You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Seriously, though, if I think somethings sucks or I dislike it, it's absolutely my right to say so. That is not censorship, it's the opposite.

Freedom of speech, not freedom from consequences.

You're right with me up to the point we reach the kinds of censorship you happen to support.

What's the penalty for incurring the ire of the social justice elite? Well, only that you'll be branded a sexist or whatever by the entire gaming media, perhaps have your Twitter account banned or your videos taken down from YouTube, or maybe you'll just be arrested on false charges of harassment. It's a storm that a strong individual might weather, but from which any company will steer away automatically. Of course it's censorship.

Games are being censored (they came for the japanese bikini simulators and I said nothing...); social media is being censored: Twitter, Reddit, YouTube, Wikipedia and any number of even less reputable sites are being censored - all in response to social justice histrionics. This crybaby, zero-offence, closed-minded, closed-mouthed malaise is damaging to our culture: damaging to art, to academia, to journalism. And if you acknowledge the need for open expression, you will oppose it.

"There is more than one way to burn a book," wrote Ray Bradbury of interest groups taking offence, "...each ripping a page or a paragraph from this book, then that, until the day came when the books were empty and the minds shut and the libraries closed forever." You don't recognise any of this?

Yes, 'critics just don't have the talent to create' is a tired old fallacy and I regret echoing it, but there I was thinking particularly of the likes of Wu and Quinn: loathsome reptiles and degenerates whose own creative efforts are so miserably inept that to garner sales, patreon donations, and fraudulently positive reviews they resort to pretending themselves the brave minority voices raised against the misogynistic, LGBT-phobic, uni-racial establishment - in an industry that has never actually had any of those problems.

As for Anita Sarkeesian; that liar, mountebank, fascist collaborator, and 21st century Jack Thompson; that professional victim and demagogue who harnesses manufactured outrage for profit; or in the most generous possible light, that half-educated nincompoop who somehow rode a tide of hysterical activists-without-a-cause to a broadcast platform for her worthless, narcissistic rambling:
It isn't the fact of her fuck-witted critique to which the gaming community so righteously objects but the baffling inaccuracies and outright slanders therein, her self-promotion via false claims of harassment, her attacks on artistic expression and internet freedom.

And these are exactly the kind of sub-intellectual trash who will presume, against all standards of rectitude and conscience, to instruct their betters on what kind of jokes they're allowed to tell.

You never cede an inch to these fucking people. That's how you get Mary Whitehouse, or the Comics Code Authority, or McCarthy, or the FCC, the BBFC, the OFLC, the IWF.

The title here is bullshit. He doesn't face jail for "disagreeing" with a feminist. He's facing jail for online harassment of a feminist.

Whether the charge is warranted or not is another matter, but even in Canada, disagreeing with people is not a crime.

I tried to watch the video, but I couldn't get past the rampant MRA bullshit, so I went and researched the actual issue.

First, let's quit fucking pretending this is about equality.

Making a game about beating up Anita Sarkeesian is straight-up misogynistic assholery, and if you put said game out in a public forum, don't come crying when people publicise your fucking stupidity.

What Guthrie did was perfectly valid. If you make a public statement, be prepared to back it up. If I made a game about punching (for example) Donald Trump in the face, I would be perfectly happy for any prospective employer to see it. I would stand behind it as a parody/protest/whatever. So fuck Spurr, I have zero sympathy for him. If he doesn't want prospective employers finding out he's a misogynist asshole, he should have made an artistic statement to that effect in public.

Oh, and if you honestly can't understand the difference between a game of punching Sarkeesian or punching Thompson/Bin Laden/Bieber, you're either deluding yourself or you're an idiot.

Oh, and one more thing before I get accused of censorship. I am not in any way saying Spurr should not be able to make that game or it should be banned. I would vehemently defend his right to make and publish such a game, and my right to call him a complete fuckknuckle for doing so.

Now, as for Elliot, I've read several articles now, and all it's done is make depressed for the pathetic state of what is laughably called journalism in that none of them ACTUALLY CONTAINED THE FUCKING TWEETS!

