Should OzBargain Hide/Cancel/Censor Merely Unpopular Views

I once read an SF story that people put things in three categories:

  1. I like it
  2. I don't like it
  3. It should be banned.

As I get old I find I live in a society where increasingly things are banned. We used to love cracker night, for example. We knew it resulted in damage and injuries, but it was fun. I don't remember us ever being asked, but somehow it was banned. And these days just not liking views has increasingly resulted in them being banned. The cancel culture. And the punishment of those who defy it. We had a name for that. It was called bigotry. Denying other people the right to say or advocate things you disapprove of.

I have no problem with OzBargain, or any other publisher, censoring foul language, threats, intimidation and the like. But it annoys me greatly that it hides postings and the sometimes quite interesting discussions that follow simply on the basis of the + and - score of whether people place it in category 1 or 2. Whether they like or dislike it. Whether the majority agrees or disagrees with it.

I would remove the ability to neg other peoples comments. If you don't like what someone else has said, well, tough. The price of you having the right to say what you want is letting other people say what they want to. Limited only by decency and civility on the part of everyone. I would at least remove the effect of an accumulation of negative votes, so we could all see what views were and weren't popular, including our own.

Comments

  • +6

    Don't turn OzBargain into the overmoderated cesspool that is Whirlpool.

    Full of boomers and namby-pambys.

    • +1

      ye flux stormcat and more

    • -6

      the overmoderated cesspool that is the public entrance courtyard of Whirlpool.

      Full of boomers, the people who built and designed the protocols you are utilising that it, and this forum, run on.

      FIFY.

      • +4

        Please, most boomers couldn't open a PDF.

        • At least they've been gainfully employed at some point in their life.

        • They can open a PDF - rotating it, however, is a whole other thing

  • +1

    I agree re banning everything and the removal of comments negged over a certain amount. Silly for many reasons.

  • +10

    CaNcEl cuLtuRe

  • +14

    You’re missing a couple of wokes in your little story.

      • +4

        Literally shaking are you…

        • -4

          And another one ^^

          • @Gervais fanboy: Literally kindergarten level intelligence response all the time from this bloke lol.

            • -1

              @tof: Says the bloke that uses ‘literally’ to express an already exaggerated form of speech.

  • The only thing the narrow-minded majority will accept is wholehearted acceptance of what they believe. It's bigotry, plain and simple. History is the same as it ever was - just different groups of people being oppressed this time around. People with (arguably) all kinds of oddball lifestyles and ideas are put on a pedestal, whereas people who still stupidly believe in old fashioned things like values, morals and principles are shunned. As are people who for decades lived in a world where things were much simpler. It's not allowable to struggle to understand all these new-fangled ideas (the more recent generations are all over it - children are taught the A-Z from a very young age). "Fall in line or be cancelled" is the message. "Be anything you want to be, but don't you dare disagree". Meanwhile it is entirely possible to continue going through life being a good person and treating every person you meet with dignity. No programming required. No need to spend hours absorbing 'woke' Netflix and Disney+ programs. Just apply one simple life principle. We can all do it!

    • +15

      I don’t understand is there a reason you complain about inability to accept ideas and treating other people and ideas with dignity then complain about stuff being woke? Cause that seems a bit ironic to me

      • +4

        Because 'woke' is an incredibly exclusive ideology which I don't choose to adopt, especially because of the way it excludes people who have any sense of 'morals, decency, values' whatsoever. I don't need to fill my head with 'woke' propaganda foisted on me by the entertainment industry to function as a good and decent human being. I treat everyone the same, from the Janitor to the CEO. I don't need to be educated in whatever your kink is or what you like to do in private or think you are. It's irrelevant to me. Just stop all this cancelling garbage and politely bugger off and let me do it my way and you do it yours :)

        • +9

          So you're allowed to decide who you like and don't like, and whose behaviour you like and don't like, and who you do and don't want to associate with

          But if somebody you don't like does it, they're "woke" and they're "cancelling people" and they're "incredibly exclusive"

          Onya champ, you've clearly spent a lot of time thinking this through

          • +3

            @GrueHunter: I'm not cancelling you, I'm just unsubscribing from 'woke' garbage. Who am I excluding? I'm not excluding anyone. You can do or think whatever you like, just don't force me to think the same as you.

