Language, Intent and Forum Rule 8

[ryanyb]

Content Warnings: Racism, Violence. This is a serious post about serious things going on in the world. I apologize if this post is a bit strict or harsh (and it's probably far too over-done and drives my point needlessly far) but we as the moderation team have an obligation to you, our player base and random viewers of this sub-forum, to make our stances on certain issues crystal clear.



This message frankly should have gone out far sooner than it did, but I've been occupied by an ongoing major life crisis and Varanus has been busy with other things. Paired with those, COVID-19 has spiked anxiety, depression, and feelings of loneliness/isolation across the world. So we've been a bit preoccupied, and as such this wasn't formally written until just now. We apologize for any misconceptions about our views on racism and hate speech that our silence has conveyed.

Global forum rule 8 is as follows:

Personal attacks at a general audience, specific groups of people, or individual users are not allowed, nor tolerated, including outside-forum drama.
This includes but isn't limited to baiting, mocking, intentionally picking fights, racism, sexism, discrimination of any kind, flaming, etc. If you have any issues with a certain forum member, please keep it to PMs but do not forget we enforce the rules in PMs as well. Do not bring PM arguments to the open forum. If necessary, contact a Moderator for assistance by reporting the PM in question. Do not bring drama outside the forums into the forums. Failure to do so will result in a public reminder, followed by a Board Warning, and if necessary, a ban. Slurs of any kind directed at members will result in a permanent ban, including, but not limited to racial and homophobic slurs.

What this rule, perhaps over-verbosely, states is that hate-speech of any kind is not welcome on these forums. We, as the FM Moderation Team, will not hand-wave it, we will not tolerate it, and we will not give benefit of the doubt to someone jokingly using rhetoric frequently parroted by hate-groups. As many of you may be aware the internet has become the medium for hate-groups to meet, align, and discuss. Over the past multiple years, while the number of hate-crimes has remained relatively consistent, the number of hate groups has decreased. They decentralized, moved online, and some founded (and yes I'll get "political" here because this isn't politics, this is human decency) the alt-right in addition to other more directly violent communities.



One of the most frustrating, irritating, and genius tactics the alt-right uses to normalize their hate-speech and racist ideas is a litany of veiled speech. You can't prove any of them are racists while they're online. It's all effectively anonymous, and who can tell if that race joke was a joke, or if the person saying it is actually just a racist. To the out-group (normal people who aren't racists) they whine that they're being prosecuted for harmless jokes while this manner of speech communicates to the in-group that their racism is welcome. [See, reddit.com/r/FrenWorld, reddit.com/r/GamersRiseUp reddit.com/r/imgoingtohellforthis, or any 'chan'-board]. The more you repeat something, the more likely you are to believe it. The more racists you surround yourself with, the more likely you are, in turn, to become racist. [If you want a detailed analysis of this, I find Innuendo Studios' "The Alt-Right Playbook" to be a solid source. Some of the episodes are more political but "How To Radicalize a Normie" is more apolitical and describes the phenomenon I'm trying to illustrate here.] Eventually, enough people feel disenfranchised that they opt to rally for white nationalism/pride at Charlottesville and ram a car into the counter-protesters, killing one of them.

We are going to make our stance here unquestionably clear: we do not tolerate hate speech. We do not tolerate veiled hate speech. We do not tolerate jokes that may link to hate speech. We do not tolerate hate symbols. We do not tolerate jokes about hate speech that self-referentially use hate speech. We don't tolerate jokes that imply hate speech. I'm not going to keep expanding out this list, but the tone of this post should convey my meaning here if my words fail to do so. We will never allow our community to be a cog in a hate-group siphon, be that through the normalization of radical language or more direct means like linking people to hate-group influencers. We will not allow this sub-forum to be a member of of the ever-growing net of tolerance for hate-speech that has become so successful because of it's plausible deniability in intent.