I have no idea if what he said warranted a criminal charge or not, but on balance, his "harassment" doesn't appear to be of a threatening nature. I reserve the right to change my mind either way once I've actually read what he tweeted.

agreed,to a point.the narrator didnt bother me that much,and i felt the content far more important than some random youtube channel owner.

this new overly sensitive,overly privileged with a healthy dollop of self importance being placed on the individual really needs to be addressed.

this new trend to silence dissenting opinions and demanding respect for our own,tiny and insubstantial habitats.while simultaneously disrespecting those who happen to disagree is hypocrisy on steroids.

to scream at the top of your lungs to the dean of students that his job is NOT to create and intellectual space but rather to create a home,and NOT be aware of the incredible disconnect to reality is quite disturbing.

there is REAL danger in demanding a space where only ideas YOU agree with,opinions YOU agree with are allowed,and all dissention needs to be either protected from or compartmentalized.

the reason why the free market of ideas is so brilliant and VITAL,is because this is the place where bad ideas come to die.bad ideas are challenged,scrutinized and criticized.when you remove this free flow of thought,then bad ideas can find homes in these small "safe spaces" and are allowed to breed and fester.

the new form of social censorship must be completely,and utterly destroyed.

lets get some fingers snapping shall we?

hey man,
thanks for addressing the distinctions between the two videos.

and i can agree with your assertions,but i fear the larger implications.

i have been down the rabbit hole for a few days now in regards to "intersective third wave" feminism,and wow..juuust wow.

the deeper i go,the more disturbing and horrific it becomes.

so yeah,
turdnugget losing his job does not really bother me as much as how easily i see social media being used to control speech,opinions and attitudes.i guess i saw a tactic that could easily,and quickly be abused.which was mainly due to what was happening to greg elliot and the targeted prosecution by the SJW third wave feminists.

now maybe i conflated the two,but i think my concerns are not specious.

you know me.
i am ultra anti-authoritarian.
i am prefer a free market of ideas,which translates to zero censorship..none.
anything goes...
lets put it all out there,so we can weed out the bad ideas.

so turdnugget losing his job?
not that big a deal,and lets be honest..he was grotesque,but how easily would it be to fabricate a situation? edit? how many examples do we need to see that just the act of accusing can have devastating effects upon the accused with little or no evidence?

and that is where my concern lies,not some idiotic racist who was too dumb to shut up in front of a camera.

@Jinx
here is what you are missing,and i think should be a focal point in this situation in regards to burr:

1.while we may view burr creating a game where sarkesian gets punched in the face offensive,and maybe it is to you (i just find it in poor taste).this is a perfectly acceptable position to take.

what is NOT mentioned in this video is that burr created a very similar,distasteful game,with the exact same mechanics,for the exact same REASON a few years earlier,but in that case the face being punched was jack thompson,who was seeking to legislate by using unsubstantiated claims that video games promoted actual violence,but in THAT case it was a man whose face was being punched.

so where was the moral outrage then?nobody gave two shits.

2.guthrie responded by recruiting her fairly large feminist twitter followers to barrage burr contacts and businesses who he did work for.so it wasn't just guthrie but a group of like-minded women who banded together to,dare i say..harass? a video game developer who offended their tender sensibilities.

could we call this gaggle of offended women a cabal?
meeeeh..i think that maybe stretching the meaning just a tad in that regard,but i think it safe to call them a group of offended women.

did they have a right to band together and expose a person they felt offended by?
yep.they do have that right.

do i think it hypocritical and morally inconsistent to use the victim card,when years earlier burr created a similar game for similar reasons?but in that case it was a MAN getting smashed in the face?
yep..i sure do.

but here is where it REALLY goes off the rails.
you would think the target should be burr right?
after all it was him who created the sarkesian/thompson games.so it would stand to reason that burr would be the focus ..right?

well,you would be wrong my friend.
guthrie went after elliot for having the audacity to disagree politically with guthrie.
he never threatened her.
never used violent language.
in fact he AGREED with a large portion of guthrie's position.
he just felt it counter-productive to make a federal issue out of the situation,and advised a more cautious approach.

thats it.thats all he actually did on twitter.

and guthrie's response was,and i paraphrase "elliot seems to be unaware of our power as women.should i sic the internet on him?"

"sic the internet on him"

think about that for a moment,and let the larger implications come into focus.

so this mans life is ruined.
lost his job.
80k in the hole.
and for what?
HE didnt create the offensive game,so in what context can this be viewed as justice?equality?fairness?

no.
this is a lynch mob.
this is mob rules.
this is about privilege playing the victim in a victimless crime,and utilizing the internet to silence and punish dissent.

will elliot be absolved of all charges?
most likely,and that is even after the prosecutor changed the charges in the last minutes before sentencing in order to create a broader charge.

but that does not change the fact that elliot's life as he knew it...is over.

which is why i see a real and present danger with an overly PC community and social justice warriors who wish to impose their own set of morals on all of us.

we can look back in our own history and see the dangers of institutionalized morality police (looking at you christians).

this form of social control by way of internet bullying promotes censorship,stifles debate and literally quashes dissent.the fear of speaking your mind because it may draw negative attention from those who disagree and then translate to real world consequences that are long-lasting.

and as i said in another video,this new brand of feminism has almost nothing in common with the feminism you or i are accustomed and familiar with,at all.

i urge you to watch the video i linked to from girl writes what.she breaks down this case in a most excellent way,and it will become apparent that this new breed of feminists are just that...a new breed.

