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Re:Aether – Free, privacy-sensitive public communities by dcow on Saturday November 03, 2018 @12:12PM (#18370908)
Yes. To add, with the introduction of a global real-time communication network (the internet), we've also realized you must include mechanisms that make it easy for each individual to filter content so that they have the ability to remove themselves from situations that they consider oppressive, unethical, and/or immoral.

> I feel like the cost of having open communication platforms is the existence of toxic communities.

This topic has been discussed through history by many political philosophers. In the US, it's one of our founding principles. A strict non-unanimous majority rule is by definition oppressive. So how does one craft a society that keeps the majority of people happy while keeping in check the oppression a majority exerts upon dissenting "factions"? You preserve certain fundamental civil liberties and human rights for all your citizens. You do this so that a mere majority cannot infringe upon the liberties of minority groups. On top of that, the civil liberties you choose to universally defend are selected such that they give social agency to members regardless of faction allegiance. A faction may begin to feel oppressed by introduction of an ignorant law or by global change in social outlook (including reinterpretation of existing laws). The response is for the faction to exercise their social agency in order to effect political change that they otherwise don't have the numbers to outright decree.

If you allow people to communicate, some are going to say something "toxic". We pay this price so that as a society we retain a means for oppression to be discovered. Indeed two "toxic" homosexuals one day may be the voice for marriage equality the next.

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