Racism

submitted by Death_By_Democracy from self.AskSaidIt

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[–]TemporarilyDeceased 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

For sure free speech is an essential part of a properly functional social media platform...But it seems to me that allowing all speech, no matter how bigoted, racist and sexist it is creates another problem in creating a lack of appeal to the average person, which in turn produces a lack of engagement.

Popular speech doesn't need protection. That's why all speech should be allowed. The repugnant speech is overwhelmingly childish name-calling which contributes little to the conversation. The best thing to do is shout it down with better content.

[–]Death_By_Democracy[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Yes - I agree with the principle, and if Saidit wants to remain a one of those places where generally people don't want to bother with because of the repugnant speech, so it just works for those with strong stomachs, then that's all fine and dandy.

But I suspect the result with be a site which is basically irrelevant. There will be some good stuff here, but no-one will see it because (as I said originally) no-one wants to have to deal with hordes of children and bigots being abusive at them.

[–]StillLessons 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I think you're correct here. In the three years I've been on this site, it is essentially irrelevant to the broader societal discussions going on. But those of us here do exist (aside from the massive number of trolls - like everywhere on the internet - there are a small number of actual recognizable people on here), and nuggets of useful information keep on popping up regularly. We're basically irrelevant, but at the same time, we haven't gone away, either. The views here maintain our very tenuous toehold within the societal map.