Quite true, and it's a risk you take when you do that and suffer the consequences if it bombs, comedians push these boundaries all the time (the good ones at least, IMHO). When he joked with that disabled person about the sign language was that person genuinely offended or did they connect over the joke which might have occurred to them as well?

And I honestly can't see how hidden racism/sexism/ or any other isms I can think of is an improvement. You can't fight an enemy you can't see, you have movements like Black Lives Matter and others having to first convince everyone that there is actually a problem before they can even begin to address the problem itself. So, no, not fantastic, pretending you don't have cancer doesn't make the cancer go away, it just festers and eventually spreads throughout the whole system.

I'm glad we both agree it was a stupid decision and while it may be their stupid decision to make it doesn't mean that Zizek and others can't criticize that decision and explain why they think it's stupid.

And censorship comes in many forms, Governmental is only one of the easiest to recognize. The tyranny of the majority is a very real thing, maybe they can't throw you in jail, but they can make your life very difficult and that can be enough to silence many. And that can make it into a totalitarianism of it's own kind, I find a lot of Left Wing extremism to be equally as dangerous and crazy as the Right Wing brand.
It's been shown time and time again that even without the law behind you you can pretty much destroy someone's life just because they said something you didn't like, all I'm saying is "maybe you SHOULDN'T".

I listen to the Intelligence Squared debates sometimes and I thought this seemed relevant, interesting debate.
http://intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/past-debates/item/1310-liberals-are-stifling-intellectual-diversity-on-campus

@Zawash
PC Master Race, checking in!

Obviously, since I have called snuff on many a video to have them removed, no, if his neck was snapped it would not be A-OK.....

BUT....

You continue to completely ignore the clearly stated issue put forth, which is that you labeled this video in such a way that there's absolutely no warning you are going to be seeing any such disturbing thing. I expected to see a man to get his hair or head bitten and watch him be tossed by a camel, not a terrifying (for the camel) poorly done third world live butchering of a large animal. If the title had said any such thing, I would have just ignored the video, since you STILL have up the title, knowing full well that it's tricking people who don't want to see animals be butchered alive into watching, you deserve far more than a downvote in my opinion.

As to your whine that I could have said something about the title before downvoting, well now I and many other people have spoken up and you still have the same no-warning title, so my only regret is that I have but one vote to downvote it with. Clearly speaking up made absolutely no difference. Besides, it's not like I inappropriately downvoted your pure fact comment...like you did to @charliem, I properly downvoted a video I didn't like with a title that tricked me into seeing it at all.

And will you please go learn what censorship is before whining about it again. Being asked to retitle something many people find offensive that you titled with a 'completely misses the point' title is not censorship.

There's a difference between public and private speech. If you're talking to someone you know, well, by definition you know them and you know where to draw the line. My friends throw all kinds of anti-Irish racist slurs at me that I would take serious offence at coming from someone else.

As for the idea that PC "hides" racism/sexism/homophobia, fantastic! The more it's hidden away, the less people are exposed to it, until it becomes more and more socially unacceptable to be a racist, sexist, homophobic asshole.

Again re the opera: first, it was Perth not Sydney, and second, I agree it's stupid. But it was the opera companies stupid decision to make. No-one forced them to do this.

Here's the importance point: PC is not censorship. Censorship is saying you CAN'T say this, PC is saying "maybe you SHOULDN'T".

Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences of speech. If someone says something racist or sexist or whatever, I have the right to express my opinion that they shouldn't have said those things. If that's PC, so be it.

And so should every video of animals devouring animals--but those get a pass somehow... I saw a video of a rat hiding from a cat in an ingenious manner, but the rat eventually was smelled out and grabbed and eaten. Broke my heart actually. Like damn it gave its all. But then I never cried for censorship, although I won't watch it again.

Edit added,

@hallen

Or wait, did you incorrectly think this video was condoning or making light of animal abuse? If so what on earth gave you that misinterpretation? If the people are just abusing it for religion or such shit I say I wish it broke the man's neck. But if it was for a legitimate reason (ie., an injury, food, etc.,) then that is unknown. Either way, the video was merely about the POWER of animals, not abuse.

Censorship doesn't exist on a privately-run site.

Why do I get the feeling the swears that were bleeped out were bleeped out for effect. Like, "That's a fricking awful idea for a costume." Unnecessary Censorship style.

