RE: How Facebook censors your posts - CBS News

We've seen positive and negative outcomes of greater connectivity by way of land travel, shipping, flight and eventually internet. Advent of social media has helped a great number of us connect to others with whom we otherwise wouldn't have been able, and to do so on a regular basis.

For some reason, we've used our newest medium of communication as a sort of frontier to test the limitations of our thoughts. As children, we learned basic humane behavior in the presence of others, and yet we ultimately allowed ourselves to set some of that aside . . . thinking we had a new, unregulated, venue. This seems to prove that without regulatory presence we tend to be quite brutal . . . often as a first resort. While this isn't exactly news, it is alarming. So many of us had been under an impression that we'd overcome most of the horrible tendencies of behavior among humans. Alas, it's just not so.

Since the internet was broadened to include the public, we've used the new capacity to explore, and we've learned to identify that there are certain limitations to free speech and that effective speech requires finesse in any situation, but especially where you want a positive outcome.

Free Speech - What Gives

There are times to speak and times to be quiet. We have speech and we have harassment. We're a brutal, sneaky people and often need behavioral checks. Is Facebook the company to do it?

Some are calling for better Facebook policy regarding practices of censorship. But, come on now . . . is that really what's needed? After all, how could a single company do a better job of detailing what "freedom of speech" means than our all-encompassing national constitution? Well-trained legal representatives are challenged to define free speech in a way that makes everyone happy. How is Facebook-- a social media company-- to succeed in defining it?

It's not; at least, not directly. As usual, it's going to be left to the people to sort out, because it's too complicated for policy to direct. The already-existing policy is our guide, along with the rest of our experiences. The real question may be as simple as, "why can't people just be nice all the time".

We see the struggle most every day, and some of us take hearty part in it. Using "counter speech", we work to regulate conversations. To what end do we do so? Well, it is up to each person participating. This is part of how our freedom of speech is working for us, by maintaining an open venue as much as possible.

How to do Free Speech 

Possibly the greatest service we can do for society today is to acknowledge that free speech exists, and that it doesn't mean we can always say what we want to say . . . not without possibility of some blowback under certain circumstances. It'll help too, to realize that just because a few people might be in full expectation and anticipation of a blowback, doesn't mean that such an action should take place.

If speech is intended to tear something down that is perceived as good by anyone, then expect that there may be some limitation to that speech. In fact, we could consider the limitations to be a light form of blowback-- a term which is being used in the lightest context already in this context.

Essentially, we could make things easier on ourselves if we accept that it is almost always necessary to speak effectively, rather than freely. Such an approach allows us to rely less on supposed principles that are in fact difficult to uphold.

REF:

How Facebook censors your posts - CBS News

Facebook Community Standards Policy

RELATED POSTS:

Free Speech and Actionable Offense

Today's Word in Writing: Trump: Statement That Obama Founded ISIS Was 'Sarcasm' - Trending 8/12/2016 | Merriam-Webster

Here's a great suggestion for a regular word of the day that puts things into context for the benefit of recall:

Today's Word in Writing: Trump: Statement That Obama Founded ISIS Was 'Sarcasm' - Trending 8/12/2016 | Merriam-Webster

Watch: How Stranger Things Got its Intro

Have you had a chance to catch the latest binge-watch entertainment on Netflix? Stranger Things is one of the latest series additions to the Netflix library, and we're recommending our readers to give it a try. If you're not already watching this entertaining throwback, then tonight is prime time to tune in for the first time. It's Friday, and you've got all night to satisfy the hook that gets you.

It's fathomable that some of you, if you begin watching it without realizing the setting, might become somewhat discombobulated by wardrobe and other kitschy elements of production design. Understand that Stranger Things is a serious, modernized tribute to the lifestyle and stories many of us enjoyed in the 80s. Readers who had chance to discover such greats in mainstream fiction as Dean Koontz, Stephen King or Peter Straub (to name a few) will recognize the energy and atmosphere of Stranger Things.

By watching the following Vox YouTube video, you can get a feel of the vibe of this show:


The intro showcased here is almost as gratifying as every chapter of the series, each of which will leave you wanting the next. So, gen-X, make plans to get your popcorn ready and settle in for some serious horror-genre nostalgia. As for the rest of you, be warned . . . it'll get you too.

*Maturity ratings TV-14+

Free Speech and Actionable Offense

Commonly heard references to a U.S. citizen's First Amendment rights aren't so widely understood as is often purported, especially in social media. Truth is, there is no full right to free speech, although it seems there might as well be.

Obscenity seems to be the primary question of free speech, rather than offense. Yet, one person's obscenity runs the risk of another person's taken offense. When does it matter?

That depends how a person is willing to look at a situation. A beginning point might be to consider whether something is obscene or offensive. Either way, it probably won't matter in any internet age . . . but that doesn't mean one should squash taken offense, necessarily. When offense it taken, consider it heartily.

It can be said that when an obscenity crosses personal lines, it can become terribly offensive. The Miller Test attempts to address such instances, without a lot of success. This is due to the usual trouble of restrictive and often dangerous community standards that would tend to hamper free will and free exercise. As it probably should be, it is of utmost difficulty to have something declared an actionable obscenity.