If you've gotten this far down, 1) thanks for staying with me here, this shit is important and there's a reason I've written it out, and 2) you're probably wondering what prompted all of this:

A month ago, a user under the name n1ger posted in FM discussion. There was some clear tension about the name between some community members, and another replied with something along the lines of "what's so bad about that, it's just an African country". This is the rhetoric used by groups like the alt-right to legitimize and main-stream double-speak. Obviously Niger is a country, no shit. But the fact people are having knee-jerk reactions about racism means that it's not just the name of a country. Language is malleable and changes with cultural shifts over time. We are not writing an academic paper about the geopolitics of Africa. We are not talking about the effects of the slave trade on post-modern African culture, nor are we living in a time when the country of Niger is frequently brought up in the public discourse, especially on that of a forum for teenagers and young adults to play mafia on. We are living in a time where, in America at least, the amount of hate-crimes committed by white nationalists far outnumbers that of all other sources of terror combined [Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism ... ted_States]. Context is important, and claiming otherwise is willfully negligent to the point it may be harmful [see: Charlottesville, and the above crime statistics]. We will not stand for such speech and regret it took this long to act on.

Obviously the above case isn't extreme, nor is it as dire as this post is making it out to be. That being said, this stuff is a slippery slope. If we let that slide, then what next? And then what next? Where would we draw the line? We chose here.

[Also, feel free to replace "racist"/"racism" with homophobe, antisemite, islamophobe, misogynist or any other hate-fueled prejudice. Take your pick]

---

This has been posted in FM Discussion rather than in an announcement so that if there's mature and appropriate questions or discussion that y'all would like to have, we welcome it. Please keep in mind that these are real issues that have irreversibly damaged people's lives. This stuff is heavy and straight up sucks. I don't think any of us wanted to bring this up. But it's 2020 and we're on the internet. We figured that a bold and probably far overkill statement against hate-speech wouldn't be the worst thing in the world given our silence for the past month.

Thank you for reading, and we hope all of you are safe in these wacky and difficult times,
-The FM Mod Team

[Chemist1422]

I don't really know what to say to this other than good post I guess

[Superalex11]

imagine politicking on a gaming forum

[ZoruaLuhansk]

I don't really know what to say to this other than good post I guess

[ryanyb]

If you don't like the rules laid for for this subforum you need not participate in it, but we won't tolerate rhetoric parroted and coined by hate-groups. It's my belief this is an apolitical view, but your morality is your own.

[ICECLIMBERS]

The n1ger account was a bot.

[ryanyb]

That doesn't make the above statement less relevant.

Also as an aside we're not totally sure it was a bot (and that's coming from people above me). Regardless, that doesn't account for the "But hey, it's just an African country xdxd" that happened after.

[fwogcarf]

I don't really know what to say to this other than good post I guess

[FMLSheWas13]

tldr: hate speech bad

you're welcome

[ryanyb]

tldr: hate speech bad

you're welcome

Spoiler:

[S0me0ne23]

tldr: hate speech bad

you're welcome

[Varanus]

tldr: hate speech bad

you're welcome

ryan loves walls
let him have this

[TheDebil]

this reads like a copypasta

[ChubbyMooshroom9]

tldr: hate speech bad

you're welcome

ryan loves walls
let him have this

We have the best walls folks, the tallest, the sturdiest, the prettiest.
Spoiler:

[IAmAMunchlax]

im going to say it

Spoiler: frick

[Kmenx]

But why the content warning though?

Also can we include """"""ironic"""""" racism

[PolyesterHomes]

Okay.

How do I know if a phrase I'm going to say is a racist dogwhistle? I've seen movements like the Alt right coopt or subvert existing phrases or symbols for their cause. I've also seen then deliberately spread rumors about something being a dog whistle in order to troll with people. I've also seen memes that originated in a racist context be used in ways divorced of any obvious racism to the point where I genuinely wouldnt know they came from that context unless somebody told me.

I believe this post and change in rules is a good idea. I dont want to make people uncomfortable about their race, identity, orientation, etc.

[TheWabbit]

The n1ger account was a bot.

how did it even make its way to FM

[Kmenx]

But why the content warning though?

Also can we include """"""ironic"""""" racism

No.

Yes

[ryanyb]

But why the content warning though?

Also can we include """"""ironic"""""" racism

To the second point: Nop.

[ryanyb]

Okay.

How do I know if a phrase I'm going to say is a racist dogwhistle? I've seen movements like the Alt right coopt or subvert existing phrases or symbols for their cause. I've also seen then deliberately spread rumors about something being a dog whistle in order to troll with people. I've also seen memes that originated in a racist context be used in ways divorced of any obvious racism to the point where I genuinely wouldnt know they came from that context unless somebody told me.

I believe this post and change in rules is a good idea. I dont want to make people uncomfortable about their race, identity, orientation, etc.

Honestly, you really can't.

Basically, the intent here is that if there's something we know about, we're going to ask that it's not used. Like, we're not banning pepe's, despite the fact it's a recognized hate symbol by the ADL because of the fact that it's one of the favorite meme format for hate-groups and has been historically used to mask stuff. I think it's a bit dense to blanket ban stuff like that because, yes, it is a part of internet culture. But like, maybe don't go around using it in the ways it was used in /r/FrenZone, and maybe don't post pepe's that have been re-done to clearly stereotype and poke fun at certain groups. Like, no, the twitch emote PepeD is not a dogwhistle.

We're giving benefit of the doubt on the vast majority of this stuff. We're not about to start waving the ban hammer around because something might actually be a super obscure dogwhistle that none of us have heard of. But, for example, if someone starts doing scumreads by indicating scum with an (((echo))), then you're going to be asked to cut it out.

Edit:
A pretty good rule of thumb probably is if there's a wikipedia page on that manner of speech / symbol / whatever is that primarily talks about how it's a hate symbol, maybe don't.

[ChubbyMooshroom9]

Okay.

How do I know if a phrase I'm going to say is a racist dogwhistle? I've seen movements like the Alt right coopt or subvert existing phrases or symbols for their cause. I've also seen then deliberately spread rumors about something being a dog whistle in order to troll with people. I've also seen memes that originated in a racist context be used in ways divorced of any obvious racism to the point where I genuinely wouldnt know they came from that context unless somebody told me.

I believe this post and change in rules is a good idea. I dont want to make people uncomfortable about their race, identity, orientation, etc.

Honestly, you really can't.

Basically, the intent here is that if there's something we know about, we're going to ask that it's not used. Like, we're not banning pepe's, despite the fact it's a recognized hate symbol by the ADF because of the fact that it's one of the favorite meme format for hate-groups and has been historically used to mask stuff. I think it's a bit dense to blanket ban stuff like that because, yes, it is a part of internet culture. But like, maybe don't go around using it in the ways it was used in /r/FrenZone, and maybe don't post pepe's that have been re-done to clearly stereotype and poke fun at certain groups. Like, no, the twitch emote PepeD is not a dogwhistle.

We're giving benefit of the doubt on the vast majority of this stuff. We're not about to start waving the ban hammer around because something might actually be a super obscure dogwhistle that none of us have heard of. But, for example, if someone starts doing scumreads by indicating scum with an (((echo))), then you're going to be asked to cut it out.

Edit:
A pretty good rule of thumb probably is if there's a wikipedia page on that manner of speech / symbol / whatever is that primarily talks about how it's a hate symbol, maybe don't.

this was the first result when i googled adf

can't believe we're listening to boomers as our master plan smh

[ryanyb]

oops.
I meant ADL, anti-defamation league.
I'm a stupid.

[Kmenx]

Okay.

How do I know if a phrase I'm going to say is a racist dogwhistle? I've seen movements like the Alt right coopt or subvert existing phrases or symbols for their cause. I've also seen then deliberately spread rumors about something being a dog whistle in order to troll with people. I've also seen memes that originated in a racist context be used in ways divorced of any obvious racism to the point where I genuinely wouldnt know they came from that context unless somebody told me.

I believe this post and change in rules is a good idea. I dont want to make people uncomfortable about their race, identity, orientation, etc.

Honestly, you really can't.

Basically, the intent here is that if there's something we know about, we're going to ask that it's not used. Like, we're not banning pepe's, despite the fact it's a recognized hate symbol by the ADF because of the fact that it's one of the favorite meme format for hate-groups and has been historically used to mask stuff. I think it's a bit dense to blanket ban stuff like that because, yes, it is a part of internet culture. But like, maybe don't go around using it in the ways it was used in /r/FrenZone, and maybe don't post pepe's that have been re-done to clearly stereotype and poke fun at certain groups. Like, no, the twitch emote PepeD is not a dogwhistle.

We're giving benefit of the doubt on the vast majority of this stuff. We're not about to start waving the ban hammer around because something might actually be a super obscure dogwhistle that none of us have heard of. But, for example, if someone starts doing scumreads by indicating scum with an (((echo))), then you're going to be asked to cut it out.

Edit:
A pretty good rule of thumb probably is if there's a wikipedia page on that manner of speech / symbol / whatever is that primarily talks about how it's a hate symbol, maybe don't.

this was the first result when i googled adf

can't believe we're listening to boomers as our master plan smh

You can say the N word but only in a church