            • @Misplaced: So if I run a company, and that company is run according to 'morals, decency, values' (your words) like "don't be a racist, sexist, homophobic or transphobic conspiracy theorist d*&^head", and it turns out you're one or more of those, and you behave like that in the workplace or in public by tweeting your bizarre views to the world, I can't "unsubscribe" from your "garbage"? I should be forced to continue to employ you, because otherwise I'm "cancelling" you?

              I should be forced to offer you a permanent, paid safe space, even while you're spewing stuff that gets my customers offside, to stop your feelings from being hurt?

              Who's sounding woke now, comrade?

          • @GrueHunter: When people criticize the "woke" crap, they generally aren't complaining that other people hold that view, they're complaining that they'll lose their job, or be banned from public forums, or in some cases fined or jailed, for expressing dissent. I would like to unsubscribe from all the woke shit as much as i'd like to unsubscribe from hearing about Trump, Musk, any other public attention seeker, and any CEO that tells me how much they're making the world a better place.

            • @ssfps: Please cite a credible example where someone was jailed for 'expressing dissent' against 'woke ideology'.

                • +1

                  @trapper: that story is a mix of facts and fake news. He wasn't arrested for the meme's he was arrested for refusing to cooperate with a police officer when they were investigating it as it had been reported as a hate crime, they were not charged but arrested for questioning and later released.

                  • @gromit: What else to expect from a website that is basically just libertarian propaganda?

                    Credible is something else.

                  • +1

                    @gromit: You think its ok for people to be 'investigated' and ultimately arrested for posting a meme on Twitter ?? He didn't break any law.

                    • @trapper: Actually he did break a law when he was obstructing a police investigation. Yes I think Hate crimes should be investigated, though obviously this one wasn't one but once reported it should be investigated. Do you think Police shouldn't investigate hate crimes?

                      • @gromit: The police should not be 'investigating' or arresting people for things that aren't illegal. This is police harassment.

                        There needs to be an actual crime first, then the motivation can be a part of the investigation.

                        • +1

                          @trapper: hate crimes ARE illegal to varying degrees across most countries, including the US which that moronic article was trumpeting as a safe place from such occurrences. Police determine if said reported crime has been committed by investigating when someone lodges a formal complaint to them. blocking or obstructing a police officer in the course of their investigation is also a crime.

                          • +2

                            @gromit: Actual quote from the arresting officer.

                            "Someone has been caused anxiety based on your social media post. And that is why you’re being arrested."

                      • @gromit: I'm sorry, reshaping a rainbow flag into a swastika is damn close to being a hate crime.

                        • @rainynight65: A 'hate crime' is an actual crime motivated by 'hate'.

                          No actual crime, no hate crime.

                          • @trapper: So you think that reshaping a rainbow flag into a swastika - the ultimate symbol of hatred - is not 'motivated by hate'?

                            And in some countries displaying nazi symbols is an actual crime.

                            • -3

                              @rainynight65: It's likely motivated by hate (but not always) - but that's besides the point. Hate is fine - the woke in-group love hate, they just don't like perceived negative behavior towards certain people. So we have double standards enshrined in law now - there's a great example of the original point - people don't care that someone has a belief, they care that they might get arrested or lose their job because their hate is criminal while somebody else's hate is righteous. Thanks for making the point for me i guess.

                            • +1

                              @rainynight65:

                              So you think that reshaping a rainbow flag into a swastika - the ultimate symbol of hatred - is not 'motivated by hate'?

                              It is not a crime, so it doesn't matter what it is motivated by.

                              Police shouldn't be 'investigating', harassing and arresting people who did not break any law.

                  • -3

                    @gromit: Any verbal "hate crime" are good examples of woke shit.

            • @ssfps: So are you adult enough to avoid contents you don't like, or do you need someone else to do the filtering for you?

              • +1

                @rainynight65: Its extremely ironic that you are leveling that rhetorical question at me, when in fact i'm arguing that we should all do our own filtering and not call the police because we read something we don't like on facebook.

            • +2

              @ssfps: So they're complaining that there are consequences for their actions? That people can't be forced to associate with them, employ them, continue to give them access to a platform they don't own?

