So you can say that America is racist, but can't say anything similar about anyone else. Gotcha.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Macrumors and Racism
- Thread starter Hoosier317
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
- Status
So you can say that America is racist, but can't say anything similar about anyone else. Gotcha.
That is not what I said. I said the same for the other examples. Reading comprehension - it is essential!
It might not be what you said, but it's the consequence of it.
No, context matters. Hence why the rules say "in a way that a reasonable person would find offensive." If we're discussing whether a country has institutions and laws that are racist, especially based on a past where racism was the law of the land, a reasonable person would see that's not offensive. If I came on here and said "Americans are all a bunch of racists!" just to cheese people off, a reasonable person could clearly see the difference. Even this discussion - could I say because the words "America is racist" appear in your post, that you should be banned? I'd say that's not reasonable.
If people feel that the moderation is poor in a certain forum, then they can stop visiting that forum and set their account to not show anything from that forum (i.e. it goes away for them)
OK, but some people value this community and the voices of many in it. Perhaps we feel it's worth it to pressure moderators to remove offensive content so we can continue our discussions with the overwhelming majority of reasonable people who don't engage in such speech? That is a choice - try to improve the community, or leave it. I think either choice is respectable. For now, I choose to stay and try to improve.
You realize that this is my point, right? You started discussing "terms", not context. In the initial post you didn't even consider context.
Now let's see if you report that post that on its tile says that ICE is racist (gross generalization) made up of white supremacists.
I do not see your point. I see devil's advocate hypothetical arguments vs the actual problem of prevalent offensive speech in the PRSI forums.
There is a lot of offensive content in PRSI. The key question is who is offended and by whose yardstick should a post/thread be moderated. Maybe we should start by moderating many of the posts with name calling toward the president, the white house and conservatives. Get rid of blantantly biased threads as @yaxomoxay suggested.
I would not be opposed to name-calling of liberals and conservatives as monolithic groups being banned. However, I think world leaders are pretty much fair game, right?
In general yes. However, I always hope for civil debate.
No matter who makes the moderation decision, someone will not agree.
[automerge]1594151099[/automerge]
People should consider that they might be wrong if a post is reported and the moderators and staff decide not to take any action.
Ok, so eliminate all name calling except for world leaders. Does that include labels such as "ICE is racist"?
Yeah, I'm for the elimination of name-calling in general, considering it's rule #1 in the forum and generally does nothing to advance any debates. Saying that an organization is racist - well I could say the KKK is racist, and it would be true. I don't even think it would offend the KKK. And it wouldn't really be name-calling, since it's descriptive of what they stand for. Calling groups of people based on their race neanderthals or mouth breathers is not actually descriptive and degrades the discussion.
Last edited:
I hid the political stuff and haven’t looked back. Not sure why this thread shows up. Totally recommend it though.
How about BLM are racists? Tangled up in your own arguements? Aah a liberal then...
I believe the point of this thread was to get the mods’ attention and tell them that racist speech is becoming more prevalent in the PRSI forums specifically. I don’t think this thread is the place to actually discuss the political topic du jour.
You didn’t answer/understand the question. (Are BLM racist? A liberal perhaps?)
For the admins of this group, that's easy. Don't cover it, unless it somehow affects technology. According to the website's mission statement:
"MacRumors attracts a broad audience of both consumers and professionals interested in the latest technologies and products."
Taxation issues, regulatory news, COVID-19, etc., isn't technology related generally.
I have been following the thread with considerable interest, - it has been a fascinating discussion - and, as the thread seems to be about the topics of MacRumors, moderation and racism, - and where they meet and intersect - there are a few points that I would like to raise which, hopefully, may add a little to the discussion.
There is the matter of context, as @yaxomoxay (for whom I have considerable respect as a poster, not just even when we disagree, but especially when we disagree) has already remarked.
And, within the subject of context, there are two or three different further categories where what is understood by context defines the wider terms of debate.
The first of these contexts is the fraught and extraordinarily contested and disputed history of race within the US.
Yes, other countries and empires had slaves and made grotesque fortunes from the state sanctioned abuse of fellow human beings, (Belgium's appalling empire in what was then known as the Belgian Congo is an especially grotesque example).
However, only the US created a federal state based on the principle of human rights - "all men are created equal" which simultaneously excluded some specific people (those who were slaves) from being accorded those same rights, - a situation which created a complete philosophical contradiction at the level of identity defined by the federal state's core principles - and later still, fought a civil war contesting the right of some states to establish a separate federal state designed to uphold slavery as an economic, social and political system.
