Well, our resident bigots are back at it. In post 1010 of the “Is It Time To Tone Down the Wokeness?” thread, DemonTree posts a link to horrific hate speech, while stating that it reflects her own opinion.
The linked piece routinely misgenders trans people, and explicitly makes the claim that:
There is no such thing as a “trans person”; there are people who identify as “trans,” and people who have gender dysphoria. There are people with chromosomal abnormalities, people with psychological scars, and people swept up in a social contagion. But there is no essential category of being denoted by the word “trans.”
This is a clear violation of SDMB policy on hate speech, and if she had simply posted this under her own name, she would surely have been warned, and more likely suspended or banned.
So why are we letting her get away with this? I started an almost identical thread when Aspidistra tried this shit three years ago, and everyone seemed to agree that it shouldn’t be permitted, but the thread was eventually closed when certain posters went off the rails, without any mod ruling be made.
So I ask AGAIN: Can we get a clarification that hate speech really isn’t allowed, and we aren’t going to leave a loophole open that makes that rule meaningless?
I request that people not hijack this thread by trying to debate whether the current SDMB rules about hate speech should be amended. I want to focus on this specific trick being used to circumvent those rules.
Did you flag it for the mods to see? If you don’t, they may never see it, or not right away. They don’t read every single post, and on weekends they have their own lives to lead.
He did. But since there is muddiness around what our actual policy is, I deferred action until the policy becomes more clear discussing it in this thread.
Thanks for the reminders to posters, though, that we don’t read every single post and we do (sometimes) have our own lives to lead.
Hate speech. Do not post hate speech directed against any race, religion, ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexual orientation or other group identity (except for political affiliation or leaning) in any forum. To elaborate:
Hate speech – that is, slurs and other pejorative remarks about groups that in our opinion are clearly hateful – is prohibited in all forums. If you see instances of hate speech on the SDMB, please flag the post and we will take such action as we think appropriate.
Not all pejorative comments about groups rise to the level of hate speech. We recognize there are differences of opinion on what constitutes hate speech. We leave it to the SDMB community to debate such questions, with the understanding that final judgment on what constitutes hate speech is the responsibility of SDMB staff. If you believe a post is hateful, you are free to say so, provided you abide by our rule against insults – see point #10 below. Others are free to disagree with you. The belief that the truth will emerge from the clash of views in open debate is a cardinal principle of this board.
The rule against hate speech includes the following prohibitions and clarifications:
No slurs or cheap shots. Do not post slurs or other cheap shots based on race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, gender orientation, or other group identity except for political affiliation or leaning. Example: In a discussion of Henry Ford ordering his engineers to examine a foreign aircraft so they could copy it, poster A commented, “What the h*ll did Ford think he was, Chinese or something?” This gratuitous remark in a thread having nothing to do with China plays to the stereotype that Chinese people as a class are ripoff artists. This is a cheap shot. Remarks of this type will be modded.
Please note that we would not object to fact-based discussions of whether Chinese entities engage in intellectual property theft. This is a debatable proposition. See further discussion below.
The rule against slurs applies to all ethnic groups including whites. This is a change from past practice. The goal of the SDMB is to promote civil discussion. Slurs impede this goal.
Criticism of groups to be clearly framed as a debatable proposition. Criticism of groups or their members on factual grounds is not considered hate speech and is not a violation of SMDB rules, provided it is clearly framed as a debatable proposition. By this we mean that (a) the asserted criticism should be expressed in unambiguous language and not rely on innuendo, “dog whistles,” or the like, and (b) in principle, the criticism could be shown to be unfounded.
Example #1: In a thread about Will Smith’s slapping of Chris Rock at the Academy Awards, user B urged others to Google a photo of the event’s producer (who was Black) and “draw your own conclusions.” User B also said that pointing out the “truths at play here … would get me permanently banned.” This post relies on innuendo, making it impossible to say what is being asserted, except that user B believes it constitutes a bannable offense. Such posts do not promote discussion. If you do not have the courage of your convictions and are unwilling or unable to express your claims clearly, do not make them.
