A few days ago I made a post to gauge this community’s opinion on whether it should allow nice comics by bigoted artists. I think we have a consensus.

The majority of comments were very in support of banning comics by artists like Stonetoss and Jago. I heard from queer people who said they’d feel safer if the rules were changed. A lot of people were concerned about this community becoming a “Nazi bar”, the comment expressing that feeling got a LOT of upvotes.

The people against the change had two main arguments: anti-censorship, and personal responsibility. A few people equated active moderation practices with book burning. Nearly all of these “against” comments were downvoted or ratiod, and tended to have a lot of arguments underneath them, while the “pro” comments went uncontested.

On the internet, 10% of people will disagree with just about anything. With that in mind, I think we’ve reached a consensus. The community wants a rule change so that users can’t post inoffensive comics by bigoted artists.

That means no more Jago comics. I see a lot of people in the comments under the Jago posts, getting angry and saying they want this rule change. People aren’t happy with the user who’s posting all the Jago comics.

Mods, this is what we want. Please change the rules and get Jago’s comics outta here.

  • Harvey656@lemmy.world
    shield
    M
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    4 minutes ago

    Locking this for right now, this thread has gotten out of hand. Edit: unlocked. Please behave.

  • jtrek@startrek.website
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    12
    ·
    2 hours ago

    The people who really want racist/sexist/etc comics are free to make their own instance or community. This is the fediverse. There’s no government with guns or CEO to lock it down.

    If that stuff makes for a better community, it will do just fine. I expect it won’t.

    One of the things right-wingers push for is the idea that they’re normal and healthy, and everyone else is deficient. Like everything else from the right, it’s projection.

  • null@lemmy.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    55 minutes ago

    Stonetoss is obvious, but what’s wrong with the Jago comics?

  • FelixCress@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    11
    ·
    edit-2
    2 hours ago

    Hysteria spread by users like yourself is ridiculous. I say ban hateful content, starting with hateful comments - that will give you another reason to whine on YPTB.

  • [deleted]@piefed.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    61
    ·
    5 hours ago

    A blanket ‘bigoted artists’ rule is ripe for banning based on someone’s entire history, like firing James Gunn for bad jokes in old tweets.

    Instead I would prefer to ban individual artists based on their art. So I fully support banning Jago comics because all the ones I remember are based on anti LGBTQ+ or sexist stereotypes. Not because they are bigoted, but because their content is. No idea who stonetoss is, but if their content is similar then I would also favor banning them.

    No purity tests though.

    • Grimy@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      29
      ·
      4 hours ago

      I’m fully for this. I’d rather have a clear ban list where every addition is thoroughly discussed.

      Forcing mods to make constant judgement calls is though on them and might lead to arguments where they find themselves stuck in the middle.

      • mfed1122@discuss.tchncs.de
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        14
        ·
        4 hours ago

        Yeah I think this is the most important thing, as long as community discussion drives the content of the ban list, it’s all good.

  • Harvey656@lemmy.worldM
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    32
    ·
    4 hours ago

    I have no comment currently for what will happen regarding bigot artists, I’m not the top mod.

    However, please stop making META posts when you made one about the same topic just a few days ago. If the comments on this get out of hand I will lock the thread for civilities sake. Please wait for us to make an announcement about such things, it may take some time.

    • Goferking0@ttrpg.network
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      2 hours ago

      However, please stop making META posts when you made one about the same topic just a few days ago. If the comments on this get out of hand I will lock the thread for civilities sake. Please wait for us to make an announcement about such things, it may take some time.

      FYI that’s the MO with this user with their current and previous instance grail accounts. Here to only be a troll/drive attacks at who they dislike.

      Before was part of a witch hunt against a blajah mod because they were simply a mod of a comm they disliked.

    • lumpenproletariat@quokk.au
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      51 minutes ago

      Why may it take some time?

