So let's look at what happened in reality. Almost immediately sub-reddits pop up that are at the very least attempting to skirt the law, and often directly breaching the law- popular topics on reddit included creative interpretations of the age of consent for example, or indeed the requirement for consent at all. Oh and because anyone can create one these communities, the site turns into whack-a-mole.
The second thing that happened was communities popped up pretty much for the sole purpose of harassing's other communities. But enabling this sort of market place of moderation, you are providing a mechanism for a group of people to organize a way to attack your own platform. So now you have to step back in and we're back to censorship.
I also think that this article completely mischaracterizes what the free speech side of the debate want.
Fresh ideas are always welcome, but the people who are trying to maintain working forums have been at the process for a long time now and can draw on experience all the way back to the BBS days.
I don't disagree with your point, there's quite a bit of knowledge around building communities and moderation that's been around and honed for at least a generation. And we should take that knowledge and build on and around it.
That said, folks have been going on about "Eternal September" for decades. Granted, people are born all the time, but they've grown up in the age of the Internet.
As such, it seems to me that at some point (if not now, when?) we need to get away from that particular excuse.
Anyone born before the Internet (myself included) has had a long time to figure things out, and anyone born in the Internet's wake is immersed in it from a fairly young age.
So why do we continue to use "Eternal September" as a foil?
It's entirely possible I'm missing something important, and if I am, please do enlighten me. Thanks!
There has been a general coarsening of the culture which has gotten worse since the 2010s, Donald Trump was certainly a part of it.
I was talking about it with my wife this morning and she thinks that people have been getting more concerned about the homeless colony in a nearby city because the people who live there have been getting angrier and nastier. Other people down our road have put up signs that say "SLOW THE FUCK DOWN!"
There are the nihilistic forms of protest such as the people who are attacking paintings in museums to protest climate change. (Why don't they blow up a gas station?)
And of course there are the people on the right and left who believe they can "create their own reality" whether it is about the 2020 election or vaccines or about gender.
So as somebody who noticed this bit of drama, and looked into it, I can explain. It's actually all very simple. Here goes:
It's a stunt!
Yup, they say that much. They tried protesting, they tried blocking roads, but were making page 10 of the newspaper. So they came out with some dramatic, outrageous plan that they knew wouldn't do harm (they planned this well in advance, and glued themselves to glass, not to the actual painting) but would be weird enough for people to talk about it. Plus there's a degree of symbolism in it.
> (Why don't they blow up a gas station?)
Because you can't protest oil infrastructure in any effective way. Blow up something? That's terrorism. Glue yourself to a gas pump? You'll get insulted and probably dragged off, plus gas stations are kind of meaningless and replaceable and often not anywhere very interesting. Protest at oil infrastructure? It's typically remotely located, and secured. You won't be noticed before you're removed. Block Shell's HQ? Good luck blocking a huge building with multiple entrances and security.
Point being there's nothing oil related I can think of where you could cause some sort of disturbance, quickly get attention, have the press get to you before you got forcefully removed from there, and have the story be interesting enough to have a prominent place in the news.
So is trying to destroy cultural heritage. I see no qualitative difference between trying to deface a Vermeer and blowing up the Afghan Stone Buddhas.
Probably were, since as far as I can tell it's a stunt with no real intent to destroy anything.
> and at least in one case glued themselves to a 16th century picture frame, itself a priceless cultural artefact.
That's definitely not good.