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News Aggregator Fark Adds Misogyny Ban
An anonymous reader writes The news aggregator Fark is ancient in dot com terms. Users submit news links to the privately run site and tear it — and each other — to pieces in the discussion threads. (Sound familiar?) While the site isn't as popular as during the early 2000s, the privately run discussion forum has continued and has its champions. site operator Drew Curtis announced today that Gifs, references, jokes and comments involving sexism will be deleted. "Adam Savage once described to me the problem this way: if the Internet was a dude, we'd all agree that dude has a serious problem with women. We've actually been tightening up moderation style along these lines for awhile now, but as of today, the FArQ will be updated with new rules reminding you all that we don't want to be the He Man Woman Hater's Club. This represents enough of a departure from pretty much how every other large internet community operates that I figure an announcement is necessary."
Given how bare-knuckled Fark can be, is it time? Overdue?
Given how bare-knuckled Fark can be, is it time? Overdue?
Well, you can put lipstick on a pig, not sure it makes it a princess, though.
Guess I have to go to 4chan now to read gay hating misanthropic posts.
Silence is a state of mime.
I don't get why people want to lock themselve in an echo chamber. That seems silly to me.
This is long overdue.Thank god for the censorship which will shape our future.
I'm just wondering if it will be moderated on 'totalfark'. Totalfark is the paid side of Fark. I could see this as just revenue generation.
It could be worse, it could be Monday.
Basically, like just about every other "ism" out there, we'll see mission creep. Or people abusing a badly defined policy to censor legitimate and non-infringing dialogs.
I'm not saying the sentiment isn't noble. But they just don't have an apparatus in place to make sure it gets applied in a fair, even-handed manner.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
When I was on Fark, you could make all sorts of rape, incest, murder and violence jokes, but I just mocked the delusions of 3D printer nutters and it got me banned.
Drew is a bit of a douche.
Fark isn't, and hasn't been, relevant in nearly a decade. This is just Drew, the whiny owner of Fark, bending over backwards to please advertisers. This is a PR move, based on money, nothing more.
A lot of things run counter to typical internet culture on Fark. You can't even curse on that site. It has moved away from porn. People actually pay for membership. They do IRL meetups almost every week somewhere in the world. They've been pretty successful at banning memes in the past.
I find it more witty than harsh.
Textbooks and Open Educational Resources
They're not women who were there and now feel like they need to change their own environment.
How are you so sure about that? Have you done any analysis to determine the extent to which the sexist comments have intimidated women and discouraged them from making their gender known?
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Basically Fark has one particular mod, of a gender I don't need to mention, who gets upset every time she greenlights another trashy Jezebel link and the Fark regulars (rightly) rip it to shreds. Admittedly, some posters cross the lines of good taste in doing so, but most just point out that Jezebel itself does more to advance misogyny than any forum trolls could ever do.
The official announcement thread for the new policy pretty much says it all. Fark regulars openly mocked this new policy, much like anti-beta posts here... All while shown prominent links to Foobies (along with plenty of other not exactly "wymyn friendly" advertisements) in the sidebar. This policy will last a whole week, unless Drew goes nuclear and literally bans half the userbase. But hey, we need another MetaFilter since Google has starved off the original, right?
For those seriously debating the "need" for websites to take actions like this, look at Slashdot as a role-model. Put bluntly, sites that feel the need to censor their comments simply have inadequate moderation systems. As much as Slashdot's doesn't always work to bring the best to the top, it does do an amazing job of pushing the complete garbage to the bottom. Browse at -1, and Slashdot looks much like Gorgor-era Fark; browse at 2+, and threads look like a coherent discussion of the issues broached in TFA.
Go check out the main page thread where this was discussed. Basically, it was all the women saying thank you, some of the men saying that's great, and just the mention of "well, what about misandry" getting said poster curb stomped. It's still perfectly fine to call a man a "fedora wearing neckbeard" or a "men's rights actvist (MRA)" as derogatory terms, but if you make even the slightest negative remark about anything "feminism" and you'll get you comment either deleted, get a "time out", or even so far as get banned.
One of the moderators is a very outspoken feminist. And while she is actually a very bright young woman, she has no clue just how much damage she actually does to her own cause with some of the crap she spews there (think Jezebel level man hating). I'm betting she had a strong hand in these changes.
(posted as AC because my screen names here and there are almost identical, and the way the "popular kids" are acting now, if someone knew I posted this it might bring the banhammer down on my head)
No, for the same reason why a news article that talks about a white supremacist assaulting a African-American isn't automatically racist. Or one about Westboro Baptist Church picketing a funeral of someone who was gay doesn't make it automatically homophobic. The context of the whole article is what makes it misogynistic (or racist, or homophobic, or ...)