      Do you not have a way to communicate? It’s a very simple thing to reach consensus on a topic and add a rule to a sidebar.

      This is an Internet community, not running a government there is no need for a long drawn out “thinking” phase.

      • Harvey656@lemmy.worldM
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        19 minutes ago

        We are all on different time zones and schedules.

        And like I said, not the top mod. I don’t get to just do things, that would be a massive overstep of my mod powers. I just remove comments that take it too far, occasionally talk in comments like this, and remove anything super bad.

        I wish I had a definitive, satisfying response and make this whole problem go away, but I lack that power. Sorry.

    • Pika@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      edit-2
      3 hours ago

      it’s nice that someone is responding on it.

      Now that there is a mod team, can restrictions on meta posts and mini modding potentially be added onto the internal discussions?

      The intent is there and I get they’re trying to help, but the amount of negativity and toxicity to something that wasn’t even a rule at that time, I think should be addressed and not allowed.

      Not that I think they were wrong, so to speak. But… I don’t think that orchestrates a healthy environment when there is a mod team for it that can /remove/ the content instead of just spamming the community with protest comments or flaming

      edit: FUTO speech to text is buggy and likes adding text I tried to add later on in parts I’m editing, removed the delayed addon lol

  • Solumbran@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    69
    ·
    5 hours ago

    The argument of censorship is bullshit. If a comic is made to discriminate, it is basic decency to get rid of it. If an author makes themselves known by being discriminatory, no platform that cares about user safety and having a non-toxic community needs to get rid of them. It’s as simple as that.

    When you refuse that kind of “censorship”, you are only making it clear that you like making this place unsafe for the people being attacked. Which makes you a piece of shit in my book.

    So yeah, let’s just ban these things that have no reason to exist, let alone on lemmy.

    • U7826391786239@piefed.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      26
      ·
      5 hours ago

      let them whine and cry about being “censored,” canceled, banned, etc. everyone is free to say whatever they want, everyone is also free to take what someone says and throw it out the window.

      the consistent widespread tolerance of intolerance is a huge reason the world is on fire right now

      • Solumbran@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        21
        ·
        5 hours ago

        It is really sad that now, when someone mentions “freedom of speech” I automatically see it as a red flag, despite freedom of speech being a good thing. Nazis really mess up everything.

        • bizarroland@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          9
          ·
          3 hours ago

          Freedom of Speech only means that the government cannot censor you.

          It has nothing to do with what businesses, individuals, groups, or anyone else does.

          When the United States runs a social media, then they can argue that all they want there.

          • Katana314@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            8
            ·
            3 hours ago

            The only caution with that is, private companies have a LOT of power and control right now. Easy to argue they shouldn’t, of course.

            An example might be Visa enforcing “content guidelines” on any paid content on Steam providing NSFW games. Like, say, any game that acknowledges gay people exist. Payment processors and similar companies have claimed that’s a freedom of speech stance.

            But yes, we can definitely keep it simple in forum communities constantly under human enforcement.

        • Buffalox@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          7
          ·
          edit-2
          4 hours ago

          I agree, and It’s all because of the distorted form of freedom of speech they have in USA, we generally don’t have that problem in European democracies.
          For instance FOX News is simply illegal by European standards, because they lie and distort reality.

          • Solumbran@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            3 hours ago

            In Europe it is still there, far right extremists love to complain about cancel culture, about being censored, etc.

            But yeah, they generally prefer to sue for defamation when someone criticises them

          • Herr_S_aus_H@lemmy.zip
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            9
            ·
            edit-2
            4 hours ago

            In online spaces there also seems to be this wierd thinking of “if it isn’t illegal you have to accept it”.

            • Buffalox@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              3 hours ago

              Yes, which is really stupid, some people seem to think that freedom of expression means that sites have to allow their stupidity. Which is far from the case.

