Now that this community has mods, I think we should come to something approaching a consensus on whether there should be a rule against posting “nice” comics from transphobic and other kinds of bigoted artists. People like Stonetoss and Jago who have a lot of innocent-looking relatable comics, but also post the most mean, bigoted propaganda.
And I’d like to present a third option besides yes and no: one might post comics from bigoted artists after removing the artist credit, if the mods think that’s a good compromise.
after removing the artist credit
Oh god, please not. This is a whole different can of worms that does not need to be opened in this particular discussion.
My fear with banning artists who have made bigoted comics is how that relates to older comics. For example I really enjoy those Jucika strips, but given their age I wouldn’t be that surprised if the original artist had some opinions that we wouldn’t tolerate today.
Regardless of my fear, I’m more concerned with having a space that’s welcoming to all people and I’m well aware of the “Nazi bar” problem. So I would come down on having a ban list of bigoted creators that aren’t welcome here.
We personally agree in removing their comics, though should never remove credits even to a bigoted artist. We personally would rather not like a comic and it’s from a transphobic bigot -a fellow trans person
I think if we require artist name in the title, people can easily filter it out.
Do not remove artist credit, people have the right to know who made the art. For the question of “can you separate art from the artist”, everyone is going to have a different stance on it, and even then it may vary depending on the severity of the artist’s action. Removing the artist credit removes people’s autonomy in that regard.
It also opens the door for people to claim “Billy made one off hand joke 17 years ago, so now we must crop out all their credit because it’s an advertisement”.
Consistent rules will be best. Making exceptions and attempting to maintain a blacklist gets messy to manage and can get out of hand.
This is the only workable option. Anything else is just asking for trouble in one form or another.
After reading the comments here I have been convinced we should create a list of these artists, and none of their content is welcome in this community.
Main points being:
- allowing their “nice” content creates a pipeline for users to their bigotry
- having it signals to new users we are ok with content from bigots
- it should make moderating easier because there is no need to deliberate what is ok by that creator
Nazis, racists, transphobes, homophobes are not welcome here under any context!
I’d rather this place doesn’t turn into a Nazi bar, I’m in favor of banning hate
I was at a shitty crustpunk bar once getting an after-work beer. One of those shitholes where the bartenders clearly hate you.
So the bartender and I were ignoring one another when someone sits next to me and he immediately says, “no. get out.”
And the dude next to me says, “hey i’m not doing anything, i’m a paying customer.”
and the bartender reaches under the counter for a bat or something and says, “out. now.” and the dude leaves, kind of yelling. And he was dressed in a punk uniform, I noticed
Anyway, I asked what that was about and the bartender was like, “you didn’t see his vest but it was all nazi shit. Iron crosses and stuff. You get to recognize them.”
And i was like, ohok and he continues. “you have to nip it in the bud immediately. These guys come in and it’s always a nice, polite one. And you serve them because you don’t want to cause a scene. And then they become a regular and after awhile they bring a friend. And that dude is cool too.
And then THEY bring friends and the friends bring friends and they stop being cool and then you realize, oh shit, this is a Nazi bar now. And it’s too late because they’re entrenched and if you try to kick them out, they cause a PROBLEM. So you have to shut them down.”
And i was like, “oh damn.”
and he said “yeah, you have to ignore their reasonable arguments because their end goal is to be terrible, awful people.”
And then he went back to ignoring me. But I haven’t forgotten that at all.
- Michael B Tager
This.
I loved some of what was available on Reddit years ago. What really made me leave was exactly this problem, the fact that the same platform that allowed things I was interested in also allowed Nazi stuff, things like fatpeoplehate and jailbait. If you have a Nazi section of your bar and a pedo section of your bar it is a bar I don’t want to be in, it is a Nazi pedo bar.
Also, to be super clear, I am absolutely making the strong claim that fatpeoplehate was a Nazi subreddit along with jailbait. Nazis see people as less human when they don’t fit their narrow definitions of human, thus the term useless eaters. They also see women as breeding capacity without humanity and have strong tendencies towards younger and younger girls over time. These are solid links and part of the ideology, not incidental. If you have a Nazi bar it will be a pedo bar too, and they will also hate on people with disabilities and those who are lgbt+.
