Welcome to my first battle of the diaries!
It just looks like its the perfect moment to get this out there...
From the help section:
"If your comment was hidden, the community basically agrees that your comment was damaging to the site and should not be viewed."
That is the criteria for hide rating, being 'damaging' to the site. That is a pretty high bar and I believe its meant to be so because this is a site for the mixing of ideas. Stifle this and much of the power and value in this site is lost.
Please join me below the orange souffle of Anti-Censorship
I have been here over 5 years and though wasn't active enough to always have TU none the less in all time I have had it I've given, but one hide rate. I had just so happen to come across a truly disgusting post that had not been hide rated yet. All the other comments I've ever seen that deserved it were already hidden. As you can guess, that is probably not a huge number of comments. That is because I hold to the standard in the intro, to only hide comments that are potentially damaging to the site.
Censorship is the bane of all free thought and as soon as groups can start censoring others they will. We must uphold a very high standard in what we choose to censor or we will fall prey to groups gaming the system to push their views and suppress others. It is a very slippery slope and as such it merits making a big deal about.
Many on this site have lost sight of this and have become loose in giving hide rates to things that are very borderline if even remotely hide worthy. I am not sure if its 'out of hand' yet, but I am more interested in preventing it from becoming so, than what it is at this moment. As another diary recently mentioned this is not a game. This is one of the few sites in all the world with both a very large viewership combined with a progressive and highly intelligent following.
DK is what it is because of how it works and all that we censor are things like:
Hate speech
Copyright infringement
Propaganda
Comments so crass you wouldn't want them on the same site as you...
Not things you disagree with or that are a little off color or even things that are just plain wrong. These are comments you rebut with logic and common sense, not try and make them disappear. Its not that any one misdirected hide is in itself an issue. Its the mental state behind wanting to hide things below a very high threshold that is the problem
As we have seen in our own country freedom of speech is never free. We must constantly fight to keep it that way or those who want to push a particular truth will take advantage of any cracks. In America we now have 'Free Speech Zones" where the whole country should be one. We have given up much our freedom of speech in the real world, lets not chip away at it online as well.