If IMDB were an American product, would the boards still be open now? - General Discussion Discussion

[–] mechajutaro (2788) 9 months ago

Found myself getting nostalgic for IMDB in The 2000s the other day, then realized: The mods there were already editing out swearing, links to videos and pics containing "too much nudity", and jokes which were "offensive". As early as '05, we were already drifting very far away from the days of GeoCities, where if you found something someone's words objectionable, you either engaged them in conversation, or moved on with life

The seeds of this clusterfuck our entire culture has been in since about '16 or so were already taking root, even back then. It's highly unlikely that IMDB would've had more guts than Reddit, The Movie Database post-2020, YouTube, and most other social media platforms

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[–] Mustang (5432) 9 months ago

It always struck me as odd that you could throw insults around on the site provided you didn't swear.

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[–] Mustang (5432) 9 months ago

It was at a time when lots of newspapers were also closing down comments sections. Trying to control the dialogue. One of the IMDb theories I heard was that lots of agents, stars and movie production houses didn't like people critiicizing their products and stars. Which is quite possible.

I personally think IMDb couldn't keep up with moderating all the posts and it simply became a pain in the arse for them. I like this site as it has a similar set up with all the shows and movies having their own boards.

Personally I don't think it would have made a difference which country owned IMDb.

I also don't like how IMDb would sometimes cull the threads on some boards when they got too much. Some older movies and TV shows should have way more threads than they do because of that.

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[–] mechajutaro (2788) 9 months ago

"I personally thing IMDb couldn't keep up with moderating all the posts and it simply became a pain in the arse for them"

Google themselves ain't helping things. Sites which are deemed to have "too much" "edgy content" end up exiled from search results, and thus inaccessible to everyday visitors to The World Wide Web. This is similar to North Korea's definition of free expression... You're free to speak you're mind in public without free of being penalized, as long as your thoughts are carbon copies of those in The C Suites

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[–] Mustang (5432) 9 months ago

Yeah IMDb seemed quite happy to run with political comments provided they were Left ones. Anyone who expressed something else would start getting warnings and banned etc. I do find it odd that they decided to stop the boards around the time that the Conservative voice started to be heard more.

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[–] Skavau (15993) 9 months ago

Ah yes, a search engine censoring results (although I can actually find tons of edgy content from google search, so not really sure this is happening at the scale you claim) is just like North Korea where they arrest people and send them to labour camps (and their family) for mild dissent against the regime.

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[–] mechajutaro (2788) 9 months ago

Yeah... When we're gang raped at a frat party, we should just be grateful that we weren't kept in a DIY dungeon by Ariel Castro for over a decade

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[–] Skavau (15993) 9 months ago

There's clearly a difference between a private company censoring their website, and the state arresting your family for watching k-dramas dude.

What sites are censored by google results anyway?

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[–] mechajutaro (2788) 9 months ago

Here in The US, the state IS also spearheading censorship https://youtu.be/O-QXag1PzZo?si=Zdq3eHrPpWNtiN4T

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[–] Skavau (15993) 9 months ago

A 56 minute discussion. From where I'm sitting, it seems that the right in the USA want to attack freedom of association and force private companies to host content they don't agree with.

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[–] mechajutaro (2788) 9 months ago

Listen to what's being said, before you form a conclusion. Otherwise, you're no less of a dunce than Fucker Carlson, whenever one of his favorite dogmas is challenged https://m.facebook.com/CatoInstitute/videos/catos-alex-nowrasteh-debates-tucker-carlson-on-immigration/791190697916206/

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[–] Skavau (15993) 9 months ago

I was speaking generally here. I've heard many of the arguments before. I don't have time to watch a 55+ minute interview right now. Despite all of this supposed censorship, far-right, reactionary, conspiracy-adjacent, anti-US positions are everywhere online.

At any rate any comparison of the USA to North Korea on this are utterly absurd, and makes your position farcical. The right (rightly, sometimes) complains about comparisons to nazism, but this is just as absurd.

