Recent HomePod mini ad thread....

[SuperMatt]

In a recent thread about Apple’s HomePod mini, many “criticisms“ of the ad were racist statements. When these were reported, many of the offensive posts were left up. However, those who called out the racist attacks were quickly punished by the moderators.

This is not a new thing here, as past threads about his have come up in this feedback forum before. It seems like these types of racist statements have bled from PRSI into other parts of the forum.

If there is a policy to be lenient on those who make racist statements while punishing those who then try to call attention to the offensive nature of such posts, you will end up with a forum full of racist statements and people afraid to call them out in fear of getting suspended... or those who DO call them out are kicked off the forum... so then nobody to call out the ugly and offensive content.

The mods made a strong statement in this forum right after the George Floyd murder about moderating hate speech and racism. Five months later, the reality is that they have been moderating the critics of hate speech and racism instead.

So if you’re wondering why you have to sift through and scroll past racist attack-posts in the forums every time a person of color shows up in an Apple-related story, think about the fact that these forums are moderated and that such posts supposedly have no place here, at least according to past statements and posted forum rules.

 

[Apple_Robert]

Racism has never been allowed here nor should it be.

You are accusing the staff (once again) of overt racism by allegedly condoning what you perceive to be racist remarks. If you find this behavior so repugnant, maybe you should find another place to visit.

 

[SuperMatt]

Racism has never been allowed here nor should it be.

You are accusing the staff (once again) of overt racism by allegedly condoning what you perceive to be racist remarks. If you find this behavior so repugnant, maybe you should find another place to visit.

I certainly am not accusing the staff of racism. I simply think the rules are structured and enforced in a way that allows it to rear its ugly head time and again. If a post is racist but attempts to couch itself in just enough ambiguity or uses dog whistles, it often will not be moderated. However, the posts saying ”hey that’s racist” seem to get punished quickly as “personal attacks.”

That‘s my observation. If you disagree, that’s ok. But I definitely did not say that the mods are racist; if you read my post again I think you will agree.

 

[arn]

Hi, I'm the one that finally closed the thread and deleted the last set of comments which complained about moderation.

I did skim through the thread at the time but haven't studied it in close detail. My impression is that generally the moderation was done to remove offensive/rule-breaking remarks, as well as PRSI tangents which we don't allow in non-politically categorized posts, and meta-complaints about moderation which we also don't allow.

In the case where a moderator doesn't think a comment is offensive, they may have not deleted the post.

I can see how this might appear to you to be one sided, but we generally give people the benefit of the doubt. I don't want to debate any specific comment, but that thread did generate a lot of strong opinions against the ad. I don't think it's a stretch to say this ad did depart in style from Apple's previous holiday ads, so strong opinions are expected. Some commenters did reply with discussions about why people might be jumping to conclusions, but diving deep into PRSI talk did get appropriately reported and moderated out.

arn

 

[Apple_Robert]

I certainly am not accusing the staff of racism. I simply think the rules are structured and enforced in a way that allows it to rear its ugly head time and again. If a post is racist but attempts to couch itself in just enough ambiguity or uses dog whistles, it often will not be moderated. However, the posts saying ”hey that’s racist” seem to get punished quickly as “personal attacks.”

That‘s my observation. If you disagree, that’s ok. But I definitely did not say that the mods are racist; if you read my post again I think you will agree.

There is no doubt in my mind, that if the staff saw any racist remarks, said remarks would be removed and said member would be permanently banned post haste.

By saying that the racist remarks are being allowed while the confronted posts are being persecuted is essentially saying the staff passively condones / allows racism on forum. In my opinion, that notion is absurd and insulting to the staff.

Maybe the problem is your perceived idea of racism and possibly having very thin skin. As to some members confronting others about alleged racism, said members have to abide by the rules of the forum regardless of what they perceive to be said by another member. Confronting alleged racism while breaking the rules is not allowed anymore than the racism is. Is members see alleged racist remarks, said members should report the post(s) in question without engaging the member who allegedly posted the offensive remarks. That way, the post is reported without innocent people getting mod sanction.

 

[SuperMatt]

Hi, I'm the one that finally closed the thread and deleted the last set of comments which complained about moderation.

I did skim through the thread at the time but haven't studied it in close detail. My impression is that generally the moderation was done to remove offensive/rule-breaking remarks, as well as PRSI tangents which we don't allow in non-politically categorized posts, and meta-complaints about moderation which we also don't allow.

In the case where a moderator doesn't think a comment is offensive, they may have not deleted the post.

I can see how this might appear to you to be one sided, but we generally give people the benefit of the doubt. I don't want to debate any specific comment, but that thread did generate a lot of strong opinions against the ad. I don't think it's a stretch to say this ad did depart in style from Apple's previous holiday ads, so strong opinions are expected. Some commenters did reply with discussions about why people might be jumping to conclusions, but diving deep into PRSI talk did get appropriately reported and moderated out.

arn

Thanks for your response. I understand there are rules, and that calling out moderators (outside of this feedback forum) is not allowed. Perhaps it is not possible to filter out comments that are anti- people of color unless they become overt and hostile. One need only look at the threads such as the HomePod mini, the Obama/Oprah thread, threads about Apple’s diversity statements, especially those involving Lisa Jackson... to see attacks that aren’t present on any other news stories, and the threads devolving quickly.

