Quote:
Originally Posted by tame_deuces
As a moderator here, I would tend to agree with the point on editing. When I remove a post, I am changing the discourse as visible to future readers. That's both censorship and editing.
Though there is a scale here. This isn't really the same as purposefully deleting posts to convey a specific message, rather the new narrative is a bi-product. I might be editing a discussion, but I'm not editorializing it. I don't know if it would be practically possible to design a litmus test that could differentiate the two.
I think we have to be very careful not to conflate things here.
Multiple things can be true at once and that is what the right is using to confuse this issue.
It can be true that chat sites and comment sections can have TOS that allow a Mod to remove content after the fact.
it can be true that Editors of MSM take in articles from Journalists and before publishing remove content before being published.
Those two things are in no way comparable and yet those on the right are trying to conflate the similarities to suggest some sort of equivalency.
Chat Sites arguably rose out of the Chat and Comment sections of MSM sites. The first places in the early internet where you could see citizen engagement on hot topic subjects.
Despite the fact that the Published Journalist articles were always subject to the law as Publishers, the chat sites never were. The reason being is the Publisher is making a defacto representation with the former and not the latter. It is that defacto representation (this material has been checked, verified and published with our credibility and name behind it) that allows them to then be sued if inaccurate, spurious or out right fabricated.
The Washington Post editorial saying XYZ is very different than you and I in the comments section of the Washington post saying XYZ.
This attempt to conflate those by pointing at certain similarities is not something we should accept.
IF I want to start a Chat Site called 'Progressive for Progressives' and in my TOS I make it clear that right wing content will be removed that should be fine. My removing i should not automatically make me a publisher and subject to the rules of review, edit and verify every chat comment before people can engage.
Society absolutely needs both. Content provided by Editors that is held to a higher standard and can be sued over. Content provided by users (chat) that is not.
it would be the greatest disservice to actual Free Speech if every chat site, every comments section became truly 'edited' and thus caused the loss of the direct person to person voice.
Lucky and those people duped by the far right do not see that they are duped. That what the far right is calling for is an entirely edited and gov't dictated system that takes away direct user to user interface and requires all chat first go thru a moderator or editor.