The words "shut up" are henceforth banned in conjunction. If I want someone to shut up, I will tell them so. If you want someone to shut up, then you should get your own blog where you can enforce that desire. The purpose of the comment threads is to encourage interesting discussion, not regression into toddlerhood.
Further reminder: this is a family blog. Specifically, my family. Comments using profanity, speculating about my sex life, insulting my relatives, trying to sell useless commercial products, calling people Nazis or Communists who do not self-identify as members of those movements, or otherwise degrading the level of discourse are unwelcome, and as soon as I see them they will be uncomments. If your conversational skills did not pass seventh grade when the rest of you did, find somewhere else to deploy them.
Update I should note that this is not about getting rid of people who disagree with me. I will crack down harder on readers who like me than the ones who disagree: you can think of this as sort of a libertarian game reserve for well-mannered statists. I have enough of a hard time fighting off the crazies who come here from other web sites to throw bombs; please don't add to it, no matter what the provocation. If you think a comment requires more than polite disagreement, email me and I will take care of it.
Cool.
Comments using profanity, speculating about my sex life, insulting my relatives, trying to sell useless commercial products, calling people Nazis or Communists who do not self-identify as members of those movements, or otherwise degrading the level of discourse are unwelcome, and as soon as I see them they will be uncomments.
The irony of a libertarian posting this is delicious. Of course, this is your blog and you can do whatever you want with it.
Banning words?
Hmm.
I fully support you on this. Have you thought about banning certain IP addresses?
"Anonymous Kitty" - you must have a different idea of what constitutes libertarianism than is usual. This is Megan's space and hence her right to regulate as she sees fit. There is no "irony" in her doing so, merely simple rules of engagement - or, rather, a politeness she is more inclined to afford her commenters than some of them are her.
Ditto "Brandon" and your apparent raised eyebrow. It's a simple property rights issue, if you care to pause and think for a second...
Anonymous Kitty:The irony of a libertarian posting this is delicious. Of course, this is your blog and you can do whatever you want with it.
No, the irony is that you have perfectly stated the libertarian position, with apparent approval, in a comment that attempts to discredit libertarianism.
Alex,
I'm not sure how you made the connection from implied raised eyebrow to "you don't have the right". (or for that matter to imply someone is not thinking from such a simple reaction)
If someone invites folks onto their property, they are free to set whatever rules they want to govern behavior. That doesn't mean that said rules won't get an honest reaction from the invited, especially in the context of a free exchange of ideas, opinions and emotions. Moreover, it is fair to say that the libertarian tendency is to be sympathetic to the greatest level of freedom possible. Outright banning of words is a tough one to mesh with that tendency under even the most extreme circumstances, let alone juvenile expressions like the "shut" plus the "up".
If a libertarian minded person banning words doesn't come across as at least symbolically ironic, no matter how legitimate the mechanism of control itself is, then perhaps you're missing Kitty's point. In fact, s/he said in the original post "Of course, this is your blog and you can do whatever you want with it."
I'd accuse you of not thinking, but that would be rude.
Brandon,
I think Megan is clear about what is really banned here. Certainly not words. Kitty's position is also clear and simply wrong - there is nothing ironic about Megan's post. Freedom of speech includes the right not to listen.
Those commenters who see irony in a libertarian intollerant of offensive speech on her blog are themselves illustrating a common fallacy among non-liberatrians: that that what governemnt should and shouldn't do is the same as what individuals should and shouldn't do.
Simple libertarian primer: Individuals should live money to worthy causes and should not tollerate offensive speech. Government should not give money to worthy causes and should tollerate offensive speech.
Michal,
"Freedom of speech includes the right not to listen."
Sure, but if what was written is removed by an authority before others have a chance to read it, how many others are permitted to exercise the right to not listen? Sure, the owner can read it, and its her blog, so if she decides that "not listening" means "removing", that's well within her property rights. But she's also implicitly limiting other's ability to access information in an open forum, which strikes me as ironic from a position of a forum being open to the greatest level of freedom possible.
Is it fair to make a distinction between an interactive blog itself having a certain level of freedom, and the property rights of an individual owner to set such rules? Seems like apples and oranges to me.