So, the issue of race is contentious, divisive and germane to discussions of how identity, and language and speech are expressed in the US, in a way that no other such social or ethnic division (not social class, and not even gender - and both of these matter, enormously, and, not even religion which is explosive elsewhere).
A second matter of context is the role played in the US of the First Amendment, which is revered as allowing and enabling and facilitatingg freedom of speech, and which, traditionally, allows for a greater freedom of expression than one would find even in the most liberal of democracies in western Europe, where strict laws prohibiting hate speech serve to remove the most egregious examples of such from print and TV (but not from the online world which is not regulated to the same degree, although that debate has yet to take place).
I could make the argument that such extensive freedom of expression ought to carry some sense of obligation or responsibility to put careful thought into what one says in a public forum, as a consequence.
And, a third matter of context, is both the increasing importance of online debate in socio-economic-cultural and political debates, on the one hand, and, on the other, the marked coarsening in both content and tone of much public (and online) discussion and debate that has occurred since the time of the last presidential campaign four years ago.
Thus, taken all together, these three intersecting and interlocking contexts, - the context of the history of the peculiarly fraught nature of race relations in the US which means that racist terms carry an especial sting of offensive contempt that other insults intended to give offence may lack, the fact that freedom of speech is unusually strongly defended in the US, and the fact that the tone and content of much public debate has become coarsened in recent years - all of that means that thought may have to be given to the notion that rules that may have worked in the past, in the case of MR, in regulating debate in the forum may have to be revised somewhat, both in how they are defined and how they may be implemented and enforced.
There is the matter of context, as @yaxomoxay (for whom I have considerable respect as a poster, not just even when we disagree, but especially when we disagree) has already remarked.
And, within the subject of context, there are two or three different further categories where what is understood by context defines the wider terms of debate.
The first of these contexts is the fraught and extraordinarily contested and disputed history of race within the US.
Yes, other countries and empires had slaves and made grotesque fortunes from the state sanctioned abuse of fellow human beings, (Belgium's appalling empire in what was then known as the Belgian Congo is an especially grotesque example).
However, only the US created a federal state based on the principle of human rights - "all men are created equal" which simultaneously excluded some specific people (those who were slaves) from being accorded those same rights, - a situation which created a complete philosophical contradiction at the level of identity defined by the federal state's core principles - and later still, fought a civil war contesting the right of some states to establish a separate federal state designed to uphold slavery as an economic, social and political system.
So, the issue of race is contentious, divisive and germane to discussions of how identity, and language and speech are expressed in the US, in a way that no other such social or ethnic division (not social class, and not even gender - and both of these matter, enormously, and, not even religion which is explosive elsewhere).
A second matter of context is the role played in the US of the First Amendment, which is revered as allowing and enabling and facilitatingg freedom of speech, and which, traditionally, allows for a greater freedom of expression than one would find even in the most liberal of democracies in western Europe, where strict laws prohibiting hate speech serve to remove the most egregious examples of such from print and TV (but not from the online world which is not regulated to the same degree, although that debate has yet to take place).
I could make the argument that such extensive freedom of expression ought to carry some sense of obligation or responsibility to put careful thought into what one says in a public forum, as a consequence.
And, a third matter of context, is both the increasing importance of online debate in socio-economic-cultural and political debates, on the one hand, and, on the other, the marked coarsening in both content and tone of much public (and online) discussion and debate that has occurred since the time of the last presidential campaign four years ago.
Thus, taken all together, these three intersecting and interlocking contexts, - the context of the history of the peculiarly fraught nature of race relations in the US which means that racist terms carry an especial sting of offensive contempt that other insults intended to give offence may lack, the fact that freedom of speech is unusually strongly defended in the US, and the fact that the tone and content of much public debate has become coarsened in recent years - all of that means that thought may have to be given to the notion that rules that may have worked in the past, in the case of MR, in regulating debate in the forum may have to be revised somewhat, both in how they are defined and how they may be implemented and enforced.
Last edited:
We don’t discuss politics in this particular forum. Feel free to start a thread in PRSI to discuss.
The post wasn’t removed because the post described never existed. @The-Real-Deal82 is either purposefully misrepresenting what happened or is remembering it wrong.
Similarly the example of the Nazi post was never referenced either.
(internally, we reviewed both)
I’m sure our moderation isn’t perfect, and mistakes do get made. But all in all the moderators do an amazing job with what are heated/frustrating/nuanced discussions from people who can (understandably) get worked up. It’s generally a thankless job.
I think this discussion has run its course so I’m going to close this thread as I think we are going in circles.
We are open to feedback and do adjust our policies and moderation as things go.
for specific moderation complaints, you can contact support@macrumors.com which gets reviewed separately by multiple people, as appropriate.
Last edited:
- Status