What is acceptable in terms of edgy humor?

[Kingtrin]

Bottom post of the previous page:

This is mostly discord/forums but im going to assume that similar rules will be enforced in game unless otherwise stated because this deals with rule 1 as a whole.

Recently someone caught a warning for an edgy meme regarding the recent shooting in NZ. The meme was relatively low effort but was not trying to support the shooter or make a serious political statement. It was run of the mill average crap. This is what nervere said on the matter.

I asked everyone not to post any memes about the NZ shooting because it's distasteful and Discord has been handing out blanket bans to entire servers for it.
They banned, what, 10,000 people from the HOI4 Tribes server because their off-topic channel was unmoderated with NZ shooting memes?
Then you pinged me with a shooting meme so I banned you. I don't know what you expected, really, you were practically asking to get banned.

We can all agree discord going full retard means we need to consider they may sperg onto our discord due to said memes and that the server not being blanket banned is more important. My issue lies with the statement "because its distasteful". Rustledjimm followed with a similar, more dismissive, sentiment.

I'm so sorry that your ability to post pictures of a shooter who murdered 50 people on specific forumsite was taken from you.
if you really feel the need to make those posts might I suggest you go to 8chan and stay there?

If there was disagreement from the host or headmins they would speak up but I don't see any. This site should not have any images of the shooter or the incident. Sure I personally dislike the incident, don't you? But even if I did not care about it this forum site is still never the place for such content.
You have places for that.

Then obscolene posted something mega retarded that I'm not going to bother dissecting because he deserved a permaban for that shit. I'd like to focus on the part about any images or memes related to the shooter being cast aside as "too edgy". In other words, would anyone give a flying fuck if the tragedy was not recent? Because by god we have dark memes about tragedies that nobody has lifted a finger on before. Are the crusade memes featured in corp mercs too hot for TG? because those god fearing murder loving bastards would have made brevik blush. Speaking of brevik, is he too hot for TG? I know for a fact people have routinely gotten away with joking about mass shooting memes involving brevik and its been generally considered accepted here.

The culture here is absolutely influenced by 4chan and that means you have people who will make edgy jokes. Previously it seemed like the administration was in agreement with the sentiment that you could be fairly edgy as long as it wasn't overdone. This varied tremendously between admins but overall it seemed to hold. Now, it appears that rule 1 has been reinterpreted at some point to be stricter on what level of edginess is considered acceptable. Throughout this shitshow the discussion has derailed into character assassinations and association fallacies. Furthermore, multiple admins are arguing that this has always been the case, and that we should "just know better" on what is considered acceptable as the community has "matured".

Well sorry but we are not fucking psychic. If you guys would like to climb out of your INTERNAL DISCUSSIONS tower to tell us what your line of reasoning is outside of discord being assholes I'd love to hear it. I can't honestly tell if you actually have changed your policy or if this is just due to recent events.

Here are some random examples: mass shooting memes, ironic support of fascism/racism/anti-semitism, unironic support of fascism/racism/anti-semitism, memes regarding genocide, pictures of dead people in caskets (no decay or gore), rape jokes, joking about sexual harassment, calling someone a faggot/nigger.

I ask these topics as a starting point for discussion, not because I actually believe each one should be allowed.

[cedarbridge]

I don't understand why people think that I'm in favor of thought policing and shit when my posts are literally just "have you tried using a shred of empathy for once"

Probably because, as I mentioned, you're wanting people to expend extra effort to hide thoughts and beliefs behind something else in case how or what they say offends somebody somewhere for some reason. It sounds very nice when you phrase it as "a shred of empathy" like you're dealing with soulless robots or something, but really it just comes off as "act how I'd like you to act rather than how you would act" but in a very vague and poorly defined way. Sure, some things are generally accepted as "offensive" to a majority of people, but to a very large portion of people those things are really not at all. To some words are words and to other people they are horrific tools that will lead to the end of society and the death of innocents. Expecting these two groups to see eye to eye on what is offensive enough to require policing or self-policing is a pretty big leap.