I would ask that those trying to stop the racist attacks be given the benefit of the doubt a bit more often, even if their objections might sometimes seem a bit shrill or like a personal attack. That’s just my personal request, and I know you have a lot of things to moderate and rules to uphold, so again I thank you for taking a moment to respond to this thread.

 

[SuperMatt]

There is no doubt in my mind, that if the staff saw any racist remarks, said remarks would be removed and said member would be permanently banned post haste.

By saying that the racist remarks are being allowed while the confronted posts are being persecuted is essentially saying the staff passively condones / allows racism on forum. In my opinion, that notion is absurd and insulting to the staff.

Maybe the problem is your perceived idea of racism and possibly having very thin skin. As to some members confronting others about alleged racism, said members have to abide by the rules of the forum regardless of what they perceive to be said by another member. Confronting alleged racism while breaking the rules is not allowed anymore than the racism is. Is members see alleged racist remarks, said members should report the post(s) in question without engaging the member who allegedly posted the offensive remarks. That way, the post is reported without innocent people getting mod sanction.

This is exactly the point though, isn’t it? It’s against the rules to call out an individual for racism, so I’m raising the issue here where we are allowed to discuss it. If one sees racism and it doesn’t seem like the mods are stopping it, I believe this feedback forum is where we are supposed to raise the issue. Otherwise, the needle will keep moving towards racist posts standing un-challenged as people worry about getting suspended for calling them out....in my opinion.

Where you see people that are “too sensitive,” I see casual racism being ignored because maybe it’s so prevalent in our society that people are desensitized to it. Maybe the answer is somewhere in the middle of our differing views.

Right now it feels to me like the pendulum has swung a bit towards moderating voices who try to call out racism and away from looking for dog whistles and subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) racist attacks that regularly show up in Apple-related stories involving people of color.

 

[Apple_Robert]

This is exactly the point though, isn’t it? It’s against the rules to call out an individual for racism, so I’m raising the issue here where we are allowed to discuss it. If one sees racism and it doesn’t seem like the mods are stopping it, I believe this feedback forum is where we are supposed to raise the issue. Otherwise, the needle will keep moving towards racist posts standing un-challenged as people worry about getting suspended for calling them out....in my opinion.

Where you see people that are “too sensitive,” I see casual racism being ignored because maybe it’s so prevalent in our society that people are desensitized to it. Maybe the answer is somewhere in the middle of our differing views.

Right now it feels to me like the pendulum has swung a bit towards moderating voices who try to call out racism and away from looking for dog whistles and subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) racist attacks that regularly show up in Apple-related stories involving people of color.

Confronting alleged racism is no excuse to break the rules. It is the mods job to confront alleged racism, not a forum member. If a member attacks another member regardless of cause, the member who attacked will probably face mod action.

There is no such thing as causal racism. Racism is racism. And as I said earlier, the staff does not put up with racism here and i am glad for that.

As Arn stated earlier, when a post has delved into an ambiguous area and the meaning of the author is not overtly clear, the member must be given the benefit of a doubt, barring a posting history of such infractions and style.

 

[SuperMatt]

Confronting alleged racism is no excuse to break the rules. It is the mods job to confront alleged racism, not a forum member. If a member attacks another member regardless of cause, the member who attacked will probably face mod action.

There is no such thing as causal racism. Racism is racism. And as I said earlier, the staff does not put up with racism here and i am glad for that.

As Arn stated earlier, when a post has delved into an ambiguous area and the meaning of the author is not overtly clear, the member must be given the benefit of a doubt, barring a posting history of such infractions and style.

I understand the rules. I’m simply pointing out that it seems to me that the standards on moderating racist posts are too lenient. I’m not a mod; I’m not allowed to call out what I see as racist posts directly to the person who posted, so I am posting to let the moderators know at least one forum member is concerned about such content becoming more prevalent. The entire idea of a “dog whistle” is to be ambiguous while clearly signaling the racial nature of an attack. Such content is designed specifically to avoid moderation, but our mods aren’t robots and I think they want to stop such offensive speech too.

Bottom line - if it is even borderline racist, please press the report button, because we don’t need that here at MR. And I hope moderation takes a second look when something is reported as racist so we can have a forum free of such offensive content.

Thanks for your input on this, and I hope for smooth sailing ahead.

 

[ouimetnick]

Racism has never been allowed here nor should it be.

You are accusing the staff (once again) of overt racism by allegedly condoning what you perceive to be racist remarks. If you find this behavior so repugnant, maybe you should find another place to visit.

Unfortunately there are numerous examples of double standards of certain racist statements, memes, and more being left up on certain threads here on MacRumors. We have several large threads filled with examples on a another website. I suppose certain things might be interpreted differently, but some examples are pretty obvious and not really debatable. I can’t provide examples because that would probably fall under accusing someone of being racists.

It shouldn’t be allowed, but it is. ☹️