Deleted Story · 3:18pm Jul 1st, 2020
I have a certain code of ethics with my writing and my person. As many of you will likely understand, having read and by all accounts liked my work, I try to make up for any mistakes I make at my first opportunity. Therefore, I have made the choice to unpublish a story from fimfic for the first time.
The writing is good, funny, and it had some good scoring going on, but there is one problem. The art it used as its cover and within the story was made by someone who supports racism—in particular, Nazism.
The story itself was based around a series of images he did and we bounced a few ideas back and forth in our work. It felt wrong to leave the story public without crediting him, and it likewise felt wrong to leave it up and show tacit support for his views.
So, having unpublished the fic, I offer it here, to you wonderful people, without its images or links to said artist included.
I hadn't planned to publish it, but here you go.
Recently, Derpibooru took a firm stance against extreme racism and specifically Nazism (literally called out in their rules).
They made a statement that they will remove comments/posts/images that support Nazism.
In the past I have shared his images and even uploaded a selection of them to derpibooru myself. I have requested my upload credit be removed from these uploads and have—as you are seeing—pulled my support for any of his content.
Having checked one of the archive sites to see who the artist was: I'm out of the loop. Can you point out where I can learn how [redacted] supports Nazism?
5298626 I hadn't planned to publish it, but here you go.
Recently, Derpibooru took a firm stance against extreme racism and specifically Nazism (literally called out in their rules).
cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/415446885562580992/727910915412066324/unknown.png
They made a statement that they will remove comments/posts/images that support Nazism.
A group of artists all came together to pledge to remove their content if that is not reversed. The artist in question pledged their support for this movement.
cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/415446885562580992/727911402676682752/unknown.png
In the past I have shared his images and even uploaded a selection of them to derpibooru myself. I have requested my upload credit be removed from these uploads and have—as you are seeing—pulled my support for any of his content.
Copying this to the blog post.
5298628
Quoting the OP of the movement in its entirety, formatting unchanged:
Denouncing censorship is not the same thing as supporting the ideology being censored. If people don't want to look at neo-Nazi bullshit, they can use the tag-filters just like everyone else.
5298633 Oh, absolutely. I filter that gobshite as a matter of course. At the same time, however, giving hatred a voice is not something I would ever wish. As you may have guessed, given my location and stance, I am not in favor of absolute freedom of speech.
Feel free to have your opinions, but if I see someone standing up and voicing their support for allowing specifically racism and Nazism a voice, I will call a duck a duck. The chap has made clear his stance. I have made clear mine. I have presented his own words and actions as proof.
My question now is, did you enjoy the story?
5298633
To aurhoritarians any disagreement with their own views on things, no matter the reason, is among the worst possible things one can do. And hence justifies complete purging of anything no matter how unrelated it is to the actual issue.
5298639
Read it way back when. NotMyFetish.jpeg
I do really enjoy your longer stories. Of the ones which are active and I'm caught up on, Queen Rarity is my current favorite, but I'm seriously backlogged on my reading and haven't even started (for example) The Embassy.
5298640
5298641
Gosh. All these people who don't follow me hanging on my every blog post.
Fair enough on not being into it. It was mostly just silly comedy with... no actual clop in it.
5298643
Guessing you caught the accidentally-posted-instead-of-previewed version of my comment. I am following you.
5298641 Ah! Queen Rarity's last chapter will be out this week! Well, last chapter and an epilogue.
The Embassy is still rumbling along and about to start work on something completely new tomorrow.
5298645 Heh, must tell knighty to fix his damn site. It didn't say you were when I viewed your bio.
5298643
I unfollowed after posting since i cant see a rational reason to purge a story for just the cover being "tainted" when the cover can be replaced at any moment by you. (unless that is wrong? If so i apologize for the following words:)
Unless you yourself hold extreme views and just believe that your "on the right side" so they are justified unlike the "other" peoples views.
Dont want to bother with such types regardless of what side so its easier to just bookmark your stories page and check in occasionally.
5298648 No probs. The story itself was based around a series of images he did and we bounced a few ideas back and forth in our work. It felt wrong to leave the story public without crediting him, and it likewise felt wrong to leave it up and show tacit support for his views.
Surely you can understand someone having their own code of ethics and honor? I'm not a young man to have hot blood and a raised fist. I have only my words and my voice, and with those I can make my opinions known. As you do. Feel free to follow me or not, that is your choice to make.
Being opposed to Nazis is not an extreme view. Or it shouldn't be.
The regressive movement is very skilled at using the principles of freedom against itself. They demand freedom of expression, while denying that freedom to others. They demand freedom to assemble in protest, but do so with menaces (and assault rifles), making a clear threat to elected officials and actual peaceful protesters. They shout that "all lives matter" while working to undermine the movement that wants exactly that.