        • U7826391786239@piefed.zip
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          9
          ·
          5 hours ago

          i look at it as “yea, you can put up your nazi flag. but if you put it on my property, it’s going in the firepit and getting torched”

    • CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      12
      ·
      5 hours ago

      I don’t really care either way as I just browse this place casually (not that I support bigotry), but I can’t believe how many community outrage posts like this that this community has received in the past week or two. You’d think we were in a community dedicated to much more serious topics not one dedicated to ‘Sunday comics.’

      • Solumbran@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        14
        ·
        4 hours ago

        Not caring is supporting bigotry.

        “I don’t support nazis, I just don’t care if they conquer the world” is not really a good sentence to say.

        • CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          11
          ·
          3 hours ago

          Not caring is supporting bigotry.

          No, it’s just not involving myself in internet drama.

          “I don’t support nazis, I just don’t care if they conquer the world” is not really a good sentence to say.

          You might have a point if we were actually talking about Nazis or someone like Trump and his ilk, but no were talking about some person with little influence who creates comics and posts them to this little community. I’m assuming this is about the guy who has all the thirsty looking comics with women in their underwear that someone claimed didn’t support LGBT but didn’t elaborate further? Forgive me for not joining in the tribalism and drawing my line in the sand over this egregious act.

          The fact that you have to immediately rely on exaggerated appeals to emotion in order to even make your point should be a sign that you’re going a little overboard.

          • Solumbran@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            2 hours ago

            So for you, discrimination and fascism should only be fought against when on a gigantic scale? As long as it’s not the president of a country, you don’t care?

            “My neighbour is insulting black people in the street but you know, it’s just a little racial slur a few times per day, it’s not like it’s actual Hitler living next to me, so I don’t care”

            How does that kind of logic even make sense?

            I don’t know why there are so many enlightened centrists on lemmy lately but it’s really gross.

            • CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              5
              ·
              2 hours ago

              Can you actually point to the discrimination and fascism being posted here? You keep having to rely on hypotheticals and unrelated situations as your argument and have yet to make a single reference to the actual situation occurring here, all while acting like we’re somehow pro-Nazi or pro-slavery if we don’t automatically conform to your viewpoint.

        • FishFace@piefed.social
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          7
          ·
          4 hours ago

          No. Support is support, and not caring is not caring. Redefining words won’t change the outcome on the ground.

          • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            36 minutes ago

            Apathy is an oppressor’s greatest weapon.

            You may not think you’re supporting them, but silence is complicity. And if you’re complicit with it, you tacitly support it, otherwise you’d have an opinion on it.

          • Solumbran@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            7
            ·
            3 hours ago

            If you are standing by when an oppressor is oppressing, then you are participating in it.

            Accepting the idea that being passive is neutral, is a horrible moral stance that is always advantaging the oppressors.

            If it is your stance, you are participating in letting the oppressors do whatever they want, which is supporting them.

            There’s a reason why you can be condemned for seeing someone getting attacked and doing nothing. This “neutral” stance has been known to be a piece of shit stance for centuries.

            • FishFace@piefed.social
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              5
              ·
              3 hours ago

              If you are standing by when an oppressor is oppressing, then you are participating in it.

              That is not what participation means. Redefining yet more words won’t change the outcome on the ground either.

              There’s a reason why you can be condemned for seeing someone getting attacked and doing nothing. This “neutral” stance has been known to be a piece of shit stance for centuries.

              This would seem to be the “duty to rescue”. But there is no universal duty to rescue recognised in law - because there is no such duty recognised universally by people either. And where it is recognised, the punishment for failing to carry it out is less than the punishment for putting someone in harm’s way, or harming them yourself.

              This is, in fact, a very good way of seeing that “neutrality is aggression” is a minority, and wrong, belief.

              • Solumbran@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                3
                ·
                2 hours ago

                So according to your logic, if you walk past someone being raped or murdered and you don’t give a shit and move on, it’s completely fine, because you’re just being neutral? You would consider that not helping the victim, doesn’t help the aggressor?

