Censorship, words, meaning and "Cancel Culture"
Hi guys,
I have been seeing a lot to do with censorship lately which makes me think about my stance on censorship.
MY GENERAL STANCE ON CENSORSHIP
My stance on censorship is informed by various aspects of my life, including my experiences as a creator and my views about the net result of various things that could or could not be censored.
I generally prefer platforms with light to no censorship over platforms with a lot of censorship. If a platform does have censorship though, I feel it should be relatively equal.
The one thing I believe should be censored is things that have direct potential to cause harm or death. This includes things like pseudoscience recommending people drink or do enemas with Miracle Mineral Supplement (essentially bleach) to cure various things such as cancer or autism. If a platform can manage to censor only physically dangerous misinformation like this without the amount of censorship spreading throughout the platform, I believe this is better than a platform having no censorship. If choosing to censor stuff like this would lead to more censorship, I'd prefer no censorship and dealing with that sort of crap being up on the platform to the alternative of the platform censoring other stuff as well.
Australia, where I live, doesn't have any explicit freedom of speech, and my arguments are not based on any right to freedom of speech. They are based on my moral beliefs related to individual and creative freedom and people's right to opinions.
My views on censorship have been impacted by both being a creator on YouTube and seeing various drama and increased censorship go down on YouTube and by being on platforms with less censorship, however, my views on censorship have not changed that much as a result of that. It's mostly just my values towards these things in general, but being a creator on different platforms solidified my views more so.
I also hold the view that everyone should be allowed to say everything and every word, and that context and meaning matters more than the individual words. This includes words that I don't really like myself.
That doesn't mean I think it is a good idea for everyone to say every thought that comes into their head either though. Some things are cruel, mean and unnecessary to say and there are some things that an individual should be allowed to say that still don't have many contexts in which it would be acceptable to do so.
This plays into the next part of this. I don't agree with censorship but people responding to what someone says also isn't censorship. Not liking censorship is not the same as arguing that no one can tell someone what they said was hurtful. I myself have told people that they have said things that are hurtful, harmful or not factually correct.
RECENT EVENTS
There's been a string of recent events related to censorship. I've dealt with censorship on YouTube and other platforms quite a bit but most of these recent ones I have noticed have been Twitter related or related to stuff like streaming services.
Recently I discovered that my favourite satire account on Twitter, Feline Frequency, is suspended and it's been suspended since I discovered that so I don't know if it will be coming back. It was a funny account about cats being oppressed by dogs. It probably pushed some buttons because it was making fun of, well, for the most part, misandrists pretending to be feminists (most tweets and types of accounts that they satired didn't align with the true values of feminism and were just about hating men), but it was a funny and cute account sharing pictures of cats and dogs and talking about important felinist issues like the "puptriarchy" and "dog spreading" (dogs going yoga with their owners).
On the other hand, JK Rowling has been causing issues on Twitter for tweeting transphobic stuff, including an article she wrote about it which was transphobic and also had a part which really read like it was trying to imply that Autistic people don't understand gender and get coerced into being transgender.
Then we have the guy behind The IT Crowd and Father Ted (also on Twitter - it has good stuff but it is also one of the places shitshows go down often). I came across his account on Twitter by accident and didn't know who he was but he was being a complete and utter dick and spewing hate. It turns out he has been a complete and utter dick on Twitter for quite some time. I was quite disappointed when I found out who it was to be honest. Some time later his account was banned from Twitter.
Fuss was made over Fawlty Towers, partially due to an incorrect article which stated that the episode, "The Germans" was being removed from box sets. What actually was happening was a particular joke was being edited out and then reuploaded to a streaming platform with the scene edited out. This is a big difference. To me, I am aware of the joke in question and I don't think it should have been edited out, but I definitely wouldn't agree with editing a box set which implies DVDs or BluRay as those should be intact if you buy them.
GTA V got called out for transphobia right when GTA V was announced to be hitting newer consoles.
Often #someoneiscancelledparty will be trending on twitter. People will be celebrating destroying someone's career.