I’m about to drop a really hot take: The freedom to choose your body includes the freedom to choose to be fat. Now, most people won’t understand why anyone would want to be fat, and that’s okay. You don’t have to understand something to accept it. But going around saying that wanting to be fat can only be a fetish or a mental disorder, like people say about being trans, is not acceptable. We’ve got a tremendous diversity of different people here on this planet Earth, and I think that’s a good thing, because it means I’m never gonna run out of interesting people to get to know.
100% agree. I actually fit this well. I am a tall and fairly muscled dude. My body responds well to keto and I can drop fat fairly easily. I choose to carry some extra weight because I prefer how people treat me at this weight. I am seen as less threatening and less likely to judge which are important things to me.
Also, replacing pants is so expensive. In this economy?
already is
There are many comics in the world. Banning a handful of horrible creators won’t starve the community for content. It will create space for non-horrible artists.
Allowing the “nice” comics by horrible people just creates a funnel for people to click though and be exposed to hateful ideas.
If in several months the ban list has grown monstrous in size, we could revisit, but that seems unlikely.
It’s not book burning or censorship. The horrible creators remain entitled to host their own websites or their own instances.
Can you explain to me how censorship of problematic artists is not really censorship?
Because a comics sub on Lemmy is not the government or a church or any other powerful organisation that has any reach beyond itself
It’s a small community of people who are allowed to decide not to welcome bigotry
Ohhhhh so when its just a few people its okay to ignore things they dont like. Quick, hid that info from billion dollar fossil fuel advocates! They must never know the power of ignoring inconvenient reality. Imagine how well they’d sleep at night
If I step into your group of friends one evening and start an unprompted 4 hour lecture on 17th Century Agriculture, would it be censorship if you asked me to leave?
Small communities are allowed to curate themselves. It’s not censorship without that power dynamic, and on some level you yourself must understand this since your go-to comparison was ‘billion dollar fossil fuel advocates’
Curating would require active moderation. This isnt a proposal for increased moderation, but a content based ban decided by which artists are or are not haram to your leftist sensibilities at any given time. Why should the lemmy.world instance of comicstrips be censored when you can make a new instance like “safestripsforgoodboysandgirls” instead of fucking over the larger community?
Why should the lemmy.world instance of comicstrips be censored when you can make a new instance like “safestripsforgoodboysandgirls” instead of fucking over the larger community?
If most people here are in favour of it, then that’s why.
And then you can leave and make a new instance with your preferred amount of bigotry
“If we don’t flood the front page with Nazi stuff, we’re as bad as the Nazis” was always my least favorite argument.
Will you write “I’m an idiot” on your forehead for me? If not, am I being censored? Why or why not? Should you be obligated to carry my message anywhere I desire?
Nobody should be obligated to parrot your mouth diarrhea, no. But that does not mean its okay for an entire community to discourage your mouth diarrhea simply for being distasteful.
That’s censorship, just in case you were having trouble identifying the concept we are discussing.
Nobody is obligated but the community is obligated?
Personal preference is not censorship. Banning an artist from an artistic community because the community can’t regulate their own emotions is censorship.
So the individuals running a forum cannot moderate the forum. It must be open to any and all content. Otherwise that is censorship, and bad.
Well, I infer from your tone you think censorship is always bad. Maybe you’re just splitting a hair about how in a sense content moderation is censorship.
because the community can’t regulate their own emotions is censorship.
The biggest eyeroll
My big problem with censorship is that it dulls the mind. Safe spaces do the same thing. If your thoughts and beliefs are never questioned, you can never grow as a person. Echo chambers are breeding grounds for ignorance. Our world is not tolerant of ignorance. Being unable to react appropriately to emotionally inflammatory bait makes us all weaker on an emotional level.
If you want to coddle yourself, make a safe space to do so. Don’t take an open forum and limit it to suit your preferences. The internet is infinite. Make a new space with your own rules.
Bigotry belongs in the bin. Denial of platform is nice too. Banned creator list feels appropriate
I’ll voice in favor of a banlist for bigoted artists. Letting bigots and other hateful people in with “relatable” content just normalizes their hateful material, even playing into possibly intentional “onroading” on their part to their prejudiced platform. It also reinforces the idea that targets of that hate need to “play nice” if they’re not being targeted right then and there, and perpetuates the falsehood that these positions are a matter of “opinion” rather than an existential threat to the targeted.
A banlist would present a higher workload on the part of the mods, which is not something I feel can be demanded, but it would be helpful to have if the goal here is to create a welcoming environment.