                How do you even manage to convince yourself of such a logic?

                • FishFace@piefed.social
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  3
                  ·
                  2 hours ago

                  No, it is not “completely fine” but it is not morally equivalent to committing the rape, and there are justified reasons for doing nothing: e.g. you cannot physically intervene, and are scared of the cops and so unwilling to call them.

                • FishFace@piefed.social
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  3
                  ·
                  2 hours ago

                  It being legal is a good suggestion that society hasn’t decided it’s on the same moral level as things that society has decided to make illegal. At any rate, the unviersal statement ‘This “neutral” stance has been known to be a piece of shit stance for centuries’ is wrong on this basis. If it were so obvious, so known, then, yes, I do think it would be illegal.

              • Entertainmeonly@lemmy.blahaj.zone
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                5
                ·
                3 hours ago

                The quote highlights that passive inaction is as dangerous as active malice. It encourages taking a stand against wrongdoing rather than remaining neutral.

                • FishFace@piefed.social
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  4
                  ·
                  3 hours ago

                  But it isn’t as dangerous as active malice. Punching someone in the face is more dangerous than watching someone punch another in the face.

            • bizarroland@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              3 hours ago

              I agree with the quote, but I take umbrage with it being used in this context.

              There’s nothing to be gained by forcing people to act in ways that they do not wish to act, or to think in ways that they do not wish to think.

              The way you’re using that quote is basically saying, “Agree with me, and think the way I tell you to think, or you’re a bad person”.

              That is evil, and people of good conscience should not agree with you. It is better to allow you to think that they are a bad person rather than to allow you to have control over their morality.

              • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                28 minutes ago

                There’s nothing to be gained by forcing people to act in ways that they do not wish to act, or to think in ways that they do not wish to think.

                In context of the conversation, you’re saying there’s nothing to be gained by banning comics from racist artists.

                The way you’re using that quote is basically saying, “Agree with me, and think the way I tell you to think, or you’re a bad person”.

                You sure? Because in response to your statement saying you don’t have an opinion (ie, you’re doing nothing), it means that you’re allowing bad to happen due to apathy (that’s assuming you see yourself as a good person, if you’re not, disregard).

                That is evil, and people of good conscience should not agree with you.

                One of these days I’m going to create /c/selfawarewolves…

                Twist yourself up like a pretzel all you want, but at least listen to what you’re saying and think about it for more than 5 seconds. Because you’re supporting people who spread bigotry by arguing against banning them, and trying to take the moral high ground.

                • bizarroland@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  1 hour ago

                  A, you’ve missed the point completely. B, you’re moving the goalposts. And C, you’re forgetting the possible charitable view of things in that a person who is not aware of the original artist’s bigotry finding something that they posted funny and sharing it with other people.

  • SavvyWolf@pawb.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    48
    ·
    5 hours ago

    I was going to point out that comics like that should already be covered by the rules against discrimination… But reading the sidebar it doesn’t look like we have rules like that. We have a full paragraph detailing how an exposed nipple should be tagged, but nothing saying “hey, don’t be a homophobic sexist bigot”. Probably worth adding something to the rules like:

    Discrimination such as homophobia, transphobia, sexism and racism are not welcome here. This applies both in comments and posted comics. Likewise, artists who have a large history of posting discriminatory content such as Stonetoss and Jago are similarly not allowed here.

    Nazi bars form by exploiting moderators who are too afraid to say no and actively kick out a culture of hate.

  • surewhynotlem@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    23
    ·
    4 hours ago

    So would we ban posting Dilbert comics because Adams went wacko when he got older? Do we ban artists from the 50s because some of them were racist, even if we’re not posting those ones?

    I think it makes sense to not allow hateful and bigoted comics, for sure. And that rule would get rid of jago.

