Targeted harassment sure, that's not something to just blindly protect but as a homosexual, i see more harm in trying to police jimmy calling his friends faggots playing CoD than I see in allowing people to speak their minds.
Until someone can posit a great explanation for why its funny for me to call my friends faggots when they have kids and I don't and why that is in the end bad for society as a whole, I don't buy the argument we need to be policing speech along these lines.
Just because something doesn't offend you specifically (even if you are part of the group something offensive is being said about) doesn't mean it isn't offending anyone.
It's very common in countries like the US, for you to have a lot of rights, but their coverage always ends where others' rights begin. You cannot infringe on someone else's rights, and free speech does not cover hate speech. Hateful or derogatory speech has a significant negative impact on the mental and emotional well-being of a lot of people, and suggesting that it shouldn't just because it doesn't affect you is not a valid reason to not try to educate Jimmy on how not to be insensitive.
I couldn't care less if someone is offended. This wasn't a serious problem before the internet and with it is even less of an issue because it's just on the computer or your iphone.
Just turn it off, there, problem solved.
> It's very common in countries like the US, for you to have a lot of rights, but their coverage always ends where others' rights begin.
Yes, you don't have a right to not be offended. That is insane.
> and free speech does not cover hate speech
Where in the bill of rights is this covered? Or even the federalist papers?
It does not cover speech that specifically calls for violence.
It is not a human right to alwaysbbe unoffended.
I hate to say it, but the days of absolute freedom of speech may be over. Everything these days is done through a commercial platform, and we’re now saying those platforms have editorial responsibility to monitor that speech (outside of any government mandate so it doesn’t fall afoul of 1st amendment).
I didn't say that, you said that! Why would you think gay people are lessor to straight men?
> Imagine the young little gay kid who hears “f\t” screamed 20 times an hour
I would ask why a little boy identifies as gay in the first place, a bit young to be making such a big life decision.
> how will that make him feel for the rest of his life?
You tell me, I'm asking for some empirical evidence to stop doing something humans have done for centuries.
> Are you just cementing in his head that it’s wrong to be gay?
Why is it wrong to be gay?
Also you take on free speech is just simply wrong, these tech companies can be easily classified as natural monopolies like bell telecom was.
It's the same problem of the scaling increase of value with every customer but on a whole other level, this is not just a small collection of totally private companies.
You would have to be living under a rock to think google is just a little private company with no strong relationships with the US government.
It’s not about the little boy who identifies as gay in the moment; it’s about the little boy who realizes he is gay later on, and who has already internalized the message “it is wrong to be gay and people will make fun of you for it.”
And it’s not just gay people; this can apply to anyone who is considered “lesser”. The slurs are hurtful; and should be avoided out of empathy for your fellow humans rather than because the government said so.
But naturally there are a bunch of unempathetic edgelords who have to defy authority. So we are where we are.
25 years ago you would find the KKK show on NYC public access cable. A round table of guys in hoods, with an AK-47 table piece, talking about African Jews. That was there due to governments freedom of speech protections. Government is now turning a blind eye while corporate media monopolies get away with censorship.
If I were the FCC, I’d be shutting down YouTube.
If I were the FCC, I'd be shutting down those guys.
I'd be cool with the Black Panthers being the next slot.
If you're not, you don't understand, nor support, freedom of speech, or freedom of expression.
Why? I get why public access would have a mandate to allow people with unpopular (imo hateful) opinions on the air, but not YouTube.
I was under the impression, they're a private network and under no obligation to allow you to post content they don't like. They are free to change their ToS at anytime and ban who they choose, right?
Probably the reason why Google split into so many companies, so they can insulate themselves when pulling shit like this. A network provider separate from a content provider, when in reality it’s the same.
If I go to a comedy show, I accept that I might get offended; that's on me. The power dynamic when I go to work, where I am expected to work with my team in order to get compensated, is massively different.
Nobody is making claims about "policing" (whatever that means in context). I don't care about words impact on "society as a whole" as some abstract concept. Society as a whole is comprised of people, and starts with the people around you upon whom you have the most direct impact. If you knew you worked with (or played a game of CoD with) a gay person, or a black person, how would you feel about using those words? That's why it's "bad for society as a whole"--because it's bad for the people right next to you.
You can say nasty things to each other without being racist or homophobic, especially at a place of work.
"A place of work", that's another matter; I agree it's unprofessional. I'm talking purely about videogames and those who play them at home.
No, professionalism is something else. Not harassing people is basic human decency.
At a gaming company where people play the game they make at work, what happens to this boundary?
Provoking an opponent into irrational behavior seems like a valid game strategy. In other words the language is not necessarily used for its face content but for its psychological effects.
It feels like you are saying 'well, boys will be boys', and that's honestly just a way to rationalize unacceptable behavior by refusing to taken ownership of it.
To those who disagree, lemme put it this way: it's not only videogame culture, it is plain old trash talk. Boxing, basketball, soccer, UFC, tennis, you name it, you have it in most competitive sports.
It shocks pretty much anyone who hasn't taken part in a competitive sport/e-sport community before, and find it backwards, but from my perspective, they haven't been socialized in that environment. It's not LGBT-phobic, though many insults come off as that because they've traditionally been insults, that's all.
If the FIBA or FIFA start having mixed gender leagues, the same would happen: women offended when they stopped being oblivious about how men behave in these environments. Actually even in soccer, many women are turned off when they find out female players spend a significant part of the time calling each other b/c* (in some amateur UK leagues at least).
This is just happening with videogames because it happens to be one of the few competitive fields where men and women's ability differs the least, having them playing together more often than most of all other disciplines.
There are no "out" male professional footballers. This is statistically implausible; the homophobia is sufficiently bad that they have to remain closeted for their career and maybe safety.
Football fans also occasionally produce "ultras" notorious for physical violence: fights with each other and the police, which can be fatal.
And here in Scotland, we've the joy of sectarianism added to the mix as well, with cheerful songs about Fenian blood.
These things can change. Thirty years ago black players had bananas thrown at them on the pitch. After a lot of work, racism is now rare at football grounds, and generally stamped on when it appears. We could do the same with anti-gay slurs too, if we cared enough.
"Justin didn't have any of that," she continued. "None of the warmth, none of the recognition that what he did took so much courage. Instead, he was picked on because of it, made to feel inferior, different, wrong. He was a lost soul, but even then his precedent secretly gave a lot of people hope. I get messages about what an inspiration he was from all around the world, all the time."
[...]
Soccer players learn to develop the ability to block out the taunts of the fans, even the most sickening and bigoted vitriol. But what stung Fashanu the most were the comments of his brother John, himself a leading pro who would twice play for the England national team. John Fashanu described Justin as an "outcast" after his revelations about his sexuality, bemoaning the fact that he (John) would be the focus of extra attention from jeering fans as a result of Justin coming out.
https://sports.yahoo.com/news/soccer--before-jason-collins--...
They also block trash talk from other players, arguably because it's part of the game. Fans though can be extremely shitty, ignoring them takes much more effort. But I didn't know about the story with his brother. In the end it shows what I'm saying: if you're homosexual and another player calls you a fag, you call him shitgobbler and move on, it's game. If a fan does, it takes a higher toll, after a while it just becomes noise. But when it's your own brother, damn.
That's gaming culture, plain and simple. Is it a new necessity to change gaming culture to pander to people who've never played games? I believe this is being done for the sole reason of extracting more money by tapping into markets that weren't being exploited before.
Case in point, woman-friendly games like Fortnite or Overwatch. This is not a problem by itself, but it's sad that some companies are pushing this narrative to make it look like they care about social issues and gain the favour of those who do, when they just want more money.