MissesAutumnRains also brings up a good point (https://lemmy.ca/post/63256113/22736751) - Leaving it up to users to block bad content does nothing for new users who will have no such curation, and who will be left to assume the community is accepting of such content. Platforming hateful creators will silently push away those who find their content distasteful and entice users that agree with it to stay.
A mod in this thread stated that people already submit a lot of reports on Jago’s comics. With a banlist, mods wouldn’t need to spend time thinking and debating the issue every time a Jago comic is posted. They can just check if Jago is on the banlist. It might add up to less work overall.
Perhaps. I’m gonna leave that determination up to the people doing the work, though. I don’t think it’s fair to try and convince a volunteer that an additional rule is or isn’t too much work to manage.
That’s the only way for comics or anything else because you can’t really expect users to research the whole ideological history of the author every time they see a funny picture and want to repost it.
I’m not sure I have a strong opinion either way on the censorship vs not supporting bigots debate, but, to the extent the community decides to ban any authors/artists, there needs to be a quick and concise list that posters can consult.
I support this rule. If I see comics I enjoy I will often go look them up. It’s awful to dive into a new comic and find hateful content that I didn’t expect. Prohibiting comics from known hateful bigots would help avoid that.
Anthropologists observe societies, writing about them dispassionately and adopting a non-interference, non-judgement policy.
At some point a group of academics decided they wanted to include moral discussions (particularly about their own society), on how things come to be a certain way, and how they could develop differently. Thus Sociology was born.
Anthropology still exists, Sociology eclipsed it, it didn’t kill it. They’re aspects of each other, not in competition.
This is the censorship debate in a nutshell. A community picks a side, and the other side is free to branch off. The choices here are: Comics can be anything, even 3D printed gun files, or porn! No limits! We’re all here to just observe.
Or; we need to advocate some limits, some values. Some values are better for the world, and some are worse.
I believe the no-limits crowd have the less considered standpoint. No group is free from having standards and values. We already moderate, it’s the nature of social groups with implicit rules and ideals.
In my opinion, we’re here to do more than just observe the chaos. We adopt a stance. Improving the world as best we can. So we must decide what improves it, and what doesn’t.
I don’t think totally uncensored free speech improves the world. It still imposes a set of values that impact the world - even if advocates pretend that no choice has been made.
I am a firm believer in “There is no better disinfectant than sunlight.”
I want to see the most vile aspects of people, I want it to be on full display so we know who they are, and we can counter them directly.
I think the algorithm has done a MASSIVE amount of damage by cordoning things off and creating little pockets of filth festering in darkness out of view until it overflows and spills out on us all.
I firmly disagree. “The way to stop Nazism is to let them talk more and let more people see a bunch of Nazi stuff” can be judged as nonsense by inspection.
That isn’t how this works.
It doesn’t start with the most vile filth. It starts with slightly edgy jokes, employs irony, and works slowly towards getting you to believe whatever racist slop they’re selling. “The alt right playbook” was a youtube series from like a decade ago that covers some of this. I don’t usually like youtube videos, but that one I make an exception for.
And yet the pipeline works because it’s an “inside” thing, the more people who see and recognize the dog whistles the less likely it is to spread with people remaining unaware that is is.
You’re mistaken in thinking “The Algorithm” is some objective equation. I can’t stress this enough -
It’s not.
It’s a lever, a programatic tool billionaires can adjust to control public opinion. What’s more there’s evidence of this. Internal leaks from Facebook/Meta reported that they were fully aware certain types of commercial beauty standard promotions embeded in social media in an unmoderated fashion on their sites were inadvertently causing young girls to display suicidal ideation.
They didn’t stop it (because of the ad profit). There’s a whole two part podcast on this (and other forms of confirmed algorithmic damage here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIR0Kd27RhI ).
Likewise, YouTube prior to Trump’s election were very much aware that their algorithm was leading young men through a pipeline to far-right ideas and Nazi content (again, this podcast episode discusses the news and facts of this case: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IekScPTekz8 )
I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH, the idea that Sunlight will disinfect our views, is no-longer (and I believe the sources cited in those two podcasts show this), is no longer a viable opinion. It’s really an abdication to a higher power, without anywhere NEAR enough awareness of what that “higher power” really is: A loaded version of free speech, where the richest promote and demote views that best suit their interests.