This is the standard libertarian solution to the tragedy of the commons: Partition and privatize the commons and allow the owner of each partition to exercise control over how it's used. Just as the utility of a common pasture is degraded if it's overgrazed and the utility of a freeway is degraded if people are allowed to drive recklessly on it, the utility of a forum is degraded if anyone can say anything and readers have no efficient way to sift the wheat from the chaff.
If you want to see what the tragedy of the commons can do to a forum, drop by a politically oriented Usenet group for a while.
Libertarians aren't against all regulation--we're only against regulation by monopoly government. And the fact that no actual libertarian is alleging hypocrisy should suggest to those of you who are that you may not understand libertarianism as well as you think you do.
I am worried how the new rules will be enforced.
Does it mean I won't be able to use such expressive terms as "Stalinist Libertarians" (for Megan and her co-ideologists), "socialist demagouge" (for senator B.H. Obama), or "late-lapping freaks" (for the particular cultural group)? That would be sad.
I caution against enforcing new rules in a heavy-handed manner.
i think megan's comments on response content were clear and welcome. anyway, she has bigger
fist to fry now that delong has called her the
stupidest women in the world.
Why yes, yes it does. I'm not a heavy handed enforcer. But it's clearly time for one of my periodic flame war sweeps.
David Wright- your libertarian primer is fantastic. I may pass it on to some of my more left-leaning friends who never seem to understand that libertarian political thought is not appropriately reduced to "people can do whatever they want, wherever they want."
Megan - as a reader who has often been dismayed by the decline of the level of civility in the comments discourse on your blog since your move to the Atlantic, I wholeheartedly support your decision (and based on past history, trust you to refrain from deleting comments simply because you disagree with them). I wish some of the more left-leaning blogs (e.g. Kos) would do the same to cut back on personal insults when I dare to post comments deviating from their groupthink.
This is why when AS had the poll a couple of weeks ago, I voted for no comments.
If there's irony here, it's that people who feel perfectly free to show up at Megan's virtual open house and tell her other guests to "shut in conjunction with up" can object when Megan does as any proper hostess would and turns their own injunction back on them, while making it clear that they are welcome to stay if only they'll observe some basic good manners.
alex:
With all due respect, you're conflating what's legal and what's moral. Legally, Ms. McArdle can do whatever she wants with the blog (let's assume for the sake of this argument that she's not bound by any restrictions that The Atlantic may have set up).
Morally, it is wrong to censor speech. There are any number of reasons why it may be morally repugnant. Since Ms. McArdle is deciding what is acceptable and what is not, she may be deleting comments that are of value to the general community. Under the guise of aiding deliberation, she may actually be hurting it. Again, she's free to do what she wants, but what she wants may not be a morally acceptable action.
There are people who believe that uncensored speech is inherently good and limiting that does harm. Just because someone can do something does not make that thing beneficial. I am aware of the distinction between governments censoring speech and private entities censoring speech. Again, speaking as a moral matter, I think that the latter is almost as bad as the former (although only the former is illegal in most cases).
When I censor comments, you always know it; I leave a note, explaining exactly why it was deleted, precisely to avoid the temptation to disappear comments that disagree with me. About 95% of the comments I have deleted in the past were sheer invective directed at me or my relatives; the other 5% were invited to resubmit sans profanity or name-calling. I do not concede that profanity and name-calling are vital parts of the public discourse; if you require them in order to have a good discussion, then this probably isn't the blog for you.
I am aware of the distinction between governments censoring speech and private entities censoring speech. Again, speaking as a moral matter, I think that the latter is almost as bad as the former (although only the former is illegal in most cases).
So it's immoral for a church to say that if I post a bunch of signs saying "FUCK JESUS" on the bulletin board in their narthex they'll take them down?
The general community doesn't have a right to Megan's private property (or the Alantic's). If the general community wants a message board that isn't censored they are free to set one up themselves.
And that, of course, is the real moral difference between a personal decision to control one's property and government censorship.
I mean, think about your logic here. What if Megan disabled comments? Wouldn't that mean that Megan would be depriving everyone of EVERY comment, valued or not? Your argument in such a situation is functionally identical. Unavoidably what you are saying is that every commentless blog is immoral. Wow. How is that not self-evidently ridiculous?
anonymous kitty,
Megan is not censoring speech. You and others are still free to speak you minds and make whatever points of argument you wish.
Megan is censoring language, insult and name-calling.
If you can't express yourself intelligently, rationally and respectfully, you are probably commenting in the wrong place anyway.
anonymous kitty said: "Morally, it is wrong to censor speech."