    • _NetNomad@fedia.io
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      3 hours ago

      i mean, yeah… let’s ban dilbert. even if adams was a saint when it was in serialization, posting it today platforms who he is today. we could pick apart edge cases all day but that’s a lot of work to maybe be able to post comics everyone has already seen, or we can err on the side of caution and spend all that time reading good comics by decent people instead

      • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        23 minutes ago

        posting it today platforms who he is today.

        A corpse? /j

        But on topic, I don’t recall the dilbert comics being offensive, even if adams was a fucking loon. Willing to be proved wrong since I stopped caring when PHB became the main focus of the strip.

        • _NetNomad@fedia.io
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          16 minutes ago

          that’s my whole point: regardless of if the comics were fine, later in life he was a jackass so who cares? we can look at every comic he ever made under a fine-tooth comb to see if those later values show up in dilbert at the risk of alienating the groups of people he hurt regardless of the comic, or we can just say “fuck that guy” and move on with our lives

    • Grimy@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      4 hours ago

      The Dilbert comics is a fair point. I feel like the content itself isn’t bad, just the author’s public views.

      I’m not that familiar with all his comics, but I tend to like Dilbert since I grew up on it a bit. I could swing either way, but I’d tend to lean towards being critical of the content and not the author’s tweets.

    • mfed1122@discuss.tchncs.de
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      4 hours ago

      The way I see this being handled is that if lots of Dilbert is being posted and it’s annoying enough people, they would make a meta post asking about banning it. We don’t need to preemptively have that debate. That should protect us from needing to spend an eternity curating a huge ban list.

  • FishFace@piefed.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    10
    ·
    4 hours ago

    Why haven’t you already started your own Comic Strips community with this rule instead of spamming the comm?

      • lumpenproletariat@quokk.au
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        14 minutes ago

        Ah so Goferking0 is fine with misogynistic artists? And here I thought you were at least a leftist.

        Doesn’t matter about the user being annoying, the cause here is just. You should be able to critically support this post instead you only shit on them.

        • Goferking0@ttrpg.network
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          14 minutes ago

          Doesn’t matter about the user being annoying, the cause here is just. You should be able to critically support this post instead you only shit on them.

          That’s like saying we should support Biden because he said something nice about unions.

          Then again another account who loves to punch left 🤷

    • HubertManne@piefed.social
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      4 hours ago

      on the same note while im against it I read comics in other comic communities. Ideally little to no censorship would be in communities but the comics will still be around in other ones. Granted it would be nice for this poster to just get off his but and use the block botton but he can feel the warm fuzzies knowing people are reading the comic on the fediverse elsewhere instead of here.

  • RustyNova@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    13
    ·
    edit-2
    4 hours ago

    For me it’s blanket artist ban I don’t like. Banned bigoted posts is 100% deserved, but not artist wide. The recent jago comic is totally fine, and that content shouldn’t be restricted.

    Also artists shouldn’t be restricted willy-nilly. I feel artists like cyanide and happiness could 100% get on some people’s nerves, considering that some other comics like it gets absolutely ratioed. Although they aren’t bigoted, that’s just dark humour

    For reference, I’m trans and bi, so I ain’t policing minorities. I have all interest in banning stonetoss here

  • hypnicjerk@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    16
    ·
    5 hours ago

    any rule should be voted on to ban specific artists, and additions to the list should require their own vote. “no hate content” is a simple enough rule to enforce with minimal context but “no history of hate content” is way too broad.

  • null@piefed.nullspace.lol
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    17
    ·
    edit-2
    5 hours ago

    There can’t even be that many amazing “nice” comics by these bigoted artists that we’d be making a huge sacrifice by banning them. Not accidentally driving traffic to them seems worth it.

    I guess there’s a case around censorship to some degree, but there’s already plenty of censorship-driven rules in place. It comes down to trusting the mods to not abuse their power.

    • Grimy@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      4 hours ago

      Ya, I really don’t see a downside in terms of content. Jago is simply not funny at the best of times.