America III: Going Deutsche

[Lebowski]

It's another non-example of censorship - Twitch hasn't stopped people doing blind playthroughs and people are free to go elsewhere and headline their video or stream as a blindplaythrough.

This isn't what censorship is.

They have removed the USE of the "TERM" Blind playthrough on their platform if its not censorship what is it.

[MartyG]

Twitch exercising their legal right under the terms of contract you signed up and agreed to - you are not being censored given you are quite able to freely use that term somewhere else, your freedom of speech isn't being removed. You could call it corporate censorship (but even this is a bit of a stretch), but it's not censorship in its true form.

If you go round to someone's house and they ask you not to swear in front of their kids, are they censoring you?

[Lebowski]

Would you not class what the bbfc dose as censorship then?

[Dogg Thang]

That's a government body. You can see the difference.

Do they censor any more? I know over here we had the knives out for generations and had loads of censorship but then they eventually changed to film classification, which again is not the same as censorship. Not the point - it's very different when it's a government body.

[MartyG]

Would you not class what the bbfc dose as censorship then?

No I wouldn't - what the BBFC does is classify films/programmes relative to the content for that rating - it advises what cuts the producers of the content need to make in order to get the classification they desire for their product.

If they want a U rated film and they depict rape, it's not censorship if the BBFC advises they need to cut the rape content in order to be granted a U certification, they could say, okay, we'll leave it in and take the 18 rating instead.

The vast majority of cuts in films these days are self-censorship in order to get the covetted PG rating to maximise audience. There are "banned" films in the UK, but not really, a better term would be unclassified.

There really isn't a great deal of censorship in cinema by the state any more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_c...United_Kingdom

[saif]

The blind playthrough is a very good example.

(BTW, the **** is the C word - didn't realise that it was blocked)

There is nothing to be gained from using "blind" rather than "first" here. So people are asked not to use that as unless you want to use a term that is offensive, don't use it. Now people know it is offensive, they still want to use it.

I could come into a room for the first time and say "Hi *****". Or, I could go in and say "Hi guys". Or just "Hi".
I don't say ***** because people I don't know might not like it (and even if I know that some people I know have told me that they are not bothered by it) and it is not a change that has any effect on me to change it to "guys".

So, when someone says *****, you know they mean to offend because they know it is offensive/misogynist. Even, and this is going to be hard to get for some people, even for people that don't own *****. That's an empathetic reaction.

If you are adamant that blind is important when you can use another word for the same meaning for what you wanted - then the meaning wanted is *not* the same. Some want the offence.

[Lebowski]

No I wouldn't - what the BBFC does is classify films/programmes relative to the content for that rating - it advises what cuts the producers of the content need to make in order to get the classification they desire for their product.

If they want a U rated film and they depict rape, it's not censorship if the BBFC advises they need to cut the rape content in order to be granted a U certification, they could say, okay, we'll leave it in and take the 18 rating instead.

So cutting a film to get it to meet a country's morality standards isn't censorship and restricting the use of certain terms on a industry leading platform isn't censorship either what are those things then because they sound like the dictionary definition to me.

Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information, on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient."

Blind play through falls under the objectionable definition

[Neon Ignition]

It's a light form of censorship in the same way that outside the confines of our own homes there's almost no setting where you can say what you want. In effect Freedom of Speech is a lie, speech is censored in almost all settings almost all of the time.

[Dogg Thang]

Yep. We, as in considerate people, choose our words all the time and there many things we wouldn't say, even if we thought them. And this is why this only ever seems to come up when someone actively wants to be an ass. It's only people at their lowest who seem to complain about this. Nice things don't get censored. Kindness doesn't get censored. But people get their panties in a bunch because they can't say an offensive word they like.

And the problem here when it comes to equating it with censorship is that actual censorship is a very real thing. And has played out many times in history and it's not good. It's a major problem. Often, as it happens, coming from right wing regimes. Equating the two is a problem not just because it's wrong but because it often has people miss when it's in danger of actually happening.

