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Underground > Policy & Help >

Hate-speech - do we need these words?

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ONLY NICE THINGS

00:49 / 31.10.05

Incidentally, "whore" -- to me -- sounds perjorative in any context. "Prostitute," however, sounds like a job description. (It sounds a little bit like MY job description.)

I think "sex worker" these days. There's the problem of somebody, say, saying "I am whoring myself out to IBM", which is a bit trickier.

Generally, I'm largely in agreement - as long as moderators have power and trust, issues can probably be best dealt with on a case-by-case basis. Personally, I trust the moderators a bit less than I used to, which doesn't make a lot of difference as long as they don't have the power to make significant changes, but maybe becomes more of an issue if more power is handed over - for example, banning power. That's another awkward balance.

00:55 / 31.10.05

Yeah, I actually just caught (after my last post) the part about whether we're talking here about warning, banning, moderation, etc. -- I guess the dramatist in me just automatically presumed the conversation revolved around banning. Which is more or less the final solution when it comes to such problems. Then again, I'm not sure what else would really make a difference if someone is causing what is widely agreed to be a serious problem. I'm not sure about warnings, per se, but I do know that gentle persuasion (i.e., calling people on their bullshit) is often not welcomed by "offensive" posters.

ONLY NICE THINGS

00:59 / 31.10.05

Agreed - and speeding up the process whereby offensive posters are dealt with (in whatever way is appropriate) is a good aim, while not, say, catching an innocent (or at least apparently innocent) use of offensive terminology in a net from which they can be no return.

Tryphena Absent

09:24 / 31.10.05

Can I refer to myself as a 'homo'

If I hadn't met you how would I know you were gay? No, you shouldn't be using the word online if you don't want it directed at you by other people.

11:15 / 31.10.05

You don't think you're undercomplicating things, Nina? As I pointed out, you shouldn't be using the word "fucking". I know several people - religious people - who find it offensive, and they might be online. Perhaps you'd like to edit your post, above?

Harrison Ford, in a battle suit, wheels for feet, knives and guns

11:29 / 31.10.05

If I hadn't met you how would I know you were gay? No, you shouldn't be using the word online if you don't want it directed at you by other people.

What? Please elaborate this to me sounds bizarre.

11:38 / 31.10.05

Problems with that logic, Nina:

1) Even having met me, you don't know I'm gay. It could all be a sneakily consistent front to justify my use of hate-speech online. Potentially problematic.

2) If you're going to divorce words entirely from context, how do you propose to decide what is and isn't offensive? The word "gay", for example, is frequently used to mean something's useless or pathetic. I wouldn't like it to be applied to me in that particular context so, following your reasoning, I shouldn't describe myself as "gay" online, and the word should be banned from Barbelith.

3) If we're to avoid terms certain religious groups find offensive, we have another line-drawing problem. My Baptist aunt (who might, theoretically, be reading this) is unlikely to be happy with the "holy mother of fuck" style blasphemies in the Headsick thread.

11:44 / 31.10.05

you shouldn't be using the word online if you don't want it directed at you by other people.

Um. By which I mean 'that's outrageous'.

I identify as queer, but I reserve the right to take exception if someone shouts QUEER at me in the street (or, indeed, in the Head Shop). The words 'queer' and 'queer' in those instances come from such completely different lexicons that they're probably best thought of as homonyms, rather than instances of the 'same' word in different 'contexts'.

(On another note, could a Policy mod fix the abstract, which currently reads "note stoward a shortleet"?)

Tryphena Absent

11:48 / 31.10.05

I'm not talking about hate speech, I'm talking about words that negatively generalise an entire set of people... words to describe a sexuality, an ethnic group etc.

So would I allow the use of the word gay to describe how rubbish a TV show is? No. Would I disallow the words holy shit because your baptist aunt feels it's blasphemous? No because it's not generalising all Christians. As to the word gay to describe a group of people? Well if we agree on barbelith that gay is an offensive description then we shouldn't use it.

Regrettable Juvenilia

11:50 / 31.10.05

Yeah, we're getting into very dubious territory here. It seems obvious to me that pretty much all the words listed above by Duncan are words that can be used positiviely by some groups of people - the groups they were intended to denigrate - but not others. How do we tell? Welll, we make the best judgment we can, and that will have to do.

If someone new to the board says "I really hate fags" and then, when called on it, says "No it's okay, I'm queer myself", well, tough shit, they're just going to have to pay the penalty for not being very bright. And that penalty may end up being nothing more than "the majority of the board treats them accordingly", since we still haven't established a conistent line on how the board should respond to casual bigotry.

