2024-AT-15: Staff and Kingcrusader

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@picklepikkl has agreed to be my advocate and has helped me write my appeal.

I was infracted for the following post here:
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.c...-and-the-new-mccarthyism.123752/post-30978560

The moderator gave me an explanation for the infraction as follows:

Your post (Islamophobia and the New McCarthyism) violates the rules.

Your ability to post in the thread has been removed for 72 hours. You have violated Rule 2: Do not be Hateful, and have been infracted for 25 points.

"That sucks. Don't mock people." can be interpreted, if not actually directly means, that the murders that occurred at Charlie Hebdo were their own fault. This is victim blaming. That Charlie Hebdo may be a vile comic journal rather than a satire one can be discussed at length, but to so utterly disregard the loss of lives that occurred is not something acceptable on Sufficient Velocity, and as such, due also to past Staff Notices levied against you, this has escalated into an Infraction.
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The starting point of all of this was when a fellow user, Hykal94, posted a tweet containing an image, which was published by a left wing French newspaper, liberation. The image was drawn by a woman who used to work for a political cartoonist publishing magazine, Charlie hebdo.

I responded to the post by asking what the definition of leftism is in France, because I wondered why they would published stuff like this. I then edited my post to add information about the woman who drew it, who, turns out, used to work with Charlie hebdo.

Another fellow user, Corti, then responded to me, saying that the newspaper was a satirical newspaper, mentioning they mock everyone. I then responded back to him, mentioning how I didn't care of them being a satirical newspaper, that the people who drew their cartoons are disgraceful people who promoted bigotry.

Then a fellow user, Fourthspartan56, posts about the fact about how hard it is to believe that Charlie hebdo were the bad guys, given the fact that they had death threats. I responded to Fourthspartan56 by saying "that sucks, don't mock people."

The moderator infracted my post towards Fourthspartan56 for being callous about the shooting that happened at the main building of charlie hebdo, but the moderator made a mistake. The comment i made was only and specifically towards the death threats comment made by fourthspartan56, not towards the shooting itself. The shooting was brought up only afterwords and in none of my posts after it had I suggest moral equivalence between Charlie Hebdo and the attackers who killed twelve people. It is not reasonable to read into my comment callousness toward an event nobody in the thread was discussing at the time and level an infraction for it.

So in short, I wasn't saying that the deaths of the workers of Charlie hebdo were deserved, I didn't try to imply it either. My comment was only towards the death threats comment made by fourthspartan56. So the points should be removed.
 
Information: Arbitrator Ruling
  • Staff Post
    • Hello @Kingcrusader.

    I will be Upholding the Infraction.

    Given that likely the most prominent fact regarding Charlie Hebdo to an international audience would be the 2015 murder of a dozen people by Islamist terrorists, arguing that you were supporting death threats as a valid form of expression, when said threats demonstrably led to actual deaths in the case in question, seems rather trying to split hairs. The brief length of your post didn't exactly give a lot of nuanced explanation.
    That's leaving aside that death threats themselves are not considered acceptable on SV.

    Since you also have a track record of being warned for borderline Rule 2 and Rule 3 issues, I don't see that clemency is warranted here.
    Please considerer matters a bit more before posting when discussing sensitive topics in future.

    arbitrator ruling
    25 point Infraction under Rule 2 Upheld.

    Should you disagree with this ruling, you may appeal to the Council for Tribunal Review of your case within the next 72 hours. If so, please set out how you feel this ruling was incorrect.

    Regards.
     
  • Staff Post
    • am appealing to the Council.

    I disagree with the Arbitrator's ruling. Ironanvil claimed that even if they accepted my argument, I was supporting the death threats as a valid form of expression, which would also break the rules. This statement is wrong, because I wasn't arguing in favor of the death threats as a valid form of expression, or anything like that. In the context of the rest of my original post, it's clear that I was saying that both Charlie Hebdo and the people who sent them death threats were bad: both of them were using their speech to hurt others and make them unsafe. The thing I was arguing against was that being sent death threats renders your previous actions blameless. As you can see here, later in the conversation I restated that point more clearly:

    Fourthspartan56 said:
    Even if their behavior was completely unacceptable that does not give a free pass for others to behave in the most extreme and hateful manner possible.
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    Kingcrusader said:
    I agree with you. It is also a fact that they shouldn't get a free pass of respect from anyone for what they do.
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    The Arbitrator also says that my post lacked nuance. I was only focusing on the speech, which was, again, my comment towards fourthspartan56, because I believed the conversation at that point in the thread was about speech. I could have added a parenthetical at the end saying something like "(But murder is obviously worse than hurtful speech and so the attack was totally unjustified)", but I didn't think that "murder is worse than speech" was a thing that needed to be said, and it would have come out of nowhere because, again, nobody in the thread was talking about the attack at that point.
     