[lmwevil]

I don't understand why people think that I'm in favor of thought policing and shit when my posts are literally just "have you tried using a shred of empathy for once"

Probably because, as I mentioned, you're wanting people to expend extra effort to hide thoughts and beliefs behind something else in case how or what they say offends somebody somewhere for some reason. It sounds very nice when you phrase it as "a shred of empathy" like you're dealing with soulless robots or something, but really it just comes off as "act how I'd like you to act rather than how you would act" but in a very vague and poorly defined way. Sure, some things are generally accepted as "offensive" to a majority of people, but to a very large portion of people those things are really not at all. To some words are words and to other people they are horrific tools that will lead to the end of society and the death of innocents. Expecting these two groups to see eye to eye on what is offensive enough to require policing or self-policing is a pretty big leap.

man you've done good work in this thread cedar, completely agree

[oranges]

“I don’t think New Zealanders innocently caught up in the social media storm following these horrific events need to be concerned. The enforcement focus will likely be on those actively and maliciously involved in spreading this material, and taking actions such as deliberately distorting it to avoid blocks and detection software,” says Mr Shanks.

“Every New Zealander should now be clear that this clip is an illegal, harmful and reprehensible record created to promote a terrorist cause. If you have a record of it, you must delete it. If you see it, you should report it. Possessing or distributing it is illegal, and only supports a criminal agenda.”

In terms of excerpts or stills taken from the video, Shanks noted that the classification of the complete video set did not automatically mean that any image or short extract from it was also objectionable.

“However it is very important for people to be aware that any edited clips, screenshots or still images taken from the full video, that depict scenes of violence, injury or death, or that promote terrorism, may well also be objectionable,” says Chief Censor David Shanks.

It's very unlikely that anyone here from nz will go to jail for what occurred so far.

[Nervere]

We’ve lifted Malkevin’s ban and undeleted Intigracy’s post in the politics thread because neither the ban nor the deletion could be reasonably justified with one of our forum rules. This sort of posting is still dogshit though, we’ll probably be devising a new rule to cover cases like this in the future.

[ohnopigeons]

I'll bite, the most explicit differences between 4chan and this forum is that it's smaller in scope, and admins/moderators have a more tangible social presence in the community. I'd argue that alone is a big enough difference to matter.
Besides that, I don't get why you're trying to argue this point. If you want to give credence to our roots that's fine, but like I said, you shouldn't be posturing to chan culture, your argument should stand on it's own. Otherwise, the 4chan culture thing is used as an argumentative crutch. In this medium, nobody gives a shit about 4chan's culture beyond being an excuse to say edgy shit.

I have not even personally argued that 4chan's culture needs to be preserved, I am simply addressing your argument and other such repeated arguments as perpetuated by certain people portraying anonymity as some bogeyman and falsely attributing negative or imaginary characteristics. Your argument implied that anonymous posting is intrinsically linked with low moderation, as if heavy moderation, or anything in between, was not possible with anonymous posting and that any facets of 'chan culture' are inapplicable in this community.
I recognize and agree with you about the differences in scale as well as the presence and transparency of admins, but the process of moderation is largely similar. The low moderation you attribute to chan culture was not an inevitability of the format but a deliberate and conscious choice on the part of the site-owner/admin, which in 4chan's case was moot. That same choice of moderation exists here.

4chan's drawing of the line, or standard, is not some holy grail to blindly abide by and yet neither is it something to be ignored. All these posts admonishing chan culture admit the same thing that proponents argue: that /tg/station descended from chan culture and as such inherited its characteristics and its standards for speech and conduct. Over time particulars have surely changed, but some of these standards, especially with regards to speech, have approximately carried on.
Repukan's ban was fully forewarned and justified. Obscolene's actions are indefensible. The other two incidents, Malkevin's and Intigracy's, are what are causing discussion and controversy. The reason being is that expectations of where the line is drawn, held by the two offenders along with others who have all been a part of this community for a long enough time, were violated. There were no signs, formal or otherwise, that the standards had changed in a significant way beforehand.

I'm talking about the forum ruling rustled made wherein you're not allowed to meme about the shooting because it's exactly the opposite of what someone would expect of a server tracing it's roots to 4chan and if you're going to go that way you should make it explicitly clear in the forum rules.

The benefits of 'chan culture' low moderation cannot be discussed without the mention of free speech, or the freedom of expression. Free speech is not an invention of chan culture, and chan culture does not hold exclusive rights to the concept of free speech. Free speech has both its merits and demerits and has existed historically throughout the ages. Many current countries recognize the merits of the freedom of expression, even going so far as to enshrine it in the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights (not that anyone really cares). Some choose to ignore it completely. The countries that do embrace freedom of speech and expression have different implementations of it, particularly in its exceptions in an attempt to capture most of its merits and avoid its demerits. Or to put it another way, they have different ways where they draw the line. In the United States the most famous exceptions are child pornography and threats or conspiracies of violence. Other countries normally considered free and democratic have additional restrictions, like depictions of Nazi imagery in Germany, or Holocaust denial as anti-semitism in France.