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[–] mechajutaro (2788) 9 months ago

The censorship isn't just aimed at those who've been labelled "Far Right". Case in point: Current efforts to silence critics of Israel on university campuses across America

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[–] Skavau (15993) 9 months ago

Is that the state doing that? Are people being arrested for this?

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[–] mechajutaro (2788) 9 months ago

Hear for yourself https://www.wnyc.org/story/college-presidents-responses-antisemitism-campus/

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[–] Skavau (15993) 9 months ago

Them testifying to Congress about the levels of anti-semitism on their campuses is not someone being arrested.

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[–] mechajutaro (2788) 9 months ago

We're way beyond "just trstifying". Had you listened to that interview carefully, there'd be no need to point this out

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[–] Skavau (15993) 9 months ago

I am waiting for examples of people in the USA arrested purely for being anti-israel. I completely agree it can be career and education threatening.

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[–] mechajutaro (2788) 9 months ago

A cultural climate in which a staggering amount of Americans have seen their careers destroyed and ended up vilified for utering "problematic" thoughts out loud is acceptable, so long as no one is going to prison for saying "the wrong thing"... Gotcha

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[–] Skavau (15993) 9 months ago

I didn't say it was acceptable. I said that it isn't the same as the state arresting people.

What would you have be done about it?

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[–] mechajutaro (2788) 9 months ago

I'd have the university admins act like they've got something more than dog shit in the way of sense and integrity, by championing the virtues of inquiry and the robust exchange if ideas. If someone objects to someone else's thoughts, that's resolved by interrogating those thoughts for their truthfulness, not screeching "I FEEL unsafe", then expecting Big Brother or Big Mama to silence whoever it is we consider "insufficiently doctrainaire"

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[–] Skavau (15993) 9 months ago

That's an aspiration. But I meant in terms of the state: How do you solve this? How do you stop influential companies from blacklisting individuals for what they say?

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[–] mechajutaro (2788) 9 months ago

We can start by admitting that censorship is a real problem in our society today. Instead of ducking and diving, via glib evasions like:

"Well, no one is going to prison for anything they' said, therefore life is just hunky dory"

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[–] Skavau (15993) 9 months ago

I bought that up because you made the comparison to North Korea.

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[–] Melton (4567) 9 months ago

Mechajutaro, Skavau is a regime lackey whose goal is to gaslight everyone into thinking woke takeover and increasing regime authoritarianism aren’t a problem… so that they can continue. It’s very similar to Holocaust denial.

He uses strawmanning and constantly launches Hatchling questions to try and exhaust his victims - he wants you running around for evidence (which he’ll immediately make pathetic excuses to reject) until you tire and give up, to create a fake ‘win’ for himself.

It should come as no surprise to you that while he tries to gaslight you into thinking censorship isn't a problem, he himself is a practitioner of censorship - has has gone squealing to the mods to get me shut down for exposing his basic bitch bag of rhetorical tricks.

Just a heads up.

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[–] mechajutaro (2788) 9 months ago

Much obliged for the heads up

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[–] Skavau (15993) 9 months ago

Private companies banning people from their platform, or private employers have nothing to do with "regime authoritarianism". They operate of their own volition.

Your comparison to North Korea was preposterous.

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[–] Skavau (15993) 9 months ago

Private companies banning people from their platform, or private employers have nothing to do with "regime authoritarianism". They operate of their own volition.

>It should come as no surprise to you that while he tries to gaslight you into thinking censorship isn't a problem, he himself is a practitioner of censorship - has has gone squealing to the mods to get me shut down for exposing his basic bitch bag of rhetorical tricks.

I said no such thing. I said the comparison to North Korea is absurd.

Do you, for instance, for think North Korea is as free as the USA?

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[–] Melton (4567) 8 months ago

Private companies banning people from their platform, or private employers have nothing to do with "regime authoritarianism". They operate of their own volition.

Horseshit, and you know it. Your gaslighting is as obvious and ineffective as ever.

I said no such thing. I said the comparison to North Korea is absurd.