What if someone spray painted a statement on your car or house? Wouldn't washing it off be "censoring speech?"
What if someone was being un-civil at your dinner party. Wouldn't asking him or her to leave be "censoring speech?"
AK --
This is not a pre-existing community with its own moral code (much less with the particular moral code you purport to espouse on its behalf), and Megan has not joined this "community" subject to any understanding that she is to observe any such code. Megan gets to decide whether, in this virtual space, the moral imperative to be nice may impinge on the freedom of speech.
Further, Megan is under no moral obligation to be a perfect maximizer of value to the "general community" (or else keep her mitts off the comments entirely). The community, such as it is, has no moral claims on Megan at all, and Megan has perfect and complete moral freedom to build here whatever sort of community suits her fancy, subject only to the freedom of potential community members to opt out of participation.
dsr --
Well said; I entirely agree.
Ed Reid,
That's a good point, but I think what's important here is that she is just controlling her own blog. Whether she's doing it to ensure basic civility or to enforce the dictates of L. Ron Hubbard, the point is that it isn't censorship. Certainly not the sort that's earned the word its opprobrious connotations.
I don't want the government enforcing civility through censorship either. The real issue at hand is that anonymous kitty's "morality" has some really absurd implications.
In other words....
"Shut up", she explained.
Anyway, I think Eugene Volokh explains far better than I can.
...To me, a comment thread on our site is like a party to which we're inviting you. Thanks to technology, we don't need to worry about our beer and chips budget, or about your breaking our furniture, and you don't need to be stymied by travel time or your having another party that evening. The party could thus (in theory) be much larger than a typical party we'd throw in real space.
Still, we throw parties because we think they would be fun for guests; and a few guests can sometimes ruin this fun (or at least as best we, as hosts, can guess) for other guests. Chiming into a conversation with insults is one way. Coming across like a crank, or ranting and throwing around exaggerated invective, is another...
If you're liberal-leaning, would it help if Megan framed it this way:
"We all make mistakes. I know that sometimes people say things in comments that they don't really mean; they get caught up in the argument, and post without calming down first. I'm going to exercise some editorial rights, to keep people from hurting themselves or others with ill-advised comments."
(Megan as Nurturing Mother... hmm, April Fool's day is coming up...)
"The purpose of the comment threads is to encourage interesting discussion, not regression into toddlerhood."
I have a toddler who is a very good natured little girl, polite, kind, helpful. Stop insulting toddlers. :-)
Megan: Good on you.
It is your blog and you may censor on any basis that you choose. Should there be any cost in terms of lost readership, you bear it; should there be any gain in a more pleasant to read commentary stream, we all gain.
This is not an open forum. Duh. This is Megan's blog which allows comments to be posted after each post. Every single time you post, you see this:
I've helpfully put the important part in bold.
If you want free speech, go to Blogger or another free blog hosting site and make your own blog. You can even include a link to it in your posts here.
Well...
Apparently I am mistaken on certain assumptions about the libertarian spirit *within* the scope of property rights. (i.e. How "free" one allows a blog that falls under their ownership)
Person A owns blog and bans certain language/expression.
Person B owns a blog and allows almost all language.
BOTH are exercising property rights. BEYOND THAT, person b is holding more true to the fundamental beliefs about human behavior (i.e. freedom) that drive the libertarian spirit. Or is libertarianism: so long as you are giving lip-service to private property, restrictions on open forums you might own all have the same value of freedom? Gosh, thats simplistic.
"Simple libertarian primer: Individuals should give money to worthy causes and should not tolerate offensive speech."
Huh? Seems to me that if anyone owning a broadcast medium is free to tolerate whatever the hell s/he wants. So if I were to run a forum and permitted speech that most would find offensive under the assumption that this creates, say, the most emotionally honest atmosphere that benefits a certain specific profit motive, this would be anti-libertarian?
Offensive speech is often not appropriate. It can be though, to get feeling out in the open.
"And the fact that no actual libertarian is alleging hypocrisy should suggest to those of you who are that you may not understand libertarianism as well as you think you do."
Where can I sign up to be an "actual" one? Do you have the forms, and could you suggest the agency I'd submit them to? Having read magazines like Liberty for the past few years, it seems to me that if you get two libertarians in a room together they'll find something to disagree on within seconds. Anyone with the audacity to demarcating "actual" libertarianism with a straight face... I tip my hat to you, sir.