              Where did I put my tiny violin

        • Hey Siri, what is Irony?

    • +5

      You should take your own advice.

      • +2

        Please do go on and advise me on how I should take my own advice so as to fit in more with your 'woke' ideals…. I'm all ears :)

        • +5

          I think @Aureus is suggesting treat all people with respect - ceo, janitor, straight, gay, trans, indigenous, woke, whatever.

          Sometimes people won't treat you with respect and some of these you might consider 'woke', but don't let them push your buttons.

          • +5

            @TooSerious2: Yeah exactly. You can't say you treat everyone with respect and then go on to say those that don't live the same as you don't have "any sense of 'morals, decency, values'"

            • +2

              @Aureus: Nor can you cancel people with 'morals, decency and values' in the name of 'wokeness' without being hypocritical. How hard is it to simply accept people's right to their own moral choices and not force them to validate your life choices? With the 'woke' brigade, it's wholehearted acceptance or nothing.

        • You're literally asking for a device that aggregates the opinions of others (which you don't like), be removed from a forum…

    • +7

      Your morals, values and principles are not universal. They're not the only truth. Other people have different values, morals and principles.

      No, things weren't 'much simpler' in the old days. They were made to feel 'simpler' by foisting the religious and social morals, values and principles of a minority onto an entire society. Lots of people suffered under those morals, values and principles. Women couldn't do certain things without their husband's consent. People of colour were marginalised and oppressed. Non-straight sexuality was oppressed and criminalised.

      No, you're not being oppressed or shunned for having your morals, values and principles. If you're being shunned, it's because you're expecting everyone else to subscribe to and abide by your morals, values and principles.

      What you call 'woke' is not an ideology, much less 'incredibly exclusive'. It's about treating everyone with the respect they're due. Let everyone be the best and happiest they can be. Nobody is stopping you from living by your morals, values and principles - but don't expect them to apply to everyone else. And do expect to be called out if your morals, values and principles come at other people's expense.

    • -4

      Such a wide fence you will never fall off it.
      There should a be atx on the word 'woke' A 1$ per usage. I'd be out of pocket by $5, and money well saved. It's the new baaaaaa.
      Ppl claiming individualism while jumping on every conspiratorial bandwagon before the wheels stop rolling.

  • +7

    Should we be having this discussion? People might get banned.

  • +5

    How old are you and what state did you live in? Firecrackers have been banned for like 20 years in most states dude. This isn’t some ‘new’ thing.

    • +3

      OP is our resident centurion ….errr ….. centenarian so respect your elders

      • Age doesn't equal wisdom.
        I dare say there's more of that rare commodity 'not' on forums like this, discussing issues like this.
        If on a forum at all.

        • 'I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.'

          Maya Angelou

          • @[Deactivated]: Lovely sentiment. Although the coin has two sides.Also sometimes ppl sometimes remember what you wear.

            I wonder where 'effluencers' will fit into the collective reflection ,of homo sapiens ever shrinking relevance on this simmering rock?

            • @Protractor: I fear for the youff based on the modern day tragedy that is, most e-ffluencers,

              Strip away the TikTok veneer & most of them are incapable of tying their own shoe-laces & not due to any physical impairment.

              We live in cray-cray times, my dear.

    • +4

      They'll be coming for his onion belt next

      Just you wait and see

    • NT still have cracker night, brus. It's severely limited these days, but I digress

    • +2

      Right, firecrackers got banned because kids blew their limbs off…'but cancel culture'.

  • +2

    "Hidden" posts are usually ones that are generating what some may term "vigorous" discussion. To see them , all you need is to be logged in.

    It's a modicum of engagement that makes it a conscious decision - I'll rarely log in to spend one of the precious 5 negs the proletariat are gifted, and often do so to upvote informative contributions or tag really good bargains.

    It may seem a hurdle, but I feel it might be useful to note that after 10 years membership, the money-back no questions asked policy still offers a full refund of my joining fee and start-up costs after all this time.

    You don't get bargains like that every day.

  • +2

    On discussion sites you can't look at it that OzBargain (or whatever site it is) censoring the discussion, it's community powered. Things don't just get hidden after a couple of downvotes, it takes a decent amount of votes to balance net negative so if it get's hidden it's the community way of saying this is stupid and doesn't contribute to the discussion.