Example #2: In a separate thread, user C cited the post by user B in the previous example and claimed it constituted hate speech. User B responded, “The reason that the person who assaulted another person wasn’t escorted from the room is because the Producer of record is also an African-American… We all look out for our own. It’s human nature… I think that the Producer was looking out for his own.” This is a debatable proposition – it is easy to imagine alternative explanations for the failure to eject Smith. The question of whether it is racist is also arguable. If something is debatable, our policy is to let people debate it.
We reserve the right to prohibit topics of which we have grown weary – see Tired topics for the current list.
If we detect a pattern of pejorative or otherwise objectionable comments about groups by you that, taken individually, do not rise to the level of hate speech but that, in aggregate, detract from civil discussion, we may tell you to stop; failure to do so may result in suspension or revocation of your posting privileges.
You are free to criticize a post as racist provided you refrain from insults. Direct your comments at the post, not the poster. “This post is racist” is not objectionable. “You are a racist” is an insult and may result in a warning or other mod action. Do not attempt to skirt this rule with remarks such as “only a racist would say such a thing” or other game-playing.
To summarize, slurs and other remarks that in our opinion are clearly hateful are a violation of SDMB rules. However, we do not wish to rule preemptively on every comment that could possibly be construed as hate speech and make such judgments on a case by case basis.
We also want to allow conversation, but don’t want to support hate sites. In fact the link breaks now. The rest we’ll discuss and review.
After another flag and seeing how hijacked the thread has become, I’ve close the thread until Tuesday at 11am EST.
I’m also giving @DemonTree as short suspension while we sort this out. A warning might follow or a longer suspension.
Last note in this post: I’ve bumped this up to the Modloop. I’m asking a long suspension. It appears to be closer to trolling than posting in that thread. 110 posts is oddly obsessive also out of 1068 posts.
Could somebody do me (and maybe others here) a favor and link to the post in question, which is the usual courtesy for ATMB discussions? Because I have no idea what people are talking about.
I did manage to find the thread by searching for the word “wokeness” across the whole board, as the OP didn’t even mention which category it was (I assumed P&E then checked IMHO before resorting to a full search).
I then went to post 1010 as the OP indicated (typed 1010 in the “jump to” feature), but that’s a post by GIGObuster. The post above that one was by DemonTree, but the only link there was to a USA Today article which I assume isn’t the hate speech under discussion.
Scrolling through dozens of other posts at the end of the thread, I couldn’t find it either.
This isn’t a Pit thread, why don’t we have any links?!
I do think it would also be worthwhile (while the modloop is kicking this around) to consider the underlying question that our OP brings up. If linking to hate speech (leaving the question if it was actively constructed to be the targeted posters POV aside) is considered a direct violation.
Of course, we avoid bright lines, and it’s always possible to link something unintentional, or questionable, which is one of the reasons to have moderation, but if the construction in the OP is correct, we IMHO should close the loophole explicitly within the rules.
It doesn’t look like she directly says that; in that post, immediately prior to the link, she does say, “I have personally experienced this many times, but I can’t really cite lived experience. I googled, and someone wrote an article about it:”
Which may be saying, “This article reflects my lived experience,” or not. Is she effectively saying, “This article reflects my opinion?” I’m not sure.
It looks to me like she got cute with links to hate speech more than once. A little hard to sift through with 110 posts in a long thread. Thus the suspension until Tuesday to give us time to sort this one out.
One link, one time is not going to draw a warning, though if it is a hate site/article we will break it. But make a habit of it, I’m going to think you’re playing games to get around our rules.
Thank you, I couldn’t find anything more than that myself, but I have not read all 110 posts by a long shot.
She’s explicitly saying the article matches her lived experience, which seems to be implicitly saying it reflects her opinion.
