A former censor convinced me I was wrong about moderation

I used to think any moderation was censorship, but an ex-government censor from Malaysia told me at a conference that letting actual hate speech run wild just gives real censors an excuse to shut everything down. He showed me their old internal reports flagging user reports of death threats that got ignored. Has anyone else had their view shifted by someone who used to work in censorship?

2 comments

2 Comments

gavin_clark1mo ago

Yeah I've been thinking about this a lot actually. It's like when you see people screaming about free speech at a town meeting but then someone gets up and says something genuinely dangerous and everyone just sits there quiet because they're scared of looking like the bad guy. The whole thing reminds me of how in my neighborhood we have this one guy who blasts music at 3am and when anyone complains he yells about his rights. But the thing is if nobody pushes back on the little stuff it just gives the actual authorities an excuse to come in and ban everything including the stuff that actually matters. The censor guy was right about one thing for sure, letting the worst stuff slide just makes it easier for the real censors to take over later.

felix1551mo ago

I don't know man, I feel like sometimes people make this sound way more dramatic than it really is. Yeah, maybe your neighbor plays music too loud sometimes, but that's a noise complaint, not some big stand against freedom. The town meeting thing you mentioned, I just think most people don't want to argue with some loudmouth who's clearly not listening anyway. And that whole slippery slope thing about authorities banning everything? That feels like a stretch to me. Like, are we really saying that one guy with a stereo is gonna lead to the government shutting down all music? It just seems like people get wound up over small stuff and then act like it's the end of the world.