So when somebody stages a protest like this against site admins whose only offence is to be explicitly anti-Nazi, they've used up any benefit of the doubt they may have had. They clearly aren't protesting in good faith as believers in freedom of expression, they're just using the language to trick you into thinking it sounds reasonable.
Of course, Damaged could just have removed that picture. But it's their choice what to do with their stories, and I can entirely understand not wanting to have the story up in the circumstances.
This is a very principled stance to take, and one I doubt many authors would.
Lot of respect from me for this, Damaged.
Well done.
Gosh, that derpi thread is depressing. I wonder if the people stomping their feet have stopped to think "I'm taking a principled stand for the right to post Nazi My Little Pony fan art," perhaps said it out loud?
Is there a master list of participants somewhere, so I can make sure I'm not subscribed to any of these people on Patreon?
Dude just change the cover art. Or if you really want to fuck with the artist, trace their art to make your own. And then don’t credit the original artist. Artists universally hate those who steal art and pace it off as their own. Funny, because fascism is infamous for appropriating stuff it likes from all over the place itself. (e.g.: Nazis using the word socialist while being very anti-worker, stealing the swastika from Hindu iconography, etc.)
5298706 Hence why I won't stoop to that level. I have only my own ethics and morals, and I like to think at least some of them are worth my 40 odd years building them.
5298709
See, I’m a chaotic neutral utilitarian, so my system of ethics is basically: “Will this action result in a net positive result for the people it effects?” mixed with “will this action cause amusing mostly-harmless chaos?” So I’m all for messing with nazi-sympathizers. But you do you, boo.
I'm just curious: Does the person actually support Nazism and its terrible ideals or are you making an incredibly terrible assumption about a person?
Because it's almost like people forgot the decades of time that internet has been a largely untamed place where people disconnected themselves from reality to act fools which no way represents them in their daily life because of the lack of consequences.
So, um, why not simply change the cover art?
I applaud your stance though I am curious why you don’t republish without the art.
5298756
Here I am putting words in Damaged’s mouth. Well... kind of. Actually I’m paraphrasing and expanding on what Damaged wrote earlier.
The story in question was written in collaboration with the artist. The words and art were developed in parallel. That indelibly links the two on Damaged’s point of view.
Damaged cannot, in good conscience, present one without it being linked to the other. Therefore he is taking the drastic step of only making 258 of his stories available on FimFiction. But worry not, readers. The caffeine-fueled producer of chicken-scratches will churn out another five or six stories by the time you finish reading this comment.
....
... or he’ll have the ten billion monkeys with typewriters in his closet type out the replacements as soon as they are done with Hamlet.
Does that clear everything up sufficiently?
5298652
I think that is a bit of information that should have been in the blog post. Without it it does look like a bit of a overreaction.
But with this I think this is the right decision. Whoever defends Nazis and Nazism, be it for „freedom of speech“ or any other pretence, is part of the problem and needs to be dealt with as such. (That is being deplatformed and refused any part of public discourse)
Why the heck didn't you just change the images if you have an issue with the artist? Seems like blatant virtue signalling to unpublish the entire story and then make a blog post about it, to me, anyway.
FYI, Derpibooru has reversed course and accepted the demands of the campaign:
i.imgur.com/AZECgKD.png
5298938
5298981
I added this to help clarify why:
5299020
Indeed. Here's a description of what happened.
Hey Damaged. I was someone who asked you to read a story I wrote awhile back and I understood your reasons for forgoing it.
I just wanted to say even before reading your extended reasoning, I can see that you're not just "virtue signaling" because it was clear there was more to the picture than it first appeared. I appreciate you taking a hard stance on this, especially given Derpibooru backed out on their stance. It's such a shame.
5299020
Because of course.
And of course they toss out the arguments about authoritarianism. As though the Tolerance Paradox wasn't a thing.
For those of you who aren't familiar with it, here's the short version: Absolute tolerance is in and of itself, an impossible ideal. Tolerance of intolerance innately undoes whatever good tolerance has accomplished in the name of "well, we have to respect their freedoms."
Ergo, a tolerant society must not tolerate intolerance. Which the short sighted would say requires it to tolerate everything else. Bringing us right back to the initial problem.
To resolve this pardox, one simply needs to establish a simple criteria for defining appropriate intolerance vs inappropriate. And most people agree that the best criteria can be summed up by looking at whether or not you are tolerating behavior that harms others, or not.
To argue that racists, sexists, et al must be tolerated in the name of "freedom of expression" is to argue that hatred of who a person is, is more acceptable than hatred of willfully adopting a philosophy that requires that hatred.
You're literally saying that it's better to be a Nazi than to say that Nazis should not be given a platform.