There are many aspects to freedom of speech, and the relevant aspect here as relating to jokes is artistic expression. Of which the only real concern is offense, but that has already been succinctly addressed in this thread by cedarbridge. However, Sticky's comments and concerns brings in the very ugly aspect of political expression into the discussion as well. And truthfully, they can't be ignored as the two, both political and artistic expression, can sometimes mix. Or to put it another way in this context, a joke that unironically, ironically, or post-ironically contains political messaging. I don't think I need to spell out the relevant politics that are currently the cause for concern.

Since the servers are located in the US and must abide by US law why not take a leaf out of the US approach and ban any jokes or memes that incite or support real life violence and threats of violence? That honestly should take care 90% of the issues and concerns here, especially since we seem to have this debate in some form only when there's a mass shooting or mass violence incident.

[teepeepee]

Alright after some digging I've come up with a stronger suport for my previous argument.
The new rules you intend to apply to recent event posting clearly contradicts past trends of your own moderation, for you were present and even engaged in discussion at this time and about these subjects (referring to rustledjimms involvement in this), so punishing users for simply doing the same thing they would do had the rules not changed is unfair.
You cannot imply that those that were banned should have "known better" because you've turned a blind eye to this exact kinds of posts before.
You also claim this is no longer a 4chan server, as well as if it still was, it's a /tg/ based 4chan server, not /b/ nor /pol/.
I'm gonna have to ask you to read the title of the thread you not only moderated with this highly questionable standards, but also actively participated in through the years.
To answer your question about "there's no point in arguing how much time should have passed before you can post about a tragedy", exactly that, there's no point, and that's how it's been working, at least seemingly since before and during my stay here (I joined in february 2017 I think).
If you are going to suddenly create such arbitrary rule you should give players a fair chance not to fall victims of it, such as changing the rules publicly and enforcing them from that point forwards, not backwards.
It is unfair for people who have been a part of this community to be excluded because of a reaction of yours to current events that no one could have foreseen.

Sources of these claims:

https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic ... 50#p186411
Joking about a recent tragedy (the orlando pulse disco tragedy was on the 3/12/16, this post on the 3/13/16), apparently allowed in 2016 seeing as this user is still around in the same subforum used for the discussion of politics where one people got banned for doing the same recently and another was warned/threatened with a ban for not being "empathetic" enough and waiting an indeterminate ammount of time before making jokes about it.

https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic ... 50#p193904
Unfortunately (perhaps fortunately) the links in this part of the thread are no longer valid, but you can infer that it relates to the dallas cop shooting that happened on the 7/7/16, the posts were made on the 7/8/16, just one day later, further reinforcing the idea that sharing tragedies really close to when they happened was not frowned down upon, there's even a photo of the shooter if you scroll down, something that got a user banned recently, and so when the same people that have been posting from 2016 until now would, in good faith, trust that it is allowed, especially since it keeps happening in 2017 and 2018.

https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic ... ak#p240975
Someone sharing footage of a relatively less horrible event than the NZ mass shooting, yet graphic and shocking as well, this too was a livestream on facebook and it was shared at least two years ago on the very same forum and no one received no warning or ban that is publicly visible or apparent.

https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic ... 00#p373200
here we have another user who shared footage of a drone strike where people can be seen being bombed, surely you would classify this as shocking and "inappropiate", yet it has stood in the same public board you suddenly chose to moderate, clearly after at least two years of current events, even gruesome ones, being discussed and shared in this forum without getting warned or banned for it, users must have thought in good faith that such posts were allowed.

https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic ... 50#p382064
here we see something comparable to the memes that were being posted about the NZ massacre but instead of the florida saint valentines school shooting, again, not warned, not banned, not discouraged, to any player engaging with this forum in good faith this was allowed

https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic ... 50#p461736
again, photo of recent tragedy doer, jokes about it, no biggie, just 3 months ago

Last but not least, current event posts with "inappropiate content" are also posted on the hut and as such are not accessible anymore, so I hope someone backs me up with the following claim:
At least one more shocking footage with very visible gore was posted about the california fires showing burned corpses, in the days inmediately close to those events, and they, too, did not get deleted nor their posters banned or warned, so this is not just exclusive to the politics thread in the off topic subforum.

