hypothetical about it. Your article did not demonstrate what you are talking about here.
In some online communities, there are people who can't write which country they are from because the name of their country is offensive from a USA-centric point of view. I don't even know if those names raise flags here on HN, so, I'll just give their capital cities: Podgorica, Niamey, Abuja.
Your name / title / country name could be safe in your own country but seem offensive to someone with an international bias.
Let's be fair here, the issue with Taiwan is a geopolitical one. The same as it is with Israel and Palestine. And with many countries, territories, and borders, that are contested.
This isn't the same as the sheer ignorance it takes to assume that countries Nigeria, Montenegro, and Niger are connected to the US's issues with race and are therefore offensive. A US diplomat isn't going to sanction you for recognising Nigeria as a country. I'm also unaware of what such a person would call these countries instead.
No human is offended by those (I hope), but poorly-configured bots are easily triggered and can get an author censored or temporarily banned, or just annoy human moderators with irrelevant automated reports.
I'm in agreement that some vBulletin forums have laughable censorship, but it'd be because of incompetence that those country names would be filtered out, not because there's some kind of fear of saying/using those country names in the US.
A few years back a Russian guy created an Erlang library, and called it `coon`, as short for `raccoon`.
Enraged white Americans had a fit over this because in some (not all!) parts of America this is (or used to be) a racial slur. Many other Americans on the mailing list never even heard it used as a racial slur.
The guy was forced to rename the library.
Do you want to bet that whatever you say, or whatever you call yourself won't be a reason to get you banned? Do you want to tie an email address to the likelihood of this happening?
I mean the example is a bit contrived ... but his point that "I have nothing to hide" is a fallacy stands.
Another, better example: Normally, where you work is not a secret. It is something that most people would tell strangers if asked about.
Now, say you are testing your "market value" by sending out job applications. Now suddenly you may not want to disclose where you work.
This is actually not a contrived example, a friend of mine was let go because the HR guys handling one of his applications knew somebody from his current company, word got around and his current management deemed the risk of him "stealing work secrets" too high. So they put him on paid leave and he never entered that facility again.
Which would be complete BS as nazis were very vocal about being against the royality and abolished them. Yes, of course can you always make up some lies to justify a random act of power. But then the user can prove them wrong, go viral on social media or sue them. And bigger companies are usually not that broken that they just randomly act on such lies.
I live in Germany and "Kaiser" is everywhere. And I mean everywhere. That being said, coming from the US, I can easily see it being associated with the Nazi party by some strong-armed patriotic American moderator type.
Banning users from accessing their email accounts just for bad behavior at a public forum seems like an overkill approach. Email access should remain even if you can't access the forum.
Searching for Kaiser reveals several companies which provide a variety of services (care, raw materials, etc). Also some people call Schumacher the Kaiser of Formula 1 for his achievements. Doesn't sound like a bad username at all.
This means that most people can be utter shits to each other and not have any repercussions.
In humans terms, they are the people that have loud house parties, and lets some people shit on the rugs. Regardless of the quality of the furnishings, the equality of the bill setup, the subtle neo-georgian architecture is all for nothing, because it's known as "the shit house."
Freedom of speech is important. But as a company when most of your reputation is defined by your users, hosting a forum which turns out you be a cesspool directly damages you.