And then trying to argue that you're not supporting the Nazi, because you're also giving Jews, homosexuals, Rom, and others the right to say "but I don't agree that I'm less than human."
If you can't see why there's a problem with that, Neville Chamberlain welcomes you to the side of history most people will, when they're feeling charitable, call idiots.
For anyone looking: Like most deleted stories, the original can be found on Fimfetch. Some of the original comments can be read at archive.today.
5298652
So he wasn't just some random artist whose work you built off, he was an actual friend and collaborator. Who you're now trying to smear as "supporting Nazism in particular" because he disagrees about the moderation policy of a fanart site.
5299181
If by "friend and collaborator" you mean "shared about 5-6 comments on derpibooru" then, uh, I guess? I have literally never spoken to the chap outside of that.
I have done these kinds of collabs with artists in the past, but they were mostly people I knew far better. As I've gotten older, I've learned many lessons, and apparently this one has taught me a new one—before working with someone, know them.
As for "smear"ing him, I have let his words and actions speak for himself and stated what this movement he is a part of was trying to do—it was literally protesting the phrase "Do not promote Nazism or other hateful ideologies".
Well, the mission statement of those artists was to reduce censorship, because people with something to say don't like having a limited scope. So unless reducing censorship no matter the offence is somehow Nazi ideology, I see you calling this artist a "Nazi" as left-leaning extremist nonsense, or at the least pandersome
This uprooting of edgy humor under the guise of removing hate speech is gross and intolerant.
All this “Free Speech” praising. Free speech only protects you from government persecution. It doesn’t give you freedom from consequence. Furthermore, hatred, bigotry, misinformation, and violence thrive in environments that tolerate them.
You forget that we have a right to speak out against Nazi ideology too. We have the right to advocate for our own beliefs. The phrase “the best response to a bad answer is a better one” applies even when it’s people saying they’ve had enough of someone’s hate and tell them to leave.
You can say whatever you want, but don’t you dare for one moment think that you have the right to make all of us listen. Go back to 4chan, go back to your private servers. Your hatred is not welcome here, and we have the right as much as you to say *Get out.*
5299206 The only thing slated to be censored was Nazi art. No matter what argument you use—free speech, free expression, anti-censorship—all it is doing is defending a bunch of edgy, racist people to post Nazi art.
That was why I didn't call anyone out here for being a Nazi, just for supporting them.
5299211 I have never lived in a country with universal free speech. Here, if you say something, you have to be able to prove it. Also, well put. (I'd normally put a smiling Twilight emoji here, but I don't rightly feel like bringing ponies into this topic at this point.)
5299211
Yes, but censoring someone is an abuse of power more than a typical act of freedom of speech. If you truly believe freedom of speech is a good and moral thing, you have an obligation to uphold it outside of purely legal matters. You know, when black people were first considered fully equal under the law, this did not stop societal forms of vigilantism from upholding the bleak racist status quo. Does a broker have a right to deny a business loan to an African American fellow for any reason he deems that man unsuitable for the loan? Yes, but is him being within his rights to act within his prejudices mean that he's inherently acting in a moral or righteous manner? hell no.
5299226
Censoring somebody whose intent is to abuse the freedom you've given them to undermine that freedom for others - which is what Nazis want - isn't abuse of power, it's entirely correct use of power. If you're in charge of a discussion space that's supposed to be welcoming, you have a responsibility to police it against sabotage. That's what the admins and moderators have power for.
There are places on the internet that have no rules, where anybody can post anything they want, with no limits or moderation. And those places are full of toxic arseholes, driving out other people who find it unpleasant or threatening. Believing in freedom does not mean allowing your community to become like that, it means looking out for people and occasionally taking a stand against those who would ruin it for the others.
I'm disappointed that the admins have given into the pressure here.
5299242
Are we just using Nazi as a catch-all term to describe perceived racist athoritarians nowadays? Because I can assure you actual modern Neo-Nazis have ZERO power to control the public discourse, if they even have a modicum of control over our freedom it pails in comparison to what power Facebook holds over the public discourse. When my freedom of speech is actually inhibited by some Nazi, then I'll react pretty much identically as I am now, which is ultimately the same way I reacted when the Christians were pulling the same shit.
Is Freedom of Speech a fundamental human right? If so, then what gives society and capitalism any more right to regulate it than the government? If you disagree that freedom of speech is a fundamental human right, well then you're a fascist, or at least on a slippery slope that can easily lead to becoming one.
Have you actually ever been involved in those unregulated internet cesspools? Their welcoming in the sense that everyone is unwelcoming, kind of similar to Xbox Live when I think back. Everything is said under 7 layers of irony with a mutual understanding that nothing said should be taken even slightly seriously, and those who take things seriously are considered toxic idiots. When there is no consequence for saying anything than every word becomes meaningless. Real movements never gained momentum because of relentless trolling indefinitely derailing any serious discussions on the matter. Those were my experiences with that corner of the internet, it's been a few years but if they are anything like they used to be then they are a beautiful example of anarchy somehow working.