    Opinions aside, down votes play an important role in a site like this. You'll find that most (not all) down voted comments are because what was stated is simply incorrect, and not because it's an unpopular opinion. Plenty of times people have incorrectly commented on the specs of a product being discussed, which turned out to be incorrect - the accumulation of the down votes gives you a confidence of how wrong the community views a statement is. On a platform where anyone can post anything, there is so much fake information getting spread as truth, and down voting helps a lot in tempering that so incorrect comments don't make other people stupid.

    To put it in your words, if you don't like the community rules, well, tough - don't be a part of it.

    • if it get's hidden it's the community way of saying this is stupid and doesn't contribute to the discussion.

      [Citation required]

  • +1

    Boomer post

  • +3

    As I get old I find I live in a society where increasingly things are banned.

    As I get old I find I live in a society that's increasingly awesome.

    Sucks to be you I guess

    • Increasing wealth disparity?
      Increasing power disparity?
      Increasing population?
      Increasing living costs?

      #hashtagawsomeAFfrfr
      #hastagfleekbydaycontrarianbynight

      • You mean the things that the 'woke" people you despise actively work against, but according to you that's exclusionary garbage and cancel culture?

        Increasing power disparity?

        Oooh, you're this close to getting it

        • the 'woke" people you despise

          Quite the extrapolation there.

          actively work against*

          *Claim to work against
          *Selectively

          "Woke" people generally do little more than slap a coat of paint over good old righteous indignation. Publicly outspoken "woke" identifying people are completely in bed with the entrenched power structures while maintaining the narrative that "conservatives" are running the world, ignoring the rainbow capitalistic/communistic institutions enforcing and lapping up the D&I & ESG incentives and completely ignoring the fictitious nature of dichotomies like "liberal vs conservative". Nobody is losing their job for spouting woke talking points, in fact, they've been handed preferential discrimination toward them in the workplace - no doubt further reinforcing the divide and conquering of a broken population. People that identify as "woke" are generally of the same ilk as those that identify as trump supporters, they've handed themselves over to some tribal political identity with the dogma that comes attached, being so blinded by the propaganda they can't see the ideology doesn't extend upward to the ruling class.

          So, while ever since the industrial revolution the disparity of wealth and power has increased, tycoons becoming ever more entrenched and cartels spreading globally, and while every material revolution that has promised to free us from toil and suffering has either been a net neutral or increased our burden, we have some governments flying rainbow flags and people on internet forums saying inane shit like

          As I get old I find I live in a society that's increasingly awesome.

          • @ssfps: Oh please, people who believe we should show each other basic respect are nothing like Trump supporters. Which is most people. And most of those people don't label themselves 'woke', people like you do. Before woke it was 'SJW', before that it was 'pc culture gone mad'.

            What it is about is showing people respect and treating everyone decently. Not gay-bashing them, not refusing them service, not perpetrating DV, not fat shaming, not wolf-whistling etc etc. The backlash against this simple idea is something to behold.

    • Which arouses you most? Trump, the rise of white right wing extremism,catastrophic climate change,over population? extreme loss of terrestrial and oceanic ecology,pollution,cost of living,impending war.Massive increases in pandemic risks every year?

      • Which one of those is about an imaginary upward trend in banning things

  • -2

    i dare you to post anything if marginally negative about the ALP on r/Australia no matter how logical you are you will get a ban there is a growing group of people who are in the 'hard left' camp that cannot be reasoned with nor do they have the ability to have a 2 way discussion….

    sadly the world is becoming more and more polarising - i blame the education system and its inability to teach anything other then what the cult leaders in the media and government want you to learn

    Universities in particular are more interested in activism and socialism and less about teaching people to have 'skills' they can use in real life the media doesnt help ABC has become a mouth piece of activist not journalism…

    • Political posts on r/Australia have to meet a quality test and need to be made by someone who is active in the community in other ways and discusses things broader than politics, I’d say that’s the issue moreso than political ideology.

      There’s all these complaints about people being ‘censored’ but in reality there’s usually other issues as to why they are getting banned or posts removed like ghost accounts, brigading, making threats or harassing etc.