[Asura]

There is nothing to be gained from using "blind" rather than "first" here.

Just to be clear, that's actually not the case. At least, not as I understood it. A "first" playthrough can be the first time someone plays something. A "blind" playthrough typically meant that not only was this their first run, but also that they know almost nothing about the game; so they haven't watched any videos breaking down how it works, haven't watched any other streams...

That makes me wonder if they could've picked a better word than "first". But that's not really the topic at hand.

EDIT: The expression I've been working to stop saying this year is "to call a spade a spade", as I hadn't realised, but that has racist connotations. A black coworker brought it up to me; fortunately he was considerate to realise that I (like I imagine others) had no idea about this; I literally thought it was about spades, y'know, shovels.

[Dogg Thang]

Yeah, that one got me too. And I wasn't even convinced that it really had any racist history when I looked into it.

And yet it's nothing to me to stop using it. There are so many ways to say things. Why would it be a big deal for me to change how I express that unless I was actively looking to annoy people?

[Neon Ignition]

You just sent me on a deep dive and if the Wiki etc sources are to be believed then you needn't feel too bad, the term 'call a spade a spade' apparently actually is about spades and has nothing to do with racial terms.

I imagine a modern issue with terminology and offense is that the internet clashes discourses as well from all over the world. Unlike in the past everyone is now highly more likely to be in discussion with people for who terms hold a different meaning and value so platform sites also have to navigate an area where they want to manage the risk of offense but where sometimes any move is seen by some of their audience as a bad one, presumably this fuels some of the slow to move action too.

[Dogg Thang]

You just sent me on a deep dive and if the Wiki etc sources are to be believed then you needn't feel too bad, the term 'call a spade a spade' apparently actually is about spades and has nothing to do with racial terms.

Yep, that's what I found too. But as a white person, I'm not going to send a black person to wikipedia and tell them they're overreacting when it is far, far easier for me to just use other words. We have loads of words. And they change meaning, even if maybe some terms didn't actually start off with racist or otherwise offensive roots. They can gain power where once they had none. Or more often, they always had it and we didn't acknowledge it. If someone has an issue with the idea of words changing, then I want to at least see them be a real purist and talk like a Shakespeare character.

[QualityChimp]

So, you're unsure and have looked it up on Wikipedia:
"The phrase predates the use of the word "spade" as an ethnic slur against African Americans, which was not recorded until 1928; however, in contemporary U.S. society, the idiom is often avoided due to potential confusion with the slur."

You know that you didn't mean to racist and the term isn't actually based in racism but some people do use it like that and some groups find it offensive.

So armed with that information, you then have to make that decision about if you're going to carry on using it or if you're going to stop.

We all go through these steps of self-censorship, mentally checking if what we're saying is suitable to the current audience and if it's not, should you be saying these things at all?

The extension of that is that if Tweetbook is blocking what you're saying, is your freedom of expression being quashed or should you reconsider what you're saying and assess why it's not acceptable?

[Lebowski]

Yep. We, as in considerate people, choose our words all the time and there many things we wouldn't say, even if we thought them. And this is why this only ever seems to come up when someone actively wants to be an ass. It's only people at their lowest who seem to complain about this. Nice things don't get censored. Kindness doesn't get censored. But people get their panties in a bunch because they can't say an offensive word they like.

And the problem here when it comes to equating it with censorship is that actual censorship is a very real thing. And has played out many times in history and it's not good. It's a major problem. Often, as it happens, coming from right wing regimes. Equating the two is a problem not just because it's wrong but because it often has people miss when it's in danger of actually happening.

You could also argue that by being overly sensitive towards phases and terms that where not originally meant with malice and discrimination and lumping them in with more offensive terms and phrases your belittling the real issues around race and discrimination. I've said this time and time again life is not just one way or the other not everything is an absolute, to argue that your either one extreme or the other with no grey areas or middlegound is a move towards extremism.