    Information: Tribunal opened for discussion
  • Staff Post
    • @Kingcrusader - Normally, Tribunals open on a Friday, run for ten (10) days, and conclude on a Monday, at the request of the Council. However, as that would leave your requested Tribunal hanging for an additional six (6) days at this time, I polled the Council to determine if they would accept a deviation from that scheduling in order to shorten your wait. They agreed and thusly....

    tribunal opened for discussion @Council,

    You have been asked to give your opinion on this appeal. Per Council's request, you will have ten (10) full days to render a decision on this matter, until . Before that time, you should vote to Uphold, Overturn, Reduce, or Increase the infraction.

    The arbitrator and infracting staff member - @Ironanvil1 and @shadenight123 - are entitled to participate in the discussion, as are the appellant and their advocate if they chose to engage the services of one.

    I would like to remind all participants of a few things:

    First, a Tribunal is not a debate. The Tribunal is being asked to decide whether the appellant's infraction should be upheld. It is a discussion of the appellant's behavior, not a place to re-litigate the merits of a debate that the appellant was having or discuss the behavior of other users who might have been involved.

    Second, the entire Tribunal will be made public at the end of the discussion unless there is a good reason for it not to be released. If the appellant or any other participant has an opinion on whether it should not be made public, they should present that during this period.

    Third, the purpose of Tribunals is to both decide whether an infraction should be upheld and also to provide the Staff guidance on the Council's opinions on the rules and policies of Sufficient Velocity. Councillors represent the regular users of SV, and your discussion helps shape the Staff's efforts to apply, enforce, and interpret the rules in the future and identify areas where things can be improved.

    Please comport yourself accordingly.

    After ten (10) days, this Tribunal will be closed to discussions on the infraction and there will be a two (2) day period for the Administration to raise potential policy issues and for the Council to briefly discuss those issues before it is made public.

    Thank you.
     
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  • Staff Post
    • I'll listen to others arguments but I'm right now minded to Overturn.

    I simply don't buy the idea that the appellant's post is suggesting violence against Charlie Hebo is okay. The appellant is suggesting that Charlie Hebo are bad, but that's not actually a suggestion that they should face violence. Simply that them having been subject to violence does not render them good guys.

    There's nothing I see in the appellant's conduct there that suggests an apologia to violence towards Charlie Hebo. It suggests that they're mad at Charlie Hebo and don't like their conduct but that's not unacceptable IMHO. We shouldn't assume that every post criticising an organisation subject to violence is necessary suggesting they deserved that violence.
     
    I'm still considering my judgement but I will note that the post that got infracted also included kingcrusader saying they "see no difference" between the satirists and the zealots (implicitly, the ones who killed them), which I assumed was the part that earned the infraction.
     
    Maugan Ra said:
    I'm still considering my judgement but I will note that the post that got infracted also included kingcrusader saying they "see no difference" between the satirists and the zealots (implicitly, the ones who killed them), which I assumed was the part that earned the infraction.
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    That would be incorrect, the moderator only focused on the first half of that post: "That sucks. Don't mock people."

    That part of the post convinced the moderator to inflict the infraction on me.
     
    The appellant wasn't under any restrictions to stop them from making a more nuanced and expanded point in the thread, and, lacking psychic Staff, we can only go by the words posted.
    "That sucks. Don't mock people." reads very much like equating death threats as being an equivalent response to mockery, which impression "I see no difference here." just reinforces.
    Their follow on posts in the thread don't really add any clarification to contest this interpretation.
     
    Ironanvil1 said:
    The appellant wasn't under any restrictions to stop them from making a more nuanced and expanded point in the thread, and, lacking psychic Staff, we can only go by the words posted.
    "That sucks. Don't mock people." reads very much like equating death threats as being an equivalent response to mockery, which impression "I see no difference here." just reinforces.
    Their follow on posts in the thread don't really add any clarification to contest this interpretation.
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    The "I see no difference" was a answer to the question that fourthspartan56 asked, to which I meant I can see how both things, (the mockery of people didn't do anything wrong and people who want to force religion onto others) can both be bad.

    It doesn't reinforce the idea of making death threats as a equivalent response to said mockery, it was just a simple answer to fourthspartan56's question.

    But that is not what I got infracted for, I was only infracted for the first part of that post "That sucks. Don't mock people." To which, my follow up posts make it more clear on my stance and defense towards what I said, as the moderator believed that I was talking about the shooting, to which again, I wasn't, it was about the death threats.
     
    I'm confused, why is there an advocate being added to this thread when it's open for Tribunal? Is it not open for tribunal? Is the appellant going to make another defence?
     
    I had been a part of the appeal from the beginning but I wasn't added to the thread when it was converted to a tribunal. Datcord was just fixing that. There's no new statement planned.
     
    I like to clarify a little bit further, the "I see no difference" was answer to a question that was proposed by fourthspartan56.

    The question, as it was, was written as this:
    "Who is worse, shitty satirists who arguably pushed bigotry or murderous zealots who want to force their religion on everyone else?"

    "I see no difference." Indeed, I dont see any difference between those who pushed bigotry, and those who want to force a religion onto others. Both things hurt people.
     
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