Anyway, it appears that most folks are in agreement with the issue; thus it is a profitable decision for the sake of her blog, and I am certainly in no position to disagree. I cant help but feel that the reflex goes against something fundamental, at least in spirit, hence the initial 'eye-brow rise'. And subsequent defense of said eyebrow rise.
Thanks to everyone who took time to respond to me.
Megan: Bravo!
Almost 10 years ago now I was posting on slashdot. It was small enough to have actual conversations with other posters. Then it got too big for that. So many of us moved to Kuro5hin. Rusty, who owns and runs Kuro5hin, ran it on the lines that anonymous kitty supports. If you have an account you can post anything. That was, in my opinion, a bad idea. Eventually (after the personal attacks extended to people posting photoshopped pictures of Rusty's wife's face in a porn picture) Rusty had to crack down.
By that time most of the people who wanted an intelligent conversation had moved to a site whose editors have a heavy hand in moderating comments and other posts that are offensive.
Rusty may be able to save Kuro5hin, but I doubt it.
Megan,
I give you credit for allowing comments and responding in the comments section, unlike some other Atlantic bloggers. Moreover, you have the right to set whatever rules you see fit. I would note, however, that when you write: "Teaching you to read was your mother's job, not mine."
you seem to be violating the spirit, if not the letter of your "insulting my relatives" rule.
Good for you Megan! Civility is never a detriment to honest conversation.
Brandon,
It is clear you don't understand what libertarianism really is if you think it has some fundamental connection to freedom of expression in all forums. If I had to condense it down for you this is how I would do it:
I can do with my property whatever I want as long I don't infringe your doing with your property whatever you want.
In the case at hand, this is Megan McArdle's blog, and she has invited you in to discuss things with her and her other guests. Since it is her blog, she can set any rules she desires for discourse. If she wished to discuss only the benefits of eating small children- within a pure libertarian framework, she would be completely within her rights to ban all commenters that disagreed (of course, the actual eating of small children would not be permissible within a libertarian society.)
I don't mean to pick on you specifically- many self-identified libertarians also don't understand the fundamentals of the concept.
Morally, it is wrong to censor speech. There are any number of reasons why it may be morally repugnant.
Megan is not censoring speech. There is nothing to stop any person who is capable of posting a comment on this blog to set up their own blog and say whatever they were planning to comment here.
There are people who believe that uncensored speech is inherently good and limiting that does harm. Just because someone can do something does not make that thing beneficial. I am aware of the distinction between governments censoring speech and private entities censoring speech. Again, speaking as a moral matter, I think that the latter is almost as bad as the former (although only the former is illegal in most cases).
Megan is not censoring speech. She is limiting what can be said on her blog, but she is not stopping anyone from setting up their own blog, or printing their own newspaper, or broadcasting their own radio station, and saying whatever they want.
There is a large difference between having the right to say something, and having the right to say it in a particular location. Which is good because otherwise we would all be open to torment by any lunatic who, say, chose to follow us into our houses and spend all night ranting about how toothpaste is the devil's work. Freedom of speech does not place an obligation on everyone else to listen to you or to let you talk wherever you want.
Good for you, Megan. Regardless of the forum, manners do make a difference. Far too many people nowadays believe that their freedom of speech obligates others to listen to them.
Since Megan is not a government yet,the comment regulation is appropriate.
It always drives me bonkers when people get emotional about comment policies. What if a blog host wakes up one morning, moves to Australia, and never blogs again, thus causing the end of that blog's world. Are they murderers? Is it commenter genocide?
Pretty much anything that comes to you free, or that is the result of a voluntary action, and NOT sourced from the government, should leave you with little to complain about. It's like complaining that McDonald's won't sell you a Whopper or that the stadium won't let you bring food inside.
There is NO moral issue.
Ever since you moved to the Atlantic, a good rule of thumb is the more comment deletion the better. What does such a great magazine do to deserve such a crappy readership?
"Shut" and "up" banned in conjunction?
No problem!