5299226
Censorship implies that the censor has power – often institutional, legal power – over the one being censored, preventing them from sharing their thoughts in the public sphere. This is not the case here. Your freedom of speech is intact. It's just that other actors in the public sphere, be they persons or private websites for example, also have the right to judge your expressed thoughts according to their own morals – or in the case of hate speech, also according to the law – and refuse to help you propagate these thoughts.
Fact is, with freedom also comes responsibility. So if you choose to use this freedom to propagate hateful content, you also need to accept that others can reject that content for what it is. And this has nothing to do with discrimination. Here you are not discriminated based on who you are, which would be against the law – only judged on your words and actions, something you are responsible for. If you use your freedom to willingly, publicly propagate hateful ideologies that are discriminatory by their very nature, you deserve to face the consequences – here, not being allowed to use a specific private platform to share your despicable views.
5299211
You're conflating the American First Amendment (which protects from government censorship) and the philosophical principle of freedom of speech (which covers all speech and all forms of censorship). This is just that crappy XKCD comic to which I share this in reply.
sealedabstract.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/xkcd-freedom-3.png
On a more pragmatic level, I'm not sure why any pornographer (be it visual or written) would support censorship. Leave those laws and rules on the books, then wait and see what happens when the pendulum swings and the other side comes into power. Suddenly, all that "degenerate" or "sinful" art will be banned, using the very rules and laws they supported!
Good for you, I never read that story.
Also all the BS going on with Derpi is stupid, I feel bad for the staff.
5298706
And the Nazi symbol is actually a mirror image of the peace symbol you're talking about. I don't know whether this was deliberate, but it was certainly appropriate.
In addition to my earlier comment, I just took a gander at that forum on Derpi and I gotta say; wtf.
That is all.
5299249
Not at all. Did you read the actual blog post? Nazism was called out specifically, and that's what people specifically supported.
5299254
Total agreement there.
5299250
As I've said, just because something is legally within your rights doesn't make it righteous or moral. If you believe Freedom of Speech is a human right you have a moral obligation to uphold that freedom outside of purely legal manners. Otherwise you're advocating for what's essentially vigilantly justice. Websites are institutions, and they do have a bit of institutional power over us as a result, it's not a lot in the grand scheme of things but supposing you're online identity entirely exists on this site they can entirely wipe out your public existence and even harm your income in the worst of cases.
I'm not even saying to allow legitimate hate speech, that's not even something that's protected by freedom of speech, but we really ought to consider context more in our moderation and give art more breathing room , just because something is discussing a hot button issue doesn't mean it's advocating it, and disagreeing with someone's political stance is not advocating the opposite extremist end of what's being discussed.
5299257
The concern was clearly with what constitutes "promotion" of those sorts of ideologies. FA recently implemented similar rules and this resulted in many artist whom had a purely historical interest in WWII and its related subjects to be banned from the site. I believe the original DNP kerfuffle was ultimately drummed up over concerns of a similar thing happening on Derpibooru, which isn't an unrealistic concern. Artists don't want to have to deal with the varying interpretation of their art from whomever moderates or flags it.
The phrase "The Death of the Author" comes to mind, we interpret literature as having meaning outside of the authors intentions, the same is true for any art really, sometimes art lampooning racists is interpreted positively by those racists, and sometimes art made with an intentionally racist bent is interpreted as parody by reasonable people. Unless clearly stated, it's hard to know the intention behind a piece of art, and often times the artist's intention doesn't even matter due to how subjectively art can be interpreted.
5299267 Come now, Slippery Slope fallacy? People still believe in that one? The rule, as it was written, was "do not promote Nazism...". It had nothing to do with other uses of it. Derpi have a long track record of policing such specific rules well, I had faith in their ability to police that new one to the letter of its wording. Denigrating Nazis would have not fallen under such a rule at all.
Ultimately, if your work could be easily mistaken as supporting such a cause, couldn't that be a wonderful reminder that maybe you're doing it wrong? My first attempt at parody was terrible. It got such a vicious downvote rating that I wanted to delete it—but I left it up in all its horrid glory to remind myself of how far I've come, and to not write parody so bad those reading it cannot tell it apart from that which it parodies.
And again, nothing derpibooru does with regard to rules or moderation limits what anyone can make. You can still draw your favorite Nazi OC using a flamethrower on a pregnant mare (that was a 6 year old piece I reported a few days ago) and derpibooru can not stop you. It will not infringe on your freedom of speech in any way nor will it censor you.
By claiming derpibooru can't censor things, you are (if anything) denying the owