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[–][deleted]  (16 children)

[deleted]

    [–]magnora7 11 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 0 fun12 insightful - 1 fun -  (15 children)

    Community donations: https://www.patreon.com/SaidIt

    https://saidit.net/s/SaidIt/comments/jf/cryptocurrency_support_for_saiditnet/

    We're just a few dollars shy of breaking even and have been for a few months.

    [–][deleted] 11 insightful - 2 fun11 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 2 fun -  (12 children)

    Unless you crack down on free speech. Namely right wing speech, conspiracy theories, discussion of uncomfortable statistics, and scientific facts - essentially any challenge to the current mainstream narratives you will get deplatformed from Patreon.

    If you plan to die on the free speech hill you should make backup funding plans and create a legal Trust to defend the domain from seizure attempts - or just decide now to make such speech unwelcome so it's not a problem for you later.

    I say this to you as someone that is a regular poster on Voat, and Gab, and have seen the trials and tribulations both platforms have gone through for refusing to deplatform people speaking against things they don't like in our current society.

    I'm about as far right as you can go; but I'll gladly keep such discussions away from here if this place can eventually grow into a non-pozzed place to discuss topics like hobbies.

    [–]magnora7 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (11 children)

    The deplatforming is a concern, but that's why we have all those cryptocurrency donation options available.

    We don't want this place to be as far right as voat, we kind of hope to hit more of a centrist middle-ground between reddit and voat. That's the group that doesn't really have a place to speak their mind, so that's why we created saidit.

    Thanks for the advice, I appreciate it.

    [–][deleted] 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (9 children)

    Of course, I'm happy to see another attempt at less crappy social media. I'd hate to see this place vanish right after picking up a little steam.

    A final thought before bed; The main problem/challenge or source of drama, depending on your perspective - will be this: People with leanings like mine; when they first learn politically incorrect but scientifically indisputable facts - can not shut up about them.

    So, they'll attempt to "redpill" your centrists away from centrism by posting memes and other crude jokes based on statistics and facts like these: https://archive.fo/LRe05

    Lots of drama will result due to people taking offense at the unwelcome knowledge. Some of these folks will bypass you entirely and complain directly to the webhost/domain registrar/patreon, etc.

    [–]magnora7 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (8 children)

    I agree, I am already dealing with that on a regular basis. You hit it exactly on the nose. We have no qualms with political incorrectness here, but we also do not wish to become voat. So there has to be limits on this type of hate-filled ideology that is being pushed taking over saidit as it did with voat.

    It's just about... I don't want saidit to be 50% made up of posts that are about how bad x people are. Where x is leftists or some race or religion or whatever. Saidit is not a hate-manufacturing machine like voat is, nor do we want it to be.

    Additionally, some people seem to intentionally push extreme ideologies (left and right) as a way to intentionally destroy forums. All finer and subtler discussion would eventually be destroyed when knee-jerk (but perhaps factual) extremist memes take over the front page and become the mainstream culture of the site. This is a weapon used to destroy sites, and I see that for what it is, and am prepared to deal with it, even knowing it won't be easy. We are adding the rule "no advocating violence against individuals or groups" as a new additional lowest level of the pyramid of debate. This will limit the amount of hate-filled material that can be posted, as well as cut down on intelligence agency bait (agent provocateur) threads, or "glow" threads as voat calls them. This is win/win for saidit.

    However there still needs to be perhaps another rule to completely prevent the slide in to voat, but I'm not sure exactly what it would be. Perhaps no posting about the same thing over and over and over, because those people are often just pushing an ideology. But that's kind of arbitrary and hard to enforce. I don't want to say "facts posted only to support hatred of groups or individuals" because that's ridiculous, that's like a blank check for admins to act like an authoritarians.

    But if someone is posting all the time (20+ times a day) with ONLY content designed to make you hate x people... that's the real issue. They're pushing a hateful ideology ONLY and have nothing else to offer. Everything they post has the exact same slant to it, and they don't bother to post unless that slant is present. I think those are the people who destroyed voat. It's like their full-time job, and it might actually be, for some of them. But I'm not sure exactly how to turn that in to a useful rule that won't need patching or changing.

    What do you think?

    [–][deleted] 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

    Hell man, I don't know. Memes can be funny, entertaining, and enlightening - but that's also arbitrary as hell. One man's funny is another man's REEEEEEEEE.

    I strongly believe the largest reason civil debate has broken down between the right and left in the western world is that we've grown so far apart we can't even agree on what reality is as the baseline for discussion of whatever topic.

    Let's take a discussion about racism in modern america. A leftist will say "systemic racism is the reason american blacks are less successful (on average) than whites". A far right participant will bring average IQ, genetic variations, crime statistics, and other metrics in play to say, "Not true, nature isn't fair, some people are faster than others, some people are smarter than others, and these are the averages."

    Usually the debate stops here with the deplatforming or banning of the person on the right, or turns into a shouting match.

    I'd be happy if we could arrive at a place where we say maybe it's not realistic to expect many doctors or scientists from a city like Baltimore (avg IQ 76) but it's not cause of "racism". Unfortunately I've never had a conversation land there. People seem to leap from human biodiversity to implied genocide so fast it leaves my head spinning.

    As a result of all that nonsense it's been my experience that any forum that DOESN'T suppress politically incorrect facts eventually turns into /pol/ or Voat because the lowest IQ participants have the loudest voices.

    [–]magnora7 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

    One man's funny is another man's REEEEEEEEE.

    True. But there's kind of a hierarchy to it. Some things are more low-brow than others. And there's a problem with social media sites catering to the lowest common denominator. I think this is also part of the reason the discussion between the left and right has broken down as much as it has.

    I'd be happy if we could arrive at a place where we say maybe it's not realistic to expect many doctors or scientists from a city like Baltimore (avg IQ 76) but it's not cause of "racism".

    I completely agree, and I don't think it's racist to say things like that which are backed up by facts. But again if this is 60% of what the website is talking about (like voat), there's something funky going on.

    As a result of all that nonsense it's been my experience that any forum that DOESN'T suppress politically incorrect facts eventually turns into /pol/ or Voat because the lowest IQ participants have the loudest voices.

    I have moments where I feel the same way, but it HAS to be possible to find some sort of middle-ground between the two. But it's a bit like separating two sheets of paper that are stuck.

    I think the pyramid of debate will be a good defense against the low-IQ stuff. But the high-IQ stuff is welcome. I just hope one ideology doesn't take over the site, is all. Saidit is about diversity of ideology and opinion, rather than superficial "diversity", and this includes right-leaning opinions. But I'm not going to let people whip up anti-whatever militias on saidit. There's a lot of space between the two, and saidit will explore that space.

    [–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

    True. But there's kind of a hierarchy to it. Some things are more low-brow than others. And there's a problem with social media sites catering to the lowest common denominator. I think this is also part of the reason the discussion between the left and right has broken down as much as it has.

    It's clear your heart is in the right place. The irksome part of it is how do you turn that into rules that won't be interpreted radically different by different moderators. I think when writing site rules that dictate the type of environment you want to create a good thing to consider is the supreme court case Brandenburg vs. Ohio. This is the US case law that draws a clear line between speech protected by the 1st Amendment and illegal threats.

    In a nutshell, violent or hateful statements that are generic and lack credible immediacy are legal speech.

    Ex. "Someone should kill people I don't like."

    Ex. "We should round up and kill all the X."

    Ex. "Someone should shoot X corrupt politician/celebrity."

    Things that have enough specificity to be a credible or immediate threat aren't legal.

    Ex. "Hey, angry mob, string up that guy standing in the back of the room with the yellow shirt."

    Ex. "We're killing people we don't like on Tuesday in Made Up City, KS. Meet at the KFC on 5th street at noon."

    The line of "protected speech" here will obviously be drawn differently than the legal line due to the goals including desired level of discourse and civility. Many overly hostile and violent statements are legally protected speech but are not something likely to lead to productive or entertaining discussion.

    I brought up all of this because I think the very clear way the court defines what's acceptable versus what isn't has a bunch of value. It's something completely lacking in most forum rules - which are intentionally left vague and at the whim of the people that enforce them.

    If you can find the right spot you can still have edgy humor and decent discourse, but with a clear "line" people know they shouldn't step over. Hit the wrong spot and you lose the "banter" due overly broad restrictions. Objectively quantifying "intent and tone" are almost impossible on the internet so the more cut and dried things are, the better.

    If rule enforcement is a public thing (logs) this sets a clear "precedent" for the enforcement of site-wide rules, and also exposes when you have power-mad moderators that need to be removed.

    Having said all that, I've been involved in communities that have attempted to go down this path and still become right wing echo chambers because all other parties either disengaged from the conversation or slowly became right wing themselves.

    Those of us that enjoy arguing opposing viewpoints on the internet are an endangered species. People these days tend to just avoid places that may challenge their opinions and surround themselves with people that agree.

    The upvote/downvote system inherit in modern social media further encourages this, because opinions that run contrary to the prevailing one tend to be buried under a sea of "You're stupid and I don't like you" downvotes. I think the fact that this site lacks downvotes is a very interesting step in the right direction.

    [–]magnora7 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    That's an interesting approach. But it's also our stated goal for this site not to become voat. So if we let all the "We should round up and kill all the X." posts take over the site, we lose. And they will try to take over the site with this crap.

    Again it's about proportions. If someone is posting stuff like that very rarely, that's one thing. But if it's literally all they post I have to seriously question their value to the saidit community.

    [–]gildredge 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

    So there has to be limits on this type of hate-filled ideology that is being pushed taking over saidit as it did with voat.

    Do you see why when people hear stuff like this it makes them worry though? Early reddit loved to talk about just how committed they were to free speech, but over time it morphed into what we see today.

    What always happens is that banning things like "hate filled ideology" is slowly transitioned by far left types from;

    don't post "GAS THE K***S, RACE WAR NOW"

    to

    don't post "I respect your right to identify however you wish, but I can't agree that someone born as a biological male can become a woman".

    The most fundamental thing is that you absolutely cannot protect free speech if you have any rule that has an ideological flavor. "no hatred against groups" for example is ideological, since of course the concept of "hate" is often only applied to certain kinds of hatred. Reddit largely ignores "hate" from communists directed towards the bourgeoisie, or from radical feminists towards men, while banning "hate" directed towards black or gay people.

    If I were in the position of setting out rules it would essentially be;

    -"no inciting physical violence" (this is clear and non ideological, it doesn't even need to mention "against groups", just no inciting violence period.)

    -"no doxxing"

    Additionally, some people seem to intentionally push extreme ideologies (left and right) as a way to intentionally destroy forums. All finer and subtler discussion would eventually be destroyed when knee-jerk (but perhaps factual) extremist memes take over the front page and become the mainstream culture of the site. ... But if someone is posting all the time (20+ times a day) with ONLY content designed to make you hate x people... that's the real issue. They're pushing a hateful ideology ONLY and have nothing else to offer. Everything they post has the exact same slant to it, and they don't bother to post unless that slant is present. I think those are the people who destroyed voat. It's like their full-time job, and it might actually be, for some of them. But I'm not sure exactly how to turn that in to a useful rule that won't need patching or changing.

    You could curate the front page of the site. Not by blacklisting subs, but by only showing posts from a group of subs that you select (cute animals etc), that way new users won't get the "oh this place is crazy" vibe as a first impression.

    It's then quite easy to tell the normies who just aren't interested in seeing "extreme politics" from the far left censorship types who will actively go looking for subs with wrongthink and demand they be banned. It's quite easy to tell people who choose to find content to be offended by to just stop actively seeking it out.

    [–]magnora7 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    Thanks for the thoughtful comment.

    "no hatred against groups" for example is ideological

    I'm going to disagree with you there. This rule itself is not ideological. If you cannot have an ideology without constantly fomenting hatred, I have to wonder how good of an ideology it really is. That goes for extremist leftists as much as extremist rightists

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

    When I was in atheism sites, I saw the same thing always happen and I am sure those crazy people keeping to attack others and posting hate speech are not atheist, they look very religious for me...I thought they are paid shills, but who knows? Maybe they just love to attack, as Jehovah, who love to genocide.

    The group of people (intelligence people)you like/love is a very limited quantity in the human race, I recommend you build a friend list to collect them for making yourself feel better, otherwise the stupid crazy attack group on the internet is the nature of the human and they found a place (internet) so show their true colors without control.

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

    By the way, you will have to use the internet to find out such a small group of you like/love (they are the minority group, the internet did help the minorities find each other), and it's unavoidable that you see those shit when you looking for the thing you want.

    Compare with just post new threads with links only, communicate with people would help you observe the intelligence level of them, once time you found someone is a fool, ignore him/her, don't waste your time to that one anymore, tracking the person you think is "hopeful" and keeping to reply his post to further observation.

    [–]Snow 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    I notice extreme leftist and rightist ...they are somehow psychos and I think they use the politics to cover up themselves are psychos, they are very aggressive, and they know how to justify their aggressiveness under the term "politic".I think they just want to attack.

    [–]Buddy_Ironwood 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

    there you've broken even. Speak on!

    [–]magnora7 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    Thank you very much Buddy_Ironwood! Most appreciated! You're awesome