I can’t imagine posting a link to an inflammatory opinion piece as an example of my point while disagreeing with the opinion of the article I’m linking to, at least not without a massive disclaimer.
This is a clear attempt to game the rules to sneak in hate speech in my opinion. This is the reason why this board avoids “bright line” rules; so that the community isn’t hamstringed into having to accept these tactics.
A personal anecdote isn’t a reliable cite so here is a link to a reliable source.
Writing something inflammatory will get me in trouble per the rules so I’m going to avoid that by linking to something instead.
Both seem problematic, though to different degrees. The first interpretation means that DemonTree sees a heavily-biased political opinion piece as a genuine citation which is clearly wrong.
The second interpretation seems like a confession that she’s gaming the rules.
I honestly don’t know which interpretation is correct and I think either is equally likely. I don’t think it’s fair to assume the latter though.
The essential disagreement between the two sides in the Sex&Gender debate is around this question: do people have an innate attribute called a Gender Identity, can some people have a Gender Identity of man/woman despite being born with a reproductive system which is female/male, and is it true that intentionally changing your Gender Identity is impossible?
Lots of people on this board believe all that. The site that @DemonTree linked to doesn’t. But as I’ve pointed out before:
Currently 65% of Americans say they also disbelieve the statement above. So if you make it board policy that nobody can express disagreement with it, you’re cutting yourself off from the opinion of the majority of your peers. This seems like a bad idea.
Disbelieving in an attribute is not the same as “hate”. Atheists disbelieve in immortal souls - that’s not “hate” towards Christians who believe that they themselves have an immortal soul. If a Pentecostal tells you “I had a leading of the Holy Spirit” and you say “well I don’t actually think there’s such a thing as a Holy Spirit”, that’s not hate - neither is disbelieving that immutable gender identities are real.
I actually find it pretty offensive, not to mention boring, that anyone is still trying to claim that I “hate” my middle child, sister-in-law’s child, various friends that identify as the opposite sex … just because I have a different opinion from them about whether “man” or “woman” is the correct classification for them.
So the hell what? I have a disagreement. People I know in real life who call themselves trans have coped with this disagreement pretty well.
There are people on this board who want to shut off the possibility of expressing the opinions that transwomen are most sensibly categorised as men, and transmen are most sensibly categorised as women. But that opinion is one of the most normie, boring, common, everyday-person opinions out. If you insist that it can’t be expressed, you will just put yourself into an ever-shrinking bubble and hobble your chances of actually understanding events around you.
The article @DemonTree linked to does not have any instances of phrases like “Trans people are (negative thing)” that I could see. @DemonTree is almost always (or maybe even “always”) calm, polite, and reasonable in her posts. She just disagrees. How is it she’s getting a suspension for a post that has no ascription any stronger than “incorrect” of a negative quality to any person?
I’d also like to point out that the linked article is directly relevant to the question DemonTree was asked, and it does give a number of examples of people claiming things were “not happening” which, demonstrably, were happening. It was not in any way off topic. Her reference to her lived experience was clearly related to experiencing the “it’s not happening/not happening enough to care about/happening a lot but that’s GOOD!” ratchet, which is a well-known trope
I consider the fact that you’re offended by such a thing as an affirmation that it’s a good policy for the board.
And I’m glad the board refuses to fall prey to the Paradox of Tolerance.
I also don’t think you’re going to get anywhere by insisting that the board is losing out on partipation by rejecting bigotry. Not all participation is good.
This is a lot closer to some atheist telling a a religious person that they are lying and don’t actually believe in a god, and in fact that nobody believes in any gods. Which I’m pretty sure would get modded for being hateful.
Also, the gender essentialists believe strongly in an “immutable gender identity”; they just think that they are the ones who get to assign it and the person in question doesn’t get an opinion on the matter.
I googled, and someone wrote an article about it:”