[struppi]

Yep. I almost stopped reading (but read on) after this sentence:

The coverage, all from Blue-aligned media, largely presented Mastodon as a cool new alternative to Twitter that would be free of "harassment," which is a Blue code word for the mere existence of the Red side.

This is clearly not from a neutral person. He very clearly picked a side.

[amazingman]

You don’t think that’s a fair assessment of a significantly noisy subset of Blue? This is an earnest question.

[eeeuo]

Yes, some people on the Blue side can be overly sensitive. No, I do not think that "a significantly noisy subset" of the Blue side finds a dissenting opinion to be harassment. Do you imagine these people responding to "I don't agree with that" with claims that they are being harassed? I burst out laughing reading that sentence in the article, it's such an obviously preposterous statement.

It's really quite comical that the author, in order:

1) Claimed that they were being objective and presenting the situation free of bias.

2) Claimed that any person on the Blue side who learns that anyone with a dissenting opinion is on the same site as them will feel that they are being harassed.

3) Claimed that the arrival of Blue users would ruin mastodon.

I skimmed over the rest of the article and it appears to include an "Actually It's Not Technically CP" argument, so I think I probably made the right choice here.

[rustler]

> Do you imagine these people responding to "I don't agree with that" with claims that they are being harassed?

Sadly yes. The logic works as follows:

If you don't agree with me (let's say on gay marriage), you're saying my belief is invalid. The things I believe constitute my identity; therefore you are attacking my identity and thus existentially threatening me.

On some forums this kind of disagreement is grounds for banning, no matter how politely expressed or well reasoned.

[eeeuo]

Okay, but you've now moved the goal posts from "mere dissent is harassment" to "people suggesting that I deserve fewer human rights than them is harassment" which, well, yeah.

Arguments containing a premise that the other side is a lesser human generally don't go well. I don't think that is unique to this situation.

[rustler]

To be clear: my company offers a maternity benefit that's more generous than their paternity benefit. I want to change that. If you offer any disagreement, then you are imputing I deserve fewer human rights, saying I am a "lesser human" than you, and thus you are harassing me. Correct? Nevermind which side is right: mere disagreement is harassment.

[eeeuo]

You provided a specific example of a topic with existential importance. I responded to it.

I do not think you can make an argument against gay marriage which treats all sexualities equally, by very definition.

If you feel you have an argument about why the government should deny homosexuals the right to marriage, but that does not treat homosexuals as lesser than heterosexual people, I'm all ears!

[ohtwenty]

>I skimmed over the rest of the article and it appears to include an "Actually It's Not Technically CP" argument, so I think I probably made the right choice here.

You'd do well to actually read the article then before making a comment like this. He goes briefly into that to show that you (english speaker) see it as a _very clear_ case of CP, whereas in japan it's not, that there's a distinction, and that they often won't understand why you'd confuse the two. And that difference in looking at it (regardless of picking a position on if it is or isn't cp) is what caused a bunch of issues.

[eeeuo]

I just ... don't care about the distinction. The entire subject is nauseating.

[Fnoord]

This was an interesting read because it shows a culture clash and language barrier. Not so much red vs blue (if you believe such an abstract thing exists, and I find the distinction being made in this article completely and utterly wrong [1], pointless, irrelevant, a _terrible_ analogy, a distraction, and ultimately a _terrible_ element of an otherwise seemingly [I'm no expert on the topic] informative written text). Rather, it describes the difference in Japanese language/values vs English language and American-European values, as well as the difference between virtual and real-life, or what children should or should not be allowed to see. This is why there isn't "one" internet as well. We have different jurisdictions, values, enforcement, censorship, etc. Normally, you got a company behind the website who has local subsidiaries who ultimately listen to HQ; so FB is American culture, and that's the agenda it ultimately pushes forth. Which is, incidentally, the standard, but you can see all kind of local websites who don't have these values.

As for the first Japanese term (the "legal" one) I found it described here here: [2]

"Lolicon: Centered on prepubescent, pubescent, or post-pubescent underage girls, whether homosexual or heterosexual."

I didn't search for the other term because the description seemed telling enough.

[1] Sexual freedom was fought for by human rights activists in the 2nd part of the 20th century. Feminism movement (e.g. pro-abortion, voting rights), anti war movement (specifically war in Vietnam though also the Cold War), anti child labor / pro education movement, LGBT and general sexual freedom movement (the latter being an ideal of the hippie movement), anti-racism movement (not sure if that's the right word), even recreational drug usage movement. All of these were inherently pro-equality and pro-freedom (in that order), going against the status quo of that time. If you call that "US-blue" (yeah, cause in the rest of the world blue doesn't necessarily have the same meaning and indeed it does not since generally red is seen as left-wing and blue as right-wing although I find those terms rather lacking content), what's the freedom of liking hentai which harms no adult directly just like playing a shoot-em up? "US-red"? Really??? Well then, how utterly conflicting with the human rights movement from the 20th century. Its easier to just see it as a culture clash. The article does mention this eventually:

"Monday the 17th: the terminology of "free speech" versus "safe speech" becomes popular in English-language discussions for describing the growing ideological divide on how instances ought to be run. I first encounter it in this item from Spacedragon but am not sure if that's the first (or only) place it came into use. Free speech instances are generally aligned with the Red Culture War faction (hence also with GNU Social and the older parts of the network) and safe speech instances with Blue (hence Mastodon proper). However, I think it's significant that when we had the same fight on Livejournal ten years earlier, it was the opposite way: fictional "child pornography" in the form of explicit Harry Potter fan art and therefore "free speech" was a Blue/Left/aGG/SJW thing, with the Red/Right/Gamergate/MRA side taking what we'd now call the "safe speech" position. For that reason I'm inclined to think that the link between Culture War sides and free/safe speech is more a matter of historical accident than anything naturally flowing from whatever defines these sides."

However it was for the better if that whole part (and the gamergate nonsense) wouldn't be included. I don't see how it is related.

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hentai#Genres