There is absolutely no suppression.
It's not analogous to 'banning books', it's more like not checking out and reading certain books, or certain authors. No author has the right to force their 'work' on others. Your right to swing your fist ends at my nose.
You simply don't have a right to 'be acknowledged'. That is not a right. EDIT: Freedom of speech is not the freedom to force others to listen.
You absolutely SHOULD be able to remove someone from your personal existence. As you said, there are even laws to do it in real life, which actually effects the actions of the other party, unlike this, which is more like blocking their phone number and emails at best. Do you think it should not be possible to block phone calls and emails?
How do you find that offensive? Why do you feel that a person's right to force their views on another person outweighs that other person's right to NOT have a person's views forced on them?
Again, NO ONE IS SILENCED. How do you not get that? To censor, you must hide the work from OTHERS, not simply not look at it.
I clearly explained the reasons I asked for it, you just don't get it for some reason.
The behavior you described is exactly what was happening, but was done in such a way that the moderators said it didn't rise to the level of banning or even hobbling them (although I still can't understand how, since at least one of them was repeatedly using the N word, others using the C word to describe any woman, others making nasty personal insults, etc.) Since ban and hobble weren't happening (now ban, THAT's censorship...but for cause), something else was needed, this was it.

@lucky760 @newtboy

Censorship according to the internet: "the practice of officially examining books, movies, etc., and suppressing unacceptable parts."

I see public internet communication as a constantly published work of the human intellect, therefore all digitally published and public communication is media and therefore subject to censorship -- and Videosift now offers a form of individual censorship to its members, not simply the acceptable ignore feature which allows you to check the communication if you so desire.

It bothers me that people would completely block out other people's published work -- and not just their published work but their very existence -- for the same reason that it bothers me that people ban books I don't read at libraries. Mein Kampf is still a book, a poorly written book which glorifies hatred, but still an important part of human literature.

You can choose not to read it, but you can't censor it's existence from reality. Not without burning every copy and then erasing every digital copy. Though perhaps in the future an algorithm will be available which does something similar on an account wide level, visually removing all unfavorable literature and blocking people's facial features, making it so that that person and their communication might as well not exist. But I wouldn't want it to be nullified from my vision while walking through a library, anymore than I would want to nullify a person's existence who offends me; and by extension I believe the freedom to exist and to be acknowledged is an important freedom that we take for granted. You should NOT be able to remove someone from your personal existence. Yes, there are laws in place to do this, but they require criminal abuse to come into effect.

There are greater implications of this type of censorship, that perhaps do not apply directly to the Sift in it's short temporal existence and small community. But it's still an offence to my sense of justice in the realm of communication that such a thing is possible. Even the < ahref="http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-04/14/google-algorithm-predicts-trolls-antisocial-behaviour">troll algorithm isn't intended to ban or censor trolls outright, but rather to detect problematic people and find a way to limit the harm they do to a community without removing them from a community.

I think it's one thing if you want to prevent someone from posting on your profile -- which is what should actually be an option (if it isn't already) -- but to silence their voice in video comments is a high form of censorship that I fundamentally stand against. I quite enjoyed some of what Chilngalera had to say; not always and often he offended me -- but not enough to desire to remove him from my existence. I don't think anyone except violent/sexual offenders deserve that. If he vocalizedd violence and sexual threats, why would he still be in the community at all? And if he's banned, why do you need to have an option to block out people's existence?

I was employed for many years to police several massive online roleplaying games, and an ignore feature was a widely accepted form of preventing harassment -- but when it came to erasing the person's avatar or their character's physical body from the game, we always voted against such outright blotting out of a human being. Our rational was and is to this day that if the person cannot communicate to you via explicit words, their presence is an acceptable form of nonverbal communication and a reminder that they are a human being in the community, even if verbally hobbled -- because at that point they have no means of articulating hurtful words.

But to erase that person's presence is a greater act against both the human spirit and human expression as to be a reprehensible act in an of itself. Unless they commit such atrocious behavior in the form of real life physical threats of violence, constant racial/sexual slurs (in a bucket system of soft banning leading up to a permanent ban) or other forms of insidiousness, preserving their humanity is more important to a community than erasing another human being.

First, it's not censorship in any way shape or form. Not reading someone's post is simply not what the word 'censorship' means.

Second, it's actually not what people said about me that got my goat (mostly...Chingalera did make numerous personal attacks though), it was what I saw as repeated intentional provocation, racist, misogynist, and other hateful postings that, while they were designed to not cross the line and get the people banned, were certainly not what I come to the sift to read. When those posts were unavoidable because of others replying/quoting, even though the posters were ignored, it made the sift a place where reading the comments section was becoming intolerable. Now I don't have that problem.
(there are also a couple of people I ignore because they asked me to, not because they were nasty. I do wish I had the option to select who's totally ignored, or at least a way to un-ignore those on that list, but no solution is perfect, and this one was the best I could think of that was possible.

Once more I'll thank @lucky760 for his work helping me with this, it kept me from leaving the sift...I'll leave that for you to decide if that's a good or a bad thing.

My question for you, why does my not reading a few sifter's posts make you think someone has been censored anywhere besides my screen?