I will discuss this in more depth.
CANCEL CULTURE
I don't believe we should be judging people's whole being on one thing and trying to cancel them. People are idiots and they can grow up and change. There are people trying to drag up jokes and stuff said decades ago to cancel people now.
People tried to do it to Dan Harmon over a disturbing joke (but still a joke) in an earlier work of his.
Being cancelled happened to a character in a show I like and I found it uncomfortable watching a fictional character go through this, let alone real people.
There are exceptions. There are things that are bad enough that they shouldn't really be forgiven. But for the rest of it, people should have the chance to improve, and depending on what it is, we should allow some difference of opinion. We shouldn't allow straight up bigotry, but we should allow for difference of opinion, and we should allow for people's growth.
WORDS VS MEANING
The issue with Fawlty Towers was a much more minor issue than what articles presented it as. It wasn't removing a whole episode but removing a scene and it wasn't from box sets but from a streaming service.
The joke in question used racial slurs but the meaning of the joke was making fun of racist attitudes and racist characters.
It had nothing to do the Germans that the episode focused around but was a joke regarding dialogue between The Major and Basil.
If you want to see the joke, this is it, but expect racial slurs because they are in the joke:
The meaning behind this admittedly isn't super clear, but it is not promoting racism. It is making fun of racism.
An episode of The Young Ones has a similar joke which makes fascist, racist cops look ridiculous but it is more exaggerated and written in a way that makes it a lot more obvious that it is making fun of racism, not supporting it. It also fits with the general tone of the show in regards to these issues.
If you want to see this clip, this is it, but again be aware that there are racial slurs in the joke:
Both of these jokes have been censored out of the shows in the past. I don't know the specific reasoning for the joke for The Young Ones but the joke in Fawlty Towers was supposedly censored out of reruns because the show was playing in prime time when kids are watching. This sort of censorship is completely acceptable because kids may struggle with the nuance of these sorts of jokes and just go around saying racial slurs, which is not good. Censoring the same joke in a DVD or Bluray box set on the other hand, is not acceptable in my opinion.
To me, meaning trumps words.
People like to use Autism and Autistic the same way people have used retarded for quite some time, as essentially a synonym for stupid, weird or broken. It sometimes takes the place of the word "cringey" too - though I honestly find the word cringey, cringey, ironically enough, but I think that's partially because of how it is used. ADHD gets used as a verb or insult like calling a generation ADHD.
For all of these - Autism, Autistic, Retarded, ADHD - the context is more important to me than the word itself.
I have sat with people who were throwing the word retarded (as well as a more local word that refers to a local charity for disabled people) around as a joke where the whole joke was "that's / you're retarded". I do not have mental retardation but I am neurodiverse and I did not feel comfortable with that. The reason wasn't the word but the fact that the whole joke was "that's retarded" because for that to be funny, you have to be seeing that group you are using as lesser.
I don't mean people using it out of habit and saying things are retarded because that's their default word for bad, where it could have been "gay" or something else instead, because that's not the best but people are actually thinking of mental retardation when they do that (nor are they thinking of gay people when they use gay in that manner). I'm actually okay with that. It's not ideal and I still don't find it comfortable but as far as I'm concerned people can say that if they want. I mean people actually meaning retarded or using it as a synonym for stupid, weird or broken and their whole joke being "ha you're that" - which to be an insulting joke has to imply they think that is lesser as whether it is in humour or not, you don't insult people by implying they are something that you think is great.
People do the same thing with Autism. I'm happy for people to joke about Autism. I'm not happy for people to use it as an insult or essentially use it like people use the word retarded. If people said the same things they did but did it when it actually was an autistic trait being displayed, it would probably actually be funny.
If an Autism joke was essentially an Autism equivalent of "what do you call an epileptic in the bushes?" I'd be okay with that because it's an actual joke related to the condition being joked about. I'm not personally okay with lazy insults as jokes.
