I hope you're right, but I don't think that there's a lot of users that would simply keep posting if they were flagged so hard they could not gain rewards. You are more durable and intent on speaking the truth than most, as I am sure you know.
A well funded group determined to cancel wrongthink would be able to cancel most of those they targeted. While I think Hivewatchers are the former, I don't think they are truly focused on wrongthink, and sometimes just get pissed off at folks and take them out, instead of only acting on spam, scams, and plagiarism. Ideally they wouldn't act against mere insults, but there've been cases where verbal abuse rose to the level of criminal offense. IANAL, but such cases may have to be dealt with to protect Hive from legal jeopardy.
I think marky, as @antisocialist says, does as he chooses a lot, and doesn't necessarily seek consensus. The problem isn't with marky, but with the code that enables opinion flagging because that potentiates a group dedicated to actual censorship to take people out.
My problem is that I cannot conceive of code that can potentiate censoring spam, scams, and plagiarism that doesn't enable censoring Democrats, Communists, or any particular flavor of political speech just as easily. Spam, scams, and plagiarism need to be flagged into the dust, and that ability only isn't toxic to free speech if those that wield it refuse to exercise their power against those they disagree with.
I can see no way to code that. We are left dependent on goodwill, which doesn't always work even when angels wield that power, and sure as hell won't work when devils have it.
I hope you're right, but I don't think that there's a lot of users that would simply keep posting if they were flagged so hard they could not gain rewards. You are more durable and intent on speaking the truth than most, as I am sure you know.
A well funded group determined to cancel wrongthink would be able to cancel most of those they targeted. While I think Hivewatchers are the former, I don't think they are truly focused on wrongthink, and sometimes just get pissed off at folks and take them out, instead of only acting on spam, scams, and plagiarism. Ideally they wouldn't act against mere insults, but there've been cases where verbal abuse rose to the level of criminal offense. IANAL, but such cases may have to be dealt with to protect Hive from legal jeopardy.
I think marky, as @antisocialist says, does as he chooses a lot, and doesn't necessarily seek consensus. The problem isn't with marky, but with the code that enables opinion flagging because that potentiates a group dedicated to actual censorship to take people out.
My problem is that I cannot conceive of code that can potentiate censoring spam, scams, and plagiarism that doesn't enable censoring Democrats, Communists, or any particular flavor of political speech just as easily. Spam, scams, and plagiarism need to be flagged into the dust, and that ability only isn't toxic to free speech if those that wield it refuse to exercise their power against those they disagree with.
I can see no way to code that. We are left dependent on goodwill, which doesn't always work even when angels wield that power, and sure as hell won't work when devils have it.