[teepeepee]

Jimm acted on his own and we went back on his decision because us, the headmins, felt like it was unfair, since there are no rules against what Malkevin or Intigracy did.

I meant to post this yesterday and missed that, my bad

[ohnopigeons]

I've received some questioning and criticism to my proposal to ban jokes, even ironic ones, inciting or supporting real life violence. I stand by it and to further elaborate with examples:

• "remove kebab" - banned
  "gas the kikes" - banned
  "bash the fash" - banned
  "people should be beat up indiscriminately, violence is awesome" - banned
  "all white south africans deserve to be raped" - banned

Some of you might heavily disagree or hate me for this but past and current events has shown that morons will take ironic statements unironically (even in some hut threads in this very forum) and it's best if it was all banned for the sake of the community and for a consistent and clear rule/policy for users to abide by.

that one time i got clown ops I put "GAS THE MIMES HONK WAR NOW" in my war declaration how do you feel about this

IC issue, the ban is about real life violence

[Tlaltecuhtli]

i think the problem here is being banned before rules exist

[oranges]

banning a bunch of words lmao

[Takeguru]

oranges is right, banning words is silly as hell

[Floiven]

Banning words and phrases only makes them more impactful anyways, tell people they can't do something and they're going to be more likely to want to do it always

[carshalash]

There's a difference between banning words and people having their statics be anders breivik. Things have gotten really out of hand with the ssethtide.

[cedarbridge]

There's a difference between banning words and people having their statics be anders breivik. Things have gotten really out of hand with the ssethtide.

The ban on names is less about policing edgy humor and more about banning away lazy gimmicks tbh.

[carshalash]

There's a difference between banning words and people having their statics be anders breivik. Things have gotten really out of hand with the ssethtide.

The ban on names is less about policing edgy humor and more about banning away lazy gimmicks tbh.

Wasn't naming yourself after the new zealand shooter banned?

[MGP]

I have not seen a good argument as to why obscolene or malkevin were banned. From what I understand, obscolene posted an essay in favor of Tarrant. As for the content of the essay, I can only imagine what it could be as it has been removed and I have not read it. Let's then assume that it was the worst thing it could have ended up being. "We should kill all Muslims, I hate them die die die." Not exactly the most constructive post, but why should someone be banned for saying this? The argument that is usually made in this case is that this is an incitement to violence, which is a crime, but I think the thinking around this is a bit muddled.

Ask yourself: What is going to be the response of almost all people that read the sentence, or a sequence of similar sentences to "We should kill all Muslims, I hate them die die die." Is your answer... going out and murdering a bunch of Muslims? Certainly not. What is the most likely response here? Why, doing absolutely nothing at all of course. You see, not all incitements to violence are effective incitements to violence most in fact, are not. So then what exactly is the big deal with obscolene? He has been at worst, if you are radical leftist, a heretic (I should remind you heresy is not a bannable offense) and on average, a mild annoyance. For what legitimate reason can you justify a ban? Because he hurt your feelings? Is your plan to just ban people that disagree with you now?

But no no no! Actually MGP, the worst thing is not just a trite hate post, you got it all wrong! It is, instead, a logical argument that justifies something I view as immoral! Well in that case again, I should remind you that someone having different moral values from you, the admin, is not and should not be against the rules for obvious reasons. Now you could go on to argue that a case for killing Muslims complete with a robust logical argument is an effective call to violence, but I again ask you to be realistic. How many people reading this board do you honestly think would go from sitting at home to murdering multiple people just from reading a forum post? Zero is my bet. Even so, let us grant you that it is theoretically possible unlikely as it may be. In that case, wouldn't it be better to leave his post standing, so that others could see it and disagree with it? I'll tell you something. Personally, when I see people reach for the censorship button, it tips me off to the fact that they have no argument. If someone is saying something that is demonstrably false, it shouldn't be a problem to argue against them and show them how they are wrong. Removing their voice instead of arguing suggests instead that there is no argument to be made and what is actually happening is suppression of the truth.

Let me warn you. If you set a precedent, all of the obnoxious leftist types in your administration are going to run activist campaigns against anything they disagree with, which is effectively all right wing thought. Incrementally, step by step, the things allowed to be posted here will be reduced. If you are a leftist, I suppose that's precisely what you want, to burn all the heretics. If instead you are a heretic (self identification as a heretic is irrelevant, the Inquisition decides, not you) then it's in your interests to not concede on this point, even if you disagree with Tarrant.