Posted on 02/09/2017 11:14:35 AM PST by Theo
Free speech is a fundamental part of the Disqus network. We power diverse discussions across millions of websites, reaching billions of readers. Our platform enables people from across the web and around the world to share, discuss, and debate issues and their beliefs. Whether or not we personally identify with everything posted on our network, we believe in the right to speak our minds and share our ideas.
As a company, we encourage our team to speak their minds respectfully and promote diversity of thought. We are a team of varied backgrounds, cultures, and beliefs. The diversity of our team helps us to build solutions for publishers of all shapes and sizes. It makes Disqus a great place to work. And it is something that we strive to protect.
Recently, many passionate users have reached out to us regarding instances of hate speech across our network. Language that offends, threatens, or insults groups solely based on race, color, gender, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, or other traits is against our network terms and has no place on the Disqus network. Hate speech is the antithesis of community and an impediment to the type of intellectual discussion that we strive to facilitate.
We know that language published on our network does not exist within a vacuum. It has the power to reach billions of people, change opinions and incite action. Hate speech is a threat, not only to those it targets, but to constructive discourse of all forms across all communities. Hate speech creates fear, deters participation in public debate, and hinders diversity of thoughts and opinions.
We have the opportunity and the responsibility to combat hate speech on our network. Our goal is to foster environments where users can express their diverse opinions without the fear of experiencing hate speech. We persistently remove content that contains hate speech or that otherwise violates our terms and policies. However, we know that simply reactively removing hate speech is not sufficient. That is why we are dedicated to building tools for readers and publishers to combat hate speech, and are open to partnering with other organizations who share our goal.
We recently released several features to help readers and publishers better control offensive and otherwise unwanted content. User Blocking and User Flagging allow users to block and report other users who are violating our terms of service. Our new moderation panel makes it easier for publishers to identify and moderate comments based on user reputation.
Currently, we are working on improved tools to help publishers effectively prevent troublesome users from returning to their sites. And as we get smarter about identifying hate speech, we are working on ways to automatically remove it from our network.
As an organization, Disqus firmly stands against hate speech in all forms. To recap, in an effort to combat hate speech both on and off our network, we are making the following commitments:
1. We will enforce our terms of service by removing hate speech and harassment on our network. To report hate speech and other abusive behavior, please follow these instructions.
2. We will invest in new features for publishers and readers to better manage hate speech. We hope to talk more about this soon.
3. To support this philosophy, we will also be supporting organizations that are equipped to fight hate speech outside of Disqus. We are exploring several options and plan to dedicate portions of our advertising profits to fight hate speech.
The comments really are something. Here’s one example:
“There are literal Nazis in the White House using Breitbart as their propaganda arm and this is all you’ll do? This is milquetoast.”
And another:
“Divest all business from Breitbart and back your words with actions.”
And another:
“This is not enough. Cease business with this cruel and slanderous white-nationalist propaganda site Breitbart, or find yourself complicit in the hate-mongering and its national consequences.”
And another:
“You need to cut your ties with #Breitbart. It’s business model has evolved to now appeal to and promote White Nationalist sentiment. Endless stories that race bait Blacks, are anti-LGBT, anti-brown skinned immigrant and anti-Muslim. I implore Disqus to take a stand against that.”
As an organization, Disqus firmly stands against hate speech in all forms.
It is unclear, but are they now going to BAN All College Students, Hollywood and Demonrats??
The latter two, are the most hateful, vile, racist people on the Planet you will ever meet.
Big Disqus user here (as opposed to FacePlant) but they are at the root of the problem. I fully expect them to cave to leftist pressure to throttle the voices of the right.
enjoy the wild west internet while you can. One of these days the usual suspects will sanitize it and it will be renamed the Doctor Professor Martin Luther the King Interwebs
The stupidest lefties in the world spam-post to Disquis.
As a company, we encourage our team to speak their minds respectfully and promote diversity of thought. ...
Recently, many passionate users have reached out to us regarding instances of hate speech across our network. Language that offends, threatens, or insults groups solely based on race, color, gender, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, or other traits is against our network terms and has no place on the Disqus network.
i.e. they are, in effect, telling you not to discuss any of those subjects. This contradicts the first paragraph.
PC is dead.
And I don’t use Disqus.
Big Disqus user here (as opposed to FacePlant) but they are at the root of the problem. I fully expect them to cave to leftist pressure to throttle the voices of the right.
Then I guess the right will move on and leave Disqus to their vile, repugnant, ranting leftists. It will give them a life time of BS to go through, with not much substance except for 4 letter words, name calling - racists, homophobic, etc. You know, intelligent conversation.
what do you use, Mr, Douglas?
If they simply deleted every post where the F word was used, Disqus would not have any left wing posters. The vile posts that contain hate are almost universally directed towards conservatives.
Most of the hate speech epidemic nowadays comes from the media.
Hate speech, formerly known as ‘free speech.’
what do you use, Mr, Douglas?
That facebook page now has hundreds of friends, almost all of which are from Africa.
I set up my fake person as a graduate of a very large high school in a large american city a couple of decades ago, who went to a non-descript college and now works for a very large company at one of their very large locations , also in the US.
I never, ever respond to anyone, and I accept every single friend request I get, but I rarely actually log into that account. It’s interesting that this got me the friends it did.
Wow, If they attempt to do that on a lot of sites I visit (e.g. weasel zippers for one) they will get a lot of push back, and I would venture that they will get dropped by some sites as a commentary tool.
Personally, I would applaud disqus going the way of the dodo. It is really a piece of crap platform, subject to outages, inconsistent performance, etc.
Consider this:
Censorship is a hate crime.
We as Americans have a god given right, protected by our constitution to be offensive and to insult any one we want. It is our right.
We as well have the right to be offended.
What NO ONE has, however is the right to censor or shut us up. That is actually a crime, and is an expression of hate and rejection of other ideas.
A very dangerous proposition that will lead to the horrible and oppressive conditions that we have now in Europe.
Too bad, what they call progressive ideas are actually pretty regressive, we are seeing now the seeds being planted for a future civil war in Europe. It is really sad.
So, Disqus will just become a boring, completely useless Comments page where moderate Leftists argue with hard line Leftists?
Disqus is a privately owned blog comment hosting service.
They charge like $100 a month for their service, and they completely dominate their little business niche.
They have no technology that cannot be worked around or improved.
This is an ideal business opportunity for a “Conservative” Disqus that does allow Conservatives and Leftists to co-mingle and to shout, curse, and libel each other.
Re: “A very dangerous proposition that will lead to the horrible and oppressive conditions that we have now in Europe.”
Many people in the USA do not realize that Canada also uses their law and their Courts to suppress Conservative speech and publications.
I bet their “enforcement” will be all one-sided. They can even rationalize it bythe relative “sensitivity
of conservatives to Liberals. Liberals have heart palpitations and may have seizures triggered by anything rational that a conservative might say. A conservatives may raise a verbal eyebrow or even chuckle so anti conservative speech need not be censored but in deference to the fragile or compromised mental health of the liberal users, conservative speech should be blocked.
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