Now if that Reuters article had that same line, but then followed it with that the woman shouldn't have been out of the kitchen. Or she just needed to fix a sandwich. Or any other misogynistic ideas according to modern society then yes, it would be banned.
Seconded. Slashdot is a haven for rational thought, which naturally and innately fights all ignorance including sexism. The thing is, rationalism fights antiwomen and antiman sexism alike and doesn't give either undue focus. That's not good enough for people of certain political bent.
Please leave the politics elsewhere.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
Why is it that sexism is only banned in one direction? Women are allowed to shit all over men, and men are just supposed to "man up and take it." Equality my ass...
I don't get why people want to lock themselve in an echo chamber. That seems silly to me.
--- and a bizarre question to be asking here.
You can see the posters here circling the wagons when topics like gender equality come up on Slashdot.
Slashdot is a haven for rational thought
Stop it, please. You're killing me.
While surely this could have been worded differently for clarity and to lighten the offense, I don't believe its flamebait (just a bit misguided).
I disagree with the post in that it's not just liberals that want to control people's mind, it's an establishment problem that relates to people in office/power and not just liberals. Half of waking up is to notice the corruption, the other half is to start broadening your view to ensure you are getting the full picture.
When the News is manipulated to give you a specific opinion, that is mind control. For example, everyone in the US is under the belief that Iran is evil, hell bent on destroying Israel, and bent on world domination. They have a larger military than most countries in the region, yet have not invaded anyone in over 200 years. Assad from Syria is painted as a horrible dictator today, yet prior to the revolt in Libya, US media repeatedly claimed that Syria was the most progressive country in the Middle East. You won't hear about the Saudi Arabian police killing people for speaking out against the government, or putting a women in jail for driving in US media. Ignore the slave labor problems in Dubai and UAE. Those guys are our friends, so we have TV specials showing you how great they are and fire journalists that cover a story that is not favorable.
You will also hear intentionally manipulated "news" to ensure that you have a biased opinion and reaction. Zimmerman/Martin is an easy example, and on the surface the Ferguson MO is another. OWS was just a bunch of bums, they were not demanding accountability for criminal acts by executives. And when protesters are too big of a nuisance, send in agent provocateurs. I'm sure you remember that during the Oakland OWS protests which turned violent the majority of protestors arrested for violent confrontation were not from California. (Interesting that similar reports are coming from Ferguson IMHO.)
People may want to (falsely) believe that the only kind of mind control is like the Manchurian candidate, because someone shaped their reality to have that belief. Just like most people associate the word "conspiracy" with insanity and impossible. Not rational when you look at it, we all know conspiracies happen. I'm sure you remember the TV show "Survivor" which was full of people conspiring to win. Yet if I told you that a winner was in a conspiracy you may have difficulty agreeing. People will argue that they plotted or planned and manipulated, very rarely will they agree with the term conspiracy.
Shaping thought is not new, not novel, and not unique. We like to think it only happens to those other guys, but it has been happening here for generations. Further, US Media has been working at demoralizing the USA for a long time (has nothing to do with homophobia or sexism, ask for clarity if you are lost). You don't have to like it, and you can surely ignore that portion of reality, but you can't deny the facts. There is plenty of material to study if you so desire.
Last point so that I'm not writing a novel, is that there is more than one reason for the people in power to do this. If the people in power can keep us arguing with each other about our differences they get to stay in power and gain more power. The Hegelian dialectic is exactly this. Own both sides of the argument so that people line up in the center. Provide a problem so that you can implement a solution you want towards a resolution that you want. Hegel was not the first person to understand this social control method, he was just the first person we know of that wrote down the process.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Which is not surprising, considering sites like Jezebel routinely use disparaging remarks against men in the headlines and content of their articles, like calling someone who wants equality for men a "jackass" and a "shitnugget." http://jezebel.com/jackass-sui...
I'm not saying that they are in any way responsible for people posting porn GIFs, or posting misogynistic comments. Two wrongs don't make a right. I *am* saying that Jezebel needs to take a very close look in the mirror and lead by example. No civil rights effort has ever succeeded by villainizing the other side, and equality should mean equality, not superiority or an attempt to collectively punish a group of people based on a few bad actors.