    • +2

      Is that you Barnaby Canavan?

  • +1

    FYI - you can get temp-banned from liking comments in just a single deal post here at OzBargain, if you……… wait for it………… like too many of the comments in a deal post. As in, not talking about liking comments that were abusive or removed - literally just hitting the green plus button next to a certain number of comments can get you banned from liking any more comments in that deal post.

    Weird, but that's an actual thing here.

    Have never seen that happen anywhere else on the internet. Only here at OzBargain.

  • I've down voted a post before, and I was met with a wave of "keep you opinion to yourself" "reported" "how dare you"
    It's like you're entitled to have an opinion on a bargain, however it has to be the same as the original poster or its invalid.
    Why are people like this here? It's almost as if they have the same toxic traits as a 'social media influencer '

  • I believe the show low-voted threads should be made the default. No one out of a million will know this obscure setting if you ask pretty much anybody except the moderators. This is freedom of speech.

  • +1

    I once posted a Public Health Warning on a deal with scientific research evidence and I got silenced by some activists whose job is just to cancel others with opposing views. The kind of Dictatorship Censorship you see in other countries.

    It was disappointing because I have conducted research before posting just to see it being cancelled. It did not even spark a debate. Just cancelled with no reason given.

    • +4

      I have conducted research before posting

      Wow, what kind of research? A clinical trial? Systematic review? Cohort study? That seems like a lot of effort to go to before commenting on a deal, I can understand why you would be disappointed. Especially when you’d prioritised publishing your research on OzBargain as a community service, rather than one of those pesky peer review journals that no one reads.

      • I posted a link to the research papers I found online and the entire post was cancelled with no debate and no reason given.

    • +2

      Dude that's not dictatorship censorship. And people who leave countries with real dictatorship laugh at this opinion rife on Western forums because they have no idea. It's just embarrassing to read that. Forum moderation is forum moderation not a violent and brutal dictatorship where you or your family are murdered or jailed forever for commenting on the government.

      Don't like it, find another forum. That's freedom of speech - your right to go and find it or create it elsewhere without fear of imprisonment or violence. Not demand your version of it from a free provider.

    • Wow, how could anybody not take your health research credentials seriously

      Sorry, your Health Research Credentials

    • -1

      Post actual scientific journal articles/literature, not some spam filled and biased blog that doesn't even know how to do yr12 referencing.

  • -2

    This is called Cancel Culture

    • +2

      I'll say one thing for cancel culture:

      • it's easier to say than "easily aggrieved conservatives claiming that everybody else is easily aggrieved"
      • it's a great shortcut for spotting easily aggrieved conservatives

      Wait, that's two things

  • +2

    It's clear what is free speech and what is blatant hate speech. There are regular feral racist comments here.As is click baiting. If a forum can't see the harm this does look at the divided states of Murrca. Their pox is affecting the planet.At every level.
    If allowing haters to cause mayhem is worth the effort and price of so called free speech, then shut down the moderators and shorten the journey to the destination we are headed. Or show how brave the haters are and remove anonymity for all

    As it stands the OP is whinging about having to do one whole extra click per hidden post to see why it was negged.

    • +1

      Agree, negging allows us to filter out the seppo plague infiltrating Australia. Take that yank stuff elsewhere.

      And wouldn't removing the negging option be a censorship of itself? "I don't like it so I want to get rid of it".

  • I posted a similar thread a few years ago about negged deal posts. There is typically a massive uproar on this site about negging a deal, almost all deals displayed are only upvoted with 0 negs - and again you need to add some clunky filter to see it.

  • "Free speech for me, but not for thee"..

    Great..

  • +2

    Go on OP, what comments of yours were removed?

  • No good faith opinion should be downvoted imho

    I try to keep to that as much as possible.

  • +1

    Wait till someone posts saying the covid vax was a scam.

    • Beginning to think the definition of free speech is the bigger scam.

    • -2

      I know right! I love being a vaxi-maxi, I feel secure knowing that i'm 100% 90% 80% 70% 50% highly protected% protected after a fourth shot% protected in my headcanon%.

      • -1

        But the government told me so…and I can’t think for myself so I must comply.

        • +1

          …..or relentlessly parrot the conspiracy mantras….

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