I know I have been on a
slightly extended hiatus from here (work, life, gorgeous girlfriend... etc) but
an issue has come up that sparked my motivation.
The Western Sydney
Freethinkers Facebook page has been alive with activity of late. This
originally started when several members visited a Coptic church which commenced
a very fruitful relationship. What followed was some intelligent and thoughtful
to and fro-ing between members of both groups, however the page has now come to
the attention of a couple of well... trolls, with one in-particular being a
conspiracy theorist.
The flood of dubious posts
has brought up the topic of censorship and moderation, with one option being
the separation of discussions with rules set by the original poster. While this
is a tempting idea, the word Moderation always leaves me with a bad taste;
whilst it certainly has its place i.e. illegal content, blatantly violent
threats (even that is a grey area) and any quote from that abysmal movie “Mean
Girls” (kill it with fire) I believe with the ability of personal blocking,
full page moderation is not required.
Now I “DO NOT” agree
with most of what is being said; actually I feel some of the ideas are
personally abhorrent; but that is all the more reason to leave them for all to
see, let the idiocy stand on its own wobbly, misinformed and deluded legs. The
idea of Skeptics groups, pages, blogs etc. should not be to exclusively talk
amongst ourselves, but instead plant the seed of doubt in the believer, show
the “Fence Sitter” that the two sides do not hold equal weight and more
importantly expand our own understanding of the world and the varying beliefs
that occupy it.
The WSFT have done this
very well, with members of varying backgrounds, relationships being sustained
with different churches, events and speakers focused on the idea of
education and understanding the opposing viewpoints. If all someone is doing is
trawling through the comments to find what they decree is “logical” then
they’re doing it wrong. I am all for ridiculing these people, using their
comments to test our degree of sarcasm and abilities at humour, but moderating
them on an open page is playing directly into their hands and fortifying their
beliefs. We need only look to the SAVN and their applaudable use of screenshots
for damming material while showing the public the AVN’s true nature as the AVN
moderate the hell out of the page, do we really want to hand out the same
ammunition?
In conclusion if you
really can’t stand it anymore just press “Block”; if you only wish to talk amongst
the like minded, create a closed group; as for moderation in terms of deletion or
exclusion in an open group, is just being hypocritical.
Cheers,