I'll admit that men have many advantages over women in America. We are not a minority -- we are, in fact, a majority, and thus can exert more political influence. Under 30, we are better educated, earn more, have more health benefits, options, and social programs. We live longer. We're excluded from compulsory military service. We are more likely to pass along our genes. We get courted by women who try to impress us, please us, and pamper us. If we're not impressed, we can obtain the genetic material of a more suitable mate for a nominal fee without having to deal with that whole "relationship" thing. We prevail in custody cases under a presumption that we're better parents. We are but 30% of the homeless population. We are sentenced more leniently for the same crimes, and more likely to receive warnings for speeding. When we make bad decisions, it's an accident -- everyone knows we have good intentions. We are almost never charged with sexual assault, let alone convicted, and we receive more support when we're the victims. We can use our sexuality to our advantage. Women are often our fiercest advocates, and protect us unfailingly against external threats. Women provide for us.
Imagine the outcry if any of that were true.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
My partner and I have been together for almost 13 years. We have one of those very good relationships where we talk about problems instead of getting to the point of yelling, etc. She has a very audacious sense of humor and feels comfortable joking about spousal abuse (amongst other things) because she knows that spousal abuse is such a foreign concept in our relationship. ("I know I said I would cook tonight, but I'm ordering pizza. Please don't beat me...") I say the same back.
If someone didn't understand the context and overheard us joking in this way, they might think there was an actual issue with violence in our household. And I think this is the impetus with the new censorship rule on Fark. If you're not a frequenter of Fark discussions and stumble across one of many memes without the historical context, you'll think everyone there is a rape-shrugging, gay-bashing, general hater. And you would be wrong.
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Let's talk about a couple of the memes:
40 lbs. Box of Rape (http://i.ytimg.com/vi/2Z7SafOiCXM/hqdefault.jpg) - If you simply read someone threaten to "send a 40 lbs. box of rape" to another person, you'd think that was a horrible concept. Boxed rape!? The idea alone is atrocious. That is until you figure out that someone took a photo of a box of rapeseed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapeseed), considered the homonym audaciously humorous, and put it online. The internet went wild with the hilariously outlandish concept of "boxed rape" (the action, not the seed) and it has since been part of tongue-in-cheek, context-driven discussion.
Blazing Saddles references - The Mel Brooks movie 'Blazing Saddles' is synonymous with audacious humor and if any one work of artistic endeavor was to embody the spirit of Fark, it would be this movie. It addresses rape, penis size, stereotypes (beneficial and detrimental), racism, homophobia-- nothing is so sacred that it cannot be laughed at. But consider the actual context-- Mel Brooks projects absurdity upon each of these ideas by making their offenders look absolutely ridiculous. And for the most part, Fark feels and acts within the same vein.
Glenn Beck's mythical crime in 1990 - Fark is one of the grand purveyors of the myth that Glenn Beck raped and murdered a girl in 1990. They publicized the hoax not as a means of directly implicating Glenn Beck in a crime that never happened, but to demonstrate the effectiveness of the political messaging system that was/is constantly making extreme accusations in the form of inquiry. So Fark (amongst others) shot back. "Why hasn't Glenn Beck denied...?"
'Legitimate' Rape - A couple years back, a conservative politician stated that abortions do not need to be available to women because in the case of 'legitimate rape', the female body has a means of preventing any impregnation at all. This, of course, is absolutely absurd... which is why Fark latched onto it. It's demonstrative of really, really stupid politician commenting on thing about which he knows little and Fark thrives on such snafus. So when a story comes up regarding rape, you're likely to see the idea of "legitimate rape" be brought up-- not because they're suggesting a distinction, but because they're restating the absurdity of this concept.
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If you are under the impression that Fark users tell jokes that promote rape, sexism, racism, or discrimination on the grounds of race, sex, religion, or sexual orientation, then you don't know Fark. Farkers celebrate every gain in the realm of gay rights and attack heinous acts with derision.
If you don't understand that Fark's use of rape, sexism, and homosexuality in their humor comes from a Mel Brooks-style commentary on the absurdity various ideals and actions, then you don't understand Fark. It's disappointing that this kind of humor will no longer be tolerated as it pertains to these specific topics because it's a cathartic outlet for audacious humor in a good direction.
While I understand what you are saying, I disagree in the intent of the policy. Sexism is offensive, misogyny is hatred. Being offensive isn't prohibited for if it was, the internet would cease to exist. Being outright hateful is though.
If I say "that awful parking job had to be by a woman", I'm sexist. If I say "that bitch deserves to be raped for that parking job", I'm misogynistic. It's the later trolling they don't want.