Ken Snider runs the "Donald Trump Inspired Assholes" page on BoingBoing.net with an iron fist. Boing Boing describes their site as "a discussion forum so you can participate in the conversation." One might think that implies their support of diversity, but you can't have diversity while at the same time censoring diverse views that say anything unpopular among the use base. I found this out within the past 24 hours when I noticed a post discussing my former neighbor. My neighbor is about to go on trial for murder and the image of him in the press is not consistent with the person I know. On top of that there are a lot of things about the case that stink, so I've been trying to help people realize that. I didn't say anything that advocated for violence, was racist, or even rude. Just the fact that I disputed the government's version of events was enough for people to start flagging the post even after the staff re-instated it. Eventually I even found myself banned for criticizing people for the frivolous flagging.
My original comment was as follows:
"The sad thing about this is that he was just scared of getting his ass kicked again. The problem with the victim-blaming stigma is that it keeps people from really taking a good look at situations like this one. Plus the DA's office around here has a horrible history of systematic victim white washing so you can't rely on they [sic] to [sic] anything but fully supporting anything anyone they treat as a victim has ever done.
I'm not going to say that Jeremy couldn't have done differently, but I will say that when someone is out numbered and fearing an imminent ass whipping that you can't be surprised if they use whatever means available to defend themselves."
Ken Snider's justification for blocking the statement was, "Claiming it was the victims fault for trying to stop a racist tirade (which, implicitly suggests stabbing someone who shoves you is ok) doesn't fly here for multiple reasons." Mr. Snider's response misses my point entirely. I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with trying to stop a racist tirade if in fact that is what happened or that stabbing someone just for shoving you by itself is justified. I am saying that when a group of three men circle up on someone and shoves him after he pulls a knife to deter future physicality that they should not be surprised if he uses the knife. Snider's conduct seems to imply that you can't say anything contrary to public opinion on BoingBoing.net.
Unlike me, other users made completely unsubstantiated false statements in response to my comment. LDoBe said "Gearing up to fight with antifa types kind of puts you in the Pro-fa category." So, apparently disagreeing with Antifa about something makes me a facist. That sounds like something a facist would say about anyone that disagrees with the party. Kathy Padilla makes a number of claims based entirely on news stories that quote the DA's office. Anyone that knows anything about the Multnomah County District Attorney's Office is that they lie all the time. That is my main reason for saying you can't believe the narrative. They lie so much that when they do tell the truth you can't take what they say literally.
Unlike me, Kathy Padilla actually advocated for violence by saying, "the sad thing isn't that a racist piece of shit murderer is facing justice for his crimes- its that someone wasn't able to put that dog down before he succeeded in his crimes." So apparently it would be ok to start killing white supremacists before they ever commit crimes. No civilized society can function like that. Ms. Padilla obviously never considered all the former white supremacist that would not be around to denounce their old views had they been put down.
Finally, by censoring people's post just because users of a platform find them offensive discredits the platform as a whole. Nobody can rely on BoingBoing.net for a diverse range of opinions if the only ones that don't get deleted are the ones that don't offend the user base. The best way to combat what someone finds offensive is with debate and not censorship.