I’m not saying I have a solution, but it’s really fucking important that we all strongly recognize the gravity and extent of the problem. Because people are now growing up in, and entire social circles are being actively politically groomed by these algorithms in a way that’s never happened to this extent before.
The free market of ideas is a convenient LIE which benefits the wealthy and most people do not push back on at all (they see it as objective and impartial). We need far left radicalism but there are no billionaires interested in allowing that into their algorithmically walled gardens - where they control the “sunlight” of what your feed thinks is popular.
They aren’t accusing the left of indoctrinating the young because it was happening. They were accusing them, because they were doing it themselves already, algorithmically.
The “indoctrination” is just another Satanic Panic, the dumbest things you have ever heard being repeated enough by “trusted” sources it becomes fact to them.
It’s Meta and Xitter now, though, not James Dobson on AM radio.
the algorithm has done a MASSIVE amount of damage by cordoning things off and creating little pockets of filth festering in darkness out of view until it overflows and spills out on us all.
This describes how society in general has handled all vices, since long before the Internet.
Sadly accurate, but it has been wilful ignorance, now it is enforced by what the machines think we want to see.
I think it is worse now, than before, it was a lot easier to pick up that “other” newspaper than it is to break out of your algorithm.
now it is enforced by what the machines think we want to see.
The Machines aren’t operating of their own accord. They’re being told what to show, to who, and when. Someone sets those rules for the algorithm and updates them periodically for profit.
As I said in my longer comment, it’s not machines doing objective and unbiased calculations, it’s political. A billionaire constructed echo chamber we all now live in. The aim is sometimes to profit and keep us addicted, other times it’s to promote candidates who share Billionaire’s profit motive. But it’s never an objective democratic analysis.
We have to always be mindful of who is pulling the levers and why, and that’s the truth of it.
True, when they had humans working for them it wasn’t so bad, there was variance in how they responded to the company position and they could think rather than follow a checklist.
I’m against censorship, but I’m pro for curated content. I would be happy to make a rule in which after reaching a certain amount of downvotes, a post has to be removed. I also think it is reasonable to ban someone if they consistently post content that keeps getting downvoted. This is no different than spamming or trolling.
PieFed has offered a full suite of these features for years now, as have some 3rd party apps.
e.g. not only does it offer automatic removal of content (posts or comments) based on downvotes, but it can alternatively collapse it based on a different, more lenient threshold, requiring an additional click to see it.
There are also keyword filters, and what I like most are the visual icons placed next to certain usernames - this does not “filter” their content but does let me see what I am getting into, so that I know e.g. that replying is probably not going to turn out like I may have hoped.
All of the above puts both the control and also the responsibility into the hands of the end-user, without requiring that a mod team constantly do extra work for other people. Which among other things will necessarily involve a delay before community rules can be applied.
I would prefer that the content is not censored by someone else’s moral compass. If it’s content by a transphobic or otherwise bigoted artist then let us know in the comments. Book burning is bad, no matter who is doing the burning. I would prefer to be educated than have someone else determine what is appropriate for me to view.
TL:DR I’m an adult: I’d rather choose for myself.
And as an trans adult I would rather not be exposed to it at all.
I don’t want a community that’s like 4Chan, I want some where that’s respectful and takes into consideration the wellbeing of its users without platforming hate artists.
I can respect that. I would suggest blocking the users that post the stuff you don’t want to see. I would prefer, though, that you educate me about why and how these artists are offensive to you. I can be a better ally if I understand. You gain nothing if I’m kept ignorant just because you say so. I also understand that you’re probably tired of having to defend yourself and explain yourself over and over again. I would guess that there’s an existential fatigue just trying to live in a society that seems to be offended by your very existence. I’m sorry. I try to call it out when I see it, but I don’t see it as often as I should and I think that hiding it, even comic strips, doesn’t help me to understand better. I need you, with lived experience, to point it out to me so I know what to look for.
It isn’t their job to educate you, in fact requesting that is putting that additional burden on someone who is already burdened by this bigotry.
It is really unfair to ask them to explain it so that you can be a better ally. If you want to be a better ally it is worth looking into it yourself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yAbQ-CaJXs
That is a good primer, but it is just one person’s perspective. If you search “stonetoss Nazi” or “stonetoss bigot” you will get tonnes of people explaining it in more detail.
