Paradoks: This whole situation is a mess. I just don't understand why every company, in this case GOG, is trying so hard to be witty on the social media.
toxicTom: I think for many people a harmless and witty joke is still a harmless and witty joke. And a bad joke simply a bad joke... *shrug and forget about it*. To reach these people you make... jokes, witty posts. Hit or miss.
The problem on the internet is that there are too many people lurking and waiting that someone steps on their toes. Some of them deliberately place their toes in your way. And I swear some of them have their toes surgically prolonged.
These people have followers with followers, and while they all in all among the millions of users are a minority, they can rally a few thousand people, very vocal people no less.
I don't get the appeal of it, my best guess is some need for tribalism, an urge to belong to a group and team (like football/soccer fans beating each other up over games played by overpaid mercenaries - which I also don't get).
Fighting for a "good cause" like getting rid of transphobia, racism or any structural disadvantage of a group of people is in itself honourable. But this seems to spin out of control all too often, which is very visible especially with feminism - with the big issues resolved at least in the west, more justification is needed and misogyny and patriarchy are suddenly found in the smallest things and instead of talking about it and trying to resolve the issues there's only the call for arms... makes you feel like a real Suffragette I guess.
So while most people probably shrug or smile, depending on the wittiness or fail of some post, there will alway be some one finding a hair your soup. The only options are: serve no soup (become boring matter-of-fact) or continue and "let haters hate".
In past, more sensible times, if you seriously offended someone by accident, they would speak up and you would apologise with "I didn't mean to offend, my bad." and either "I didn't know" or "Sorry, I didn't think". Everyone makes a mistake sometimes, and people used to know and accept this, also with others.
Today, especially in social media, there's always someone offended, it's indeterminable if there's a real issue or just "the usual shitstorm". And you don't get a chance to apologise for real, because the punishment is always immediate public execution.
IMO this is the best way to ruin everybody's life, I would prefer to have all people work together for making the world a better place for everyone. But this would have to start with actually talking and listening to each other.
kohlrak: You can't suggest you're for free speech while simultaneously prohibiting it. When threads are civil, or at least regained civility after a period of hellfire, locking comes off as feeding the flames, as well.
toxicTom: While the last sentence is not wrong, I can't on the whole agree with you. What Konrad wants is:
I just wish we could discuss all sorts of stuff here and be excellent to each other.
toxicTom: The problem is, once the poo-flinging has started in a thread, it tends to return even after brief periods of civility (when the poo-flingers are in the restrooms...). So I get it that locking those thread is - as undesirable as it is - sometimes the better way.
So free speech yes. Poo-flinging no.
If you want free speech without poo flinging, you have to be willing to go after the poo flingers rather than the topic, that's just the way the cookie crumbles. By going after the topic, you're denying the freedom for non-poo-flingers. I understand, as a business it makes more sense to end convos instead of ending customers, but that's why we typically see censorship over topics in businesses today. Ultimately, it's toxic to moderate even poo-flinging unless it becomes illegal, especially as that ultimately results in becoming a publisher (there's a reason the laws are written this way, and that's so people can't get away with simply picking sides). The censorship laws of europe (mostly germany) and canada has further obligated platforms to play politics, which forces them to become publishers by the standards of other countries. It's a tight technicality, but when some companies are over-zealous and/or onesided about mudslinging rules, then the people loose respect for the company's claims of free speech. By closing threads during the moments they're actually civil, gog crosses this line, and many would argue that not going after the toxic users crosses the line. I'd comment further, but it isn't my place to tell gog my way of doing this, even though it is appropriate to talk about legal and social views.
Don't get me wrong, i understand GOG's position, but that doesn't mean they can pretend they're something that they're not. It's not safe for gog to be free speech, which is fully understandable. However, as such, we can't pretend that just because their positions are understandable that means they can go ahead and use the free-speech banner. There's a separation between understandable censorship and necessary censorship, and you won't find too many companies that adopt only necessary censorship, and that's why we covet it. GOG is openly not for free speech, while pretending that it is so as to not upset it's customers. Frankly, some of us (pro-censorship vs Free Speech Absolutists) demand an absolute position, which, believe it or not, is reasonable since it's a dichotomy: you really can only have it one way or another if the userbase is to have any sort of faith in your judgement. Unfortunately, just as censorship is more understandable for a company, so is the likelihood that they'll ultimately have to favor one side over the other, so it's also fair to say that GOG is actively playing politics, which is OK, too, but they shouldn't pretend that they aren't. And this is what i mean by how politics will inevitably invade everything, no matter how hard you try to avoid it. Free speech absolutism would solve the problem (basically, anyone could post or say anything and no one could hold gog responsible if they don't moderate anything), but censorship laws make it incredibly difficult (moderation must occur, where neutrality becomes untenable, as NeoGAF found out the hard way [before it fell apart]).