Hey Megan:
SHUT it seems obvious to common sense that the people of such an island should be but one nation, yet we find that they were for ages divided into three, and that those three were almost constantly embroiled in quarrels and wars with one another. Notwithstanding their true interest with respect to the continental nations was really the same, yet by the arts and policy and practices of those nations, their mutual jealousies were perpetually kept inflamed, and for a long series of years they were far more inconvenient and troublesome than they were useful and assisting to each other. Should the people of America divide themselves into three or four nations, would not the same thing happen? Would not similar jealousies arise, and be in like manner cherished? Instead of their being "joined in affection" and free from all apprehension of different "interests," envy and jealousy would soon extinguish confidence and affection, and the partial interests of each UP!!!!!
Comment left for the virtue of being (very) mildly amusing. This should not be taken as encouragement by others. --ed
Morally, it is wrong to censor speech.
No, it's not.
In no religion, creed, or philosophy -- other than perhaps apathetic nihilism carried to logical ends -- will you find any expression of morality that conceded a right to express anything, anytime, anyplace, without restriction, repurcussion, or other form of consequence.
I've noticed this principle tends to be least understood when people comment anonymously on the Internet, having evidently no clue just how many property right owernship and/or usage contracts had to be negotiated, under terms of money, for a site to exist and persist.
Some advice on how to deal with this:
-- Don't blog about it, don't mention it at all, don't let them know they're getting under your skin
-- Silently delete comments you don't like, silently ban IPs if you are able
-- Never defend or even acknowledge your actions
This really works, believe me. You completely deprive the troublemakers of oxygen, and the other readers are never inconvenienced.
I agree with marke... just do it. Don't talk about it.
marke's advice is probably good if one wants to be a beloved pundit, but I respect McMegan's public introspection and her attempt to grapple with the issues here.
It seems that any time anyone expresses an uncool (unliberal) opinion, suddenly we're reviewing her posts for publication in Science, with everyone demanding specific evidence for every claim. While the Crooked Timbers of the world probably write more carefully and assert less, I'm sure a similar outraged examination of their blog would turn up at least a few "assertions without evidence." I'd bet Kos would do even worse. I mean, these are blogs for cryin' out loud!
On the blogs I frequent, the most venom and personal attacks are reserved for people with some un-leftie ideas trying to engage lefties: Amy Sullivan and Megan.
Morally, it is wrong to censor speech.
Does this mean it is morally wrong for me to insist that the KKK not burn crosses on my yard?
Brandon:
BOTH are exercising property rights. BEYOND THAT, person b is holding more true to the fundamental beliefs about human behavior (i.e. freedom) that drive the libertarian spirit.
Forbidding people from posting abusive comments on your blog is no more contrary to the spirit of libertarianism than is forbidding people to urinate on the floor of your house.
Simple libertarian primer: Individuals should live money to worthy causes and should not tolerate offensive speech. Government should not give money to worthy causes and should tolerate offensive speech.
Posted by David Wright | March 26, 2008 4:42 AM
seems to be the long, and the short, of it..
I generally think moderation of comments should be done with a light hand, but I agree with Megan's policy here. (Not that it really matters if I agree its her blog not mine.) There has been more than enough bomb throwing, insults and personal comments. Better to stick to the issues.
As for the idea that its somehow unlibertarian or against the spirit of libertarianism to delete comments - That's a silly thought IMO. Megan's controlling her blog, you can control yours if you have one. Libertarianism is about freedom, including the freedom to have a blog where the conversation in the comments is supposed to be polite and focused on the issues.
It would be against the spirit of libertarian thought if the government imposed this requirement on Megan, or if Megan imposed such a policy on someone else's blog or other site or discussion. But Megan (and the Atlantic) have a right to control this site.
I've not yet seen anyone mention that each reader is quite free to go comment on some other blog more to his liking, should he not agree with Megan's policy. There's nothing keeping anyone here except the [generally] high level of intelligent discussion. Which is, I presume, what Megan wishes to preserve?
Brian is completely correct when he says
I don't consider myself a libertarian, but I do take a mainly libertarian tack when it comes to speech issues. But I never understood why people scream about free speech issues when it comes to blog comments. Presumably, they wouldn't be happy if they were watching a film at a theater and someone barged in using a megaphone. It's not very difficult or expensive to start a new blog and comment there to your heart's content. I think what people are really upset about is not having access to the attention of Megan's readership, which is NOT something to which they were ever entitled to begin.
Fred, I don't think that comments are a good reflection of a blog's readership. Rude jerks are more likely to comment more than polite people, simply because they don't think about whether their comment is socially appropriate before making it.