Just to be super duper clear, I’m not dragging you here. I’m not saying “you suck for not knowing, you should know, and asking is just you being a bad person”. That would be silly and short sighted. I am saying that as a person who is not trans you are not experiencing the horror of anti trans bigotry all day every day and so you aren’t worn down by it. You surely have your own problems and they are real and hard, and so do trans people. It makes sense to listen when they speak about it and hear what they are saying, but asking them to spend their energy on your understanding is a different thing. You can spend your own energy on figuring it out and make yourself a better ally.
Thanks for explaining. It’s easy to be lazy when you don’t realise you’re being lazy. I appreciate you taking time to politely set me on the right path. I apologise if I caused any offence.
Not a worry. Now anyone else who has the same question will see your comment, my reply, and your graceful acceptance and hopefully follow your example. Somewhere out there on the internet in my turn in your shoes with someone else opening my eyes. I found it liberating to realise I could go find out myself rather than trusting a random internet stranger.
I would prefer, though, that you educate me about why and how these artists are offensive to you
If you really want to learn about why certain art is offensive towards certain people, go look for that explanation yourself. There is plenty of information out there in general. Don’t put this workload on someone who just wants to scroll a bit, they are forced to explain themselves often enough already.
My bad. Thanks for explaining. I apologise for any offence.
All good, I realize now my comment reads a bit harsher than I meant it.
Nah. It’s OK. It wasn’t harsh. It was direct. It was a slap to the face that I needed. I was being lazy and making my education someone else’s problem. I am self aware enough to see when I’ve made a mistake, most of the time, and though my intentions were good, it’s really not anyone else’s job to educate me. I also hadn’t considered that the “lived experience” I was asking for could be traumatic to recall and relay. Like I said, I was being lazy. I make mistakes. I try to learn from them and be better.
Genuinely great attitude. Hope you have a nice day :)
I don’t think the defining/worst/significant thing about 4chan is inoffensive comics that are by people who have expressed offensive views, and I don’t really think you do either?
No, I think the worst thing is treating it as a “free speech” place instead of moderating what is shared there.
Which is fundamentally the approach being argued here.
There’s a chasm between “anything that’s not illegal in the USA” and “you can post non-hateful stuff regardless of what the author may otherwise have expressed.”
Human rights is not a moral issue. If hatred were an opinion worth platforming, Nazis would have built movements fighting for acceptance rather than trying to violently force their view upon us. The fight for equal rights by queer people has existed for 1000s of years because it’s an identity. It is endemic to our species and you can’t stamp out identity the way you can with hatred that hides in a deplorable subset of majority populations.
Right… But we’re talking about comic strips, not about slowing the march of the third reich.
Education is better than censorship. Let the comics get posted, then start the conversation in the comment section about why and how this comic, or artist, is oppressing minorities so that we can make up our own minds. Education is the weapon against oppression, not ignorance.
If you’re so arrogant to think that you can make that decision for me then I’m going to resist you. If you take away my freedom to choose then you’re just swapping out one form of oppression for another.
Arrogance is thinking you’re smarter than propaganda. You are not. Your position is reactive and oppositional and ripe for mind control tactics. You are so easy to manipulate, in fact, that in one paragraph I’m going to make your blood pressure rise and flow to your amygdala.
But the propaganda hits us whether we see stonetoss in the corner or not.
Banning comics from bigots in a lemmy community is not remotely similar to book burning.
I’m opposed to a ban except for the most outrageous stuff. Let people downvote what they don’t like.
I hate this book burning mentality. It’s not because the person is bad that the content is nessarly bad. Like, if war and peas’s author turned out to be transphobic, would that automatically turn all of their comics bad?
Although it doesn’t mean that hate and bigoted comics shouldn’t be banned. That part is the actual offensive part.
And removing credits is actually scummier than posting bigoted comics imo
For reference, this is not to shill those persons. I’m literally trans and bi. I’m actually concerned with what those are artists are against.
This isn’t book burning. This is more like we’re refusing to print and distribute more copies of their books for them.
You know, the books the Nazis burned were from the library of Magnus Herschfeld, the director of the Berlin Sexology Institute. He was gay, and much of the library was ABOUT queerness, and transgender studies.
The comic strips we’re talking about aren’t being destroyed. But a lot of trans people in the world are, and they risk themselves simply by being who they are.
That is more worthwhile than access to edgy comics on a public forum like this. Better that far-right stuff gets blocked, than trans people getting burned.
It’s okay for a forum to have a political position. I’d prefer it to be left of center.
deleted by creator