11:52 / 31.10.05

In which case, Nina, you'd have to disallow the word "gay" altogether - and "queer", as Deva points out - because you're not considering context as any sort of mitigating factor.

Earlier, you specified disallowing any words "that can be deemed offensive to a group of people, whether that's a racial group, a religious group or any other type" - under which credo, the "HOLY FUCK" stuff would very definitely be considered offensive, as would many, many other words in common usage on Barbelith. Who does the 'deeming'?

Tryphena Absent

11:53 / 31.10.05

Okay, I understand that some words are contextual and it would be a huge flaw in my reasoning if this was a Head Shop discussion- I'm not being philosophical, I'm attempting a (badly worded) practical outline- but as soon as we get into people insulting each other it comes under a criteria of deeply personal attack which is another criteria for banning people anyway. Can we not try and approach this from the perspective of making it a functional outline for barbelith rather than an ideological discussion?

11:55 / 31.10.05

No because it's not generalising all Christians. As to the word gay to describe a group of people? Well if we agree on barbelith that gay is an offensive description then we shouldn't use it.

Clearly "we" on Barbelith are not going to agree, because some of us (notably, thus far, those of who actually identify as gay/queer) believe consideration of context to be vital, and you seemingly don't.

Harrison Ford, in a battle suit, wheels for feet, knives and guns

11:56 / 31.10.05

Oh my god attention homosexual smokers, you may be banned for smokers slang!

11:57 / 31.10.05

Can we not try and approach this from the perspective of making it a functional outline for barbelith rather than an ideological discussion?

I am approaching this from the viewpoint of functionality, hence my practical examples. You cannot avoid context altogether - not on the gay/queer/homo stuff, anyway. The question of insult is never going to be as straightforward as banning the use of certain words outright.

Tryphena Absent

12:05 / 31.10.05

Well that's a problem because context in this environment is all about assumption. I don't think we should have a list of words, I think we should have a general rule about speech that clearly generalises groups of people through word-use but then I always will think we should have a rule because this community is getting bigger and bigger and currently we're not explaining things to our new members or for that matter our new moderators properly. It is not being done. Now I'm not going to lie and say I've ever liked the way that barbelith works, I'm not a liberal, anarchist or democrat so of course I don't like the way that it works- I find it impractical, a power structure that relies on people having been around for a while and hierachical as a direct result of that and I would like that addressed by giving people access to more information. That's all that I'm trying to propose.

12:08 / 31.10.05

That's well and good, Nina, but it's somewhat different from proposing a list of words which cannot be used by anybody, regardless of context. And yes, context involves an element of assumption, as does any assessment of perceived intent (who's "trolling", for example). This is why absolutes are problematic.

12:11 / 31.10.05

I think we should have a general rule about speech that clearly generalises groups of people through word-use

Ruling on "speech" is fundamentally different from ruling against the words themselves in isolation. If I refer to myself as "gay" or a "homo", I'm not 'clearly generalising a group of people', yet you would disallow this on the grounds that the same words could be used to generalise a group of people. For me, that's the flaw here.

Tryphena Absent

12:16 / 31.10.05

Didn't I state in my first post in this thread that I don't think we should have a list of words?

Oh damn, I must have edited that line out (I was very tired)... my last sentence was primarily directed towards that.

12:28 / 31.10.05

Okay, fine. You've suggested a list of words "to be wary of", which seems reasonable. I'm sure we all have terms which jar, and there might be some mileage in having some sort of List Of Terms To Be Used Advisedly On Barbelith. We're still going to have the problem of how to assess the contextual situation when someone uses one of those terms, and assessing context is always going to involve a degree of assumption/speculation regarding probable intent. If someone's posted on Barbelith for years and has maintained a consistent identity, it's always going to be easier to gauge intent than if a newbie's posting their "I HATE GAYS PS I AM TEH GAY" stuff for the very first time. I think we have to accept the inegalitarianness (if that's a word) of this rather than attempting to blanket-legislate against usage of homo/gay/queer by anyone.

As Haus says, some of the terms at the start of this thread are easier to rule absolutely upon, but 'reclaimed' words throw a very real spanner in the works.

15:09 / 31.10.05

I am not sure if anyone has mentioned this directly, but for me it is all about the context that words are used in. I am not clear on how to qualify that context, but I think it would be different for each term.

I would also like to point out that "prostitute" is a somewhat negative term for those in the sex industry. It implies corruption, and is used by law enforcement to sustain this image of sex workers. The term "sex worker" gives those in the industry, the legitimacy that SWs have been fighting for, for decades now.

There may be contraversy about this topic however, I don't think this is the place to debate the issue of whether or not sex work should be a legitimate business.