Mere obscenity is less threatening than directly offensive obscenity

Something that is obscene can exist without any personalized direction of offense to anyone. People and communities have worked to squash perceived obscenities, often to no avail because different people are affected in various ways by unrelated and unequal obscenities. This is why it can be difficult to prove any general offense to a degree of punishment, retribution or trial.

While an obscenity may be "shocking to a person's sense of what is moral or decent", but largely allowable in a free society, an offense can be a more serious matter; yet, equally difficult to answer effectively.


Today, there is the added difficulty of the Internet Age with which to contend. Where before a community might succeed in establishing its dominance over speech and behavior, today it's wholly unrealistic to expect that a community so large as the Internet should be able to level standards of conduct equally onto every worldly community in its realm. So, the Miller Test really doesn't stand much chance of working in a reliable way . . . demanding though it may be with its three-part requirement.

When obscenity is more then generally offensive

Still, obscenity can be a descriptive term as well, for obscene statements or actions that have intended targets (usually ideas, lifestyles and people). Such cases can sometimes be reasonably perceived as too much, especially when they incite negative, damaging behavior. Should it then be so difficult to identify offensive obscenities and have some legal recourse?

This is a question often [lightly] considered in social media. What do you think?

 

Does Horror Entertainment Have Value?

Kevin Bacon in Friday the 13th

Horror is a complex literature genre. I once believed horror to be the lowest of things that should interest a person, often resisting the most popular horror flicks of the 70s and 80s as I slumbered with friends during our weekend overnights. But does horror entertainment offer any redeeming value?

Friday the 13th is a terrific example of such an horrific production as was usually declined by me. While friends picked the quickly popular and serialized Friday the 13th releases, along with titles like Halloween or Silent Night, Deadly Night (give me a break!) I'd be the one that picked up a comedy . . . something like Airplane! or Private Benjamin -- a way to break up the monotony of fearsome scenes sure to curdle our senses.

You might be thinking that Friday the 13th isn't a great example of lit horror, because it was a movie. Well, people loved that slasher movie so much that a huge franchise was developed which included novels. The first Friday the 13th novel hit shelves only two years after the original movie of 1980. The second movie was released less than a year after the first and the third movie was also quickly released-- in 1982-- after which, the first novel adaptation (of part III) appeared.

Eventually, I learned that fear and fright are parts of life that present in a variety of ways, sometimes via cloaking and surprise while other times apparent as the fallen night against it's prior day. I understood that, while a particular type of horror did not appeal to me, there were other stories of atrocious nature that did. Enter Stephen King (SK) into my life, by way of written word and the junior high school library. But first . . .

Jack Nicholson in The Shining

I was a "young adult" upon my first reading of a King novel, The Shining. My mom had allowed me to bring it home from the fiction section of the city library. Myself in the budding portion of young 'adulthood', about age 10, this particular title was a bit much . . . but an honest try was given to the big read.

It's difficult to remember what I would have reverted back to at that time (too old for Nancy Drew, too young for Jack Torrance), but believe that it wasn't long before I recognized the author's name on a library shelf at school and picked up the much smaller Cycle of the Werewolf (a novella). Funny, because I'm also not much of a werewolf enthusiast . . . but it was a gripping, digestible story with which I could identify in more ways than one. Suddenly, I was hooked on horror fiction.

What made me pick up The Cycle of the Werewolf? The back-cover synopsis, of course. Check it out (click on it to find your own copy):

So, it was through SK that I learned the horror genre contained works that didn't need to objectify young women by stripping them to murder them, and also managed to touch on common, heavy emotions and themes of everyday living while exploring ancient themes simultaneously. Over time, horror themes proved to continue showcasing the aforementioned scenarios . . . and more.

Life can be horrific. Art reflects that fact as well as it does the beauty of existence. As such, horror can have positive value, and often does. It's comparable to any fiction or drama that entails a happy ending. Horror's not necessarily much more than conflict, with either a good or bad turnout.

Why is horror-genre entertainment so controversial?

We hold "redeeming value" so dear. Is it possible that sometimes we simply lack sight of it by way of our own short vision? Maybe, when we fail to see any redeeming value of an entire genre, it has less to do with genre and more to do with style. It seems to me that, when a story is riddled with elements of instant gratification, any redeeming values run the risk of being hidden in shadows of whatever is excessive, be it sex, nudity, violence or opprobrious language.

You'll hardly catch SK using excessive gratification to sell his essentially mainstream novels. Yet, a certain number of people might accuse his work of having no redeeming value. (Yes, they're few and far between these days, but they exist.) I'm positing it's because they only know the work as 'horror' genre and associate it with a particular style, which it's not. It's value is assumed by association.

Horror's "Redeeming Value" Background

I've used this particular and popular author as an example because he's been my experience in touting the allure of horror for as long as I can remember. Heavy reference to young adult reading in this post is due to the "redeeming value" link in paragraph nine, above, which called to  mind my own work that on occasion has been focused in the YA sub-genres of literature-- specifically in the genre of horror-- and because most of us get our first introductions to horror genres as adolescents.

Perhaps we'll look further into redeeming-value horror stories as time passes. Can you think of a horror story that left you with a positive feeling or lesson?