Do you, for instance, for think North Korea is as free as the USA?

Weak pivot. You went squealing to the mods have me shutdown because I’ve exposed your dishonest rhetorical tricks. You’re a pro-censorship authoritarian so all of your complaints about censorious policies ring hollow.

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[–] Skavau (15993) 8 months ago

>Horseshit, and you know it. Your gaslighting is as obvious and ineffective as ever.

I know of no such thing. Are you genuinely claiming that Reddit or Youtube or Facebook banning people for violating their terms of service has something to do with the state arresting people for what they say?

>Weak pivot. You went squealing to the mods have me shutdown because I’ve exposed your dishonest rhetorical tricks. You’re a pro-censorship authoritarian so all of your complaints about censorious policies ring hollow.

There is no such pivot. The basis of my answer in all of this was that the US, in no sense, is comparable to North Korea. You can note the problems of social media dominance on public discourse without making such a ridiculous comparison.

And how am I "pro-censorship"? Is explaining that private companies operate independently somehow justifying whatever they do?

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[–] Melton (4567) 8 months ago

You’re pro-censorship because you went squealing to the mods have me shut down because I’ve exposed your dishonest rhetorical tricks, and also because you’re trying to gaslight people into thinking that social media censorship isn’t a thing - thankfully you’re too dumb to pull this off.

Now, unleash some more pathetic excuses for your censorious behaviour and try to pivot away again. Go…

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[–] Skavau (15993) 8 months ago

>You’re pro-censorship because you went squealing to the mods have me shut down because I’ve exposed your dishonest rhetorical tricks

No, I went to the moderators because you were harassing me across the forum and echoing baseless allegations about me being a pedophile. I have seen moderators ban people for this type of conduct.

Do you think website forums should have no rules at all, and if they do, are they "pro-censorship"?

Are you also, on this point, against any form of libel laws?

>and also because you’re trying to gaslight people into thinking that social media censorship isn’t a thing - thankfully you’re too dumb to pull this off.

I said no such thing. I said the comparison to North Korea is absurd.

The basis of my answer in all of this was that the US, in no sense, is comparable to North Korea. You can note the problems of social media dominance on public discourse without making such a ridiculous comparison.

>Now, unleash some more pathetic excuses for your censorious behaviour and try to pivot away again. Go…

The amount of times you've made this identical joke is truly astonishing. And how is actually directly responding to your claims remotely "pivoting"?

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[–] capuchin (3195) 9 months ago

The IMDb has been owned outright by Amazon since 1998.

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[–] mechajutaro (2788) 9 months ago

And Wokeness/PC has been infiltrating business schools and ultimately The C Suites of Corporate America for even longer

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[–] JoWilli (20094) 9 months ago

it was closed down shortly after Trump was in the White House. coincidence?

they didnt want Americans spreading the truth about the election not being hijacked.

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[–] mechajutaro (2788) 9 months ago

Right around the time we started taking increasingly elastic definitions of "safety", "harm", and "bigotry"

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[–] Satan2016 (25539) 9 months ago

WTF, do you live on the moon? Did China buy Amazon? Imdb has ALWAYS been American!

The reason the boards shut down is Imdb was selling their Pro package, and potential customers saw the toxic trolling on the boards.

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[–] Valerian (-273) 9 months ago

1990 - 1993 Usenet+FTP, rec.arts.movies movie database, servers around the world
1993 - 1996 WWW, Cardiff Internet Movie Database, Cardiff University in Wales
1996 - 1998 WWW, Internet Movie Database Ltd. in UK
1998 - present Amazon

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMDb#Pre-website

I don't know if the website and its mirrors had message boards before Amazon bought them, but Usenet certainly was free for all.

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[–] mechajutaro (2788) 9 months ago

"The reason the boards shut down is Imdb was selling their Pro package, and potential customers saw the toxic trolling on the boards"

None of us has any obligation to ruminate on words we find objectionable, ESPECIALLY when we're talking about words written on an online message board. We moderns cling to the falsehood that this is complicated