15:36 / 31.10.05

The importance of context is certainly the point I've been labouring, Strix.

miss wonderstarr

15:46 / 31.10.05

I think I was all about the context, on page one.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

16:09 / 31.10.05

I've not been around much the last few days, but I'm largely in agreement with Ganesh. Although I'd say that while context is vital, it also shouldn't be some kind of get out of jail free card, either.

I also think there's a danger of getting too hung up on the words themselves- were it someone's intention to cause offence, be it to an individual OR a societal group, they could certainly do it without using any "bad" words.

I like Haus's idea of possibly a list of things that should be used advisedly, although that could look a bit wishy-washy in the T&C. Or possibly not even a list as such, but something along the lines of "words commonly considered offensive and/or could be construed as constituting harassment"- at the risk of sounding like a git, anyone who can't tell which words are being referred to in that phrase clearly has problems anyway.

miss wonderstarr

16:43 / 31.10.05

Why couldn't it just say something like "hate-speech (for example racism, sexism, homophobia) will not be tolerated on Barbelith, and anyone persistently using such language and terminology will be banned."

"Smelly black bastard" is hate-speech, though the words in isolation would slip through anyone's list. "Nigga", on the other hand, though it might be an obvious candidate for the kill-list, is more likely to be used as friendly or neutral (within some social contexts) than the former phrase, which is surely almost always meant as a hurtful insult. Similarly, "you fucking stupid woman" can be more offensive and sexist than "oh, you bitch."

It's the intention that counts here, and anyone with any intelligence can recognise when they're doing it themselves, or when someone else is doing it. If Barbelith's distinguishing factor is meant to be its intelligence, I don't see why recognising offensive terms in context would be a problem.

18:28 / 31.10.05

No to a list. Malicious posters will find new synonyms or expressions that are just as offensive, any list will be incomplete and controversial, context can skew anything one way or another, the list itself is offensive.

Let's make it clear we don't want people using offensive hatespeech, that should be enough IMO, perhaps with the addendum to err on the side of caution, 'if in doubt, leave it out'.

23:44 / 31.10.05

Why couldn't it just say something like "hate-speech (for example racism, sexism, homophobia) will not be tolerated on Barbelith, and anyone persistently using such language and terminology will be banned."

Seems like the most sensible suggestion so far.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

03:22 / 01.11.05

Am I missing a point somewhere?

miss wonderstarr

05:52 / 01.11.05

That looks like a good test-case. Though there's some notion in the original post that these terms are being used from "within the community", ie. a group of friends jokily self-identifying as "kraut" and so on, I wouldn't have said Barbelith is the place for a helpful link to racial slurs.

The website linked to would probably be defended by its authors as a fair-minded, even-handed list of insults against every national group, but I certainly didn't know all those terms (so in theory it's educating people in hate-speech, rather than just confirming language they already knew) and found the contempt behind most of them, coupled with the light-hearted explanations (see the entry for "n*gger") pretty creepy.

So, is it appropriate for someone to step in on that thread and point out that this is unacceptable language on this forum?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

06:15 / 01.11.05

I'll do it. May I quote you? I'm not at my most coherent right now. I thought maybe linking to this thread as well.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

06:44 / 01.11.05

I was gonna hold off a bit, but realised a lot of people will be getting online soon, and thought I should do it first. Let me know if you have a problem with my quoting you on it, and I'll move for an edit. It's just you put it a lot better than I feel capable of doing at the moment.

07:52 / 01.11.05

Well, you’re both more generous than me, in that I don’t believe for one second that it’s a coincidence that a long-dead suit has resurrected *now* in order to start *that* thread, and has just happened to pay attention in his first post to a) mentioning that he’s been around barbelith before/is familiar with 'the barbelithers', and b) laying out a situation that he thinks might be able to slip through after this policy discussion about context.

So. Any long-term poster know this ‘Corvus B’ guy-with-a-hotmail-address-in-his-profile?

08:03 / 01.11.05

Hmm, it's a bit suspicious that the thread's sprung up in the wake of all the discussion of the past weeks.

Maybe it's a satirical thread. But even if it is, it's got potential to really offend someone (even if only via the link to the racial slurs site).

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

08:15 / 01.11.05

Yes, I was a little suspicious about the suit... but it seemed people WERE responding to it (and not just the usual suspects, either) by the time I first saw the thread, so I thought maybe I was missing something. (Sorry... I'm having a bad couple of days at the moment so am not really feeling able to even draw conclusions, let alone leap to them).

But whatever... it's making me uncomfortable having it around.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

08:20 / 01.11.05

Fuck it. I'm proposing a lock/delete thing.

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