Fictional characters are a completely different ballgame too. There is a difference between a bigoted character, a bigoted joke and a bigoted writer. The jokes from The Young Ones and Fawlty Towers illustrate this difference. One more relevant to this part of the conversation is from Something About Mary. Something about Mary did not have the best representation of disabilities in general but there is one scene that I believe is an acceptable use of the word retarded, and that is a joke that makes someone look like an idiot, for saying that and for saying more ableist things afterwards. The joke isn't on the disabled there. The joke is on the guy who thought he could impress Mary by saying he "works with retards".
Clearly the joke in this scene is more at his expense than at disabled people's expense.
People are allowed to get offended at this or at the Fawlty Towers or The Young Ones joke even though I didn't and people are also allowed to use the words I mentioned in the contexts which I said I don't like, but that's where I morally draw the line. I don't think it is morally okay to use words in real life when they whole thing is "ha you're this". I won't try to cancel people over it or anything, but that's where I draw the line morally. On the same note, I don't like the people I sometimes come across in Rainbow Six Seige who think they are so funny because they spam racial slurs in the text chat. That's just trying to annoy or insult people.
Whether it is jokes about gender, disability, race, sex or whatever else (and swearing for that matter) as far as I'm concerned the words matter significantly less than the meaning behind them. This is on a word vs meaning basis though as in "don't freak out because a word was said, pay attention to the context it was in", not a "this is confusing and could mean this but could also mean this" way, as we can all mess up in understanding intent. If something is clearly making fun of racists, then the meaning is the focus. If something sounds really messed up but it's like "Maybe they're joking", that's a harder call to make. Intent matters the most if people reveal their intent in saying or not saying something, but this isn't an excuse to talk in riddles so that you can say one thing, mean that thing, and say you meant something else. Neurotypical people are confusing enough already due to not meaning what they say, we don't need you to confuse it more on purpose.... No hate, just taking the piss out of neurotypicals, because you honestly can be confusing as fuck sometimes...
FICTION AND ART VS REAL LIFE
I feel fiction and art has a completely different set of morals to follow in regards to these issues vs real life, because you shouldn't be a dick in real life, but it is acceptable to make a character act like a dick in fiction and art for whatever reason. I would think this should be obvious but there is a clear difference between writing a character acting in the same way as any of the videos in this post so far vs acting like that in real life. It's not all for comedy either. Sometimes someone acting bigoted is important for drama or story, especially if a piece of fiction is set in a different time. Mafia 2 had people calling it racist when it came out, but you were playing as a black person in the 60s.... It would be insulting inaccurate if there wasn't any racism involved in the narrative. Satire complicates things further.
GTA V is one of the areas where it is complicated by satire. Engadget included an article talking about transphobia in GTA V. It was a misleading article though. The article described a streamer playing the game and worded it in a way that made it sound like killing one of the transwomen in the game is programmed into the game but that wasn't true. There are jokes about transwomen in the game which are on the offensive end, but so is most of the humour in GTA. However, the conversation that includes said jokes can occur without killing her. Killing her was the streamers choice. That choice was available not because they were trans, but because you can kill just about everyone in GTA. This made a small issue quite an over the top sensationalist article.
The jokes in GTA still are offensive jokes but that's part of GTA in general. Much like South Park or Cards Against Humanity or well, just about anything that involves offensive humour, you can't decide it is bad because one joke offends you but be happy for the rest of the jokes to be in the game without being a complete hypocrite. Making the sort of comment that was in GTA to a real trans person would be wrong and rude and bigoted but fiction isn't real life and it should be okay for a series with offensive humour in it to make this sort of joke. An argument against this is argument is that it is punching down....
PUNCHING DOWN, UP AND SIDEWAYS
As a writer I don't do offensive comedy that much, but if I do decide to take the piss out of people, I tend to punch in any direction I want and take the piss out of whatever I want, and I believe that is the right thing to do.
I am in some groups that easily could be "punched up" to by which I mean some groups I'm in are more privileged than other groups in that same category, and someone less privileged joking about that group would be punching up (ie a black person taking the piss out of me would be punching up given I am white). That is acceptable to do. For me to take this piss out of my own race would be punching sideways, which is also acceptable to do.
I am in some groups that joking about would be punching down depending on the person making the joke, by which I mean someone in a more privileged group than me for this aspect of myself making a joke about the underprivileged group I am part of would be punching down (ie a neurotypical person making jokes about neurodiverse people), which in my opinion is also acceptable to do.
The two groups I have listed are not my only groups of course but these are the two I decided to mention for giving examples.
Joking about some of the groups I'm in would be punching down for most people (for some it might be punching sideways). Some people would say punching down is wrong but I still don't want those groups excluded from humour and piss taking between groups. If someone is just making jokes that aren't jokes and are just being mean and then going "it was a joke", that's not cool regardless of what direction you are punching in, but I don't want the groups I'm in to be excluded from actual jokes.
That said, balance is needed because if a group is only used for jokes and not portrayed in media etc other than that, that can be harmful. The solution to that problem, and other problems related to representation, is not easy though if you also want creative freedom and personal freedom. Forcing artists and individuals to either censor themselves or to creatively do things they don't want to do (ie forcing a writer to include x type of character in their work etc) is not a valid and acceptable solution for me given my views on art and how much other people should have a say in someone's art and given my views on censorship.
I believe people should be able to make jokes about all groups.
An overlapping concept with this is that no group should be acceptable to outright hate on either. It doesn't matter if a group is a minority or a majority. It is not morally acceptable to hate on people. I'm not talking about offensive jokes here or anything, but outright hate. I see an attitude of "it's okay to hate _____ people" generally referring to majority groups. I'm sorry, but that is not okay, and despite it being explained to me by people who disagree, I do not agree with that ideology.
So basically it should be acceptable for jokes (if they are actual jokes and not just an excuse to say mean things) to be directed at any group but hate should be directed at no group.
FAIR APPLICATION TO DIFFERENT PLATFORMS
The final issue is that if a platform does have censorship, it should be applied fairly.
I will discuss Twitter and Reddit here.
Twitter suspended Feline Frequency and for that time, the Glinner account (the guy behind The IT Crowd and Father Ted) was still going and spewing so much hate. That account did get removed and I didn't know how to feel about it at first.
I worked out how I felt though, which was that it should have been removed sooner, given other accounts I have seen get removed or suspended that were much more harmless than his account which was spewing hate.
I don't like censorship in general apart from censoring dangerous things saying stuff like "put bleach up your kid's bum" BUT if a platform is going to censor anyway, it should be fair and in that case it was fair that Glinner got banned given other accounts (including but not just Feline Frequency) I have seen banned or suspended for much less.
Ideally all those accounts would still be up and I don't agree with the people who try to cancel people or get accounts removed from twitter, but if twitter is going to censor, it needs to do it properly and that account honestly should have been banned earlier than it was.
EDIT: Sorry guys, I saw a metaphorical squirrel and forgot to talk about Reddit (mind you if I saw a real squirrel in real life I definitely would be distracted by it, not because I have ADHD but because we don't have squirrels in Australia).
Reddit recently introduced new anti-hate related censorship which resulted in some hate related subreddits being deleted. I prefer less censorship, but if a website is going to censor, hate is probably a good thing to censor, so all good so far. However, they set the rules so that the anti-hate rules do not apply to hate aimed at the majority. I do not agree with this. It should be applied equally, not be okay to hate groups that are majorities.
CONCLUSION
Thank you for reading my thoughts on censorship, cancel culture, words and meaning.
In conclusion I:
- Believe in blocking harmful misinformation
- Prefer no to light censorship to a more censored platform
- Consider meaning more important than words
- Don't agree with cancelling people
- Believe fiction should have a lot of freedom
- Believe all groups should be able to be joked about
- Believe if a platform does censor, they should do it fairly
- Don't change my basic moral views on this based on if I have a personal link to the topic or not ie I'm not a hypocrite
Thank you for reading my post. I hope this brain dump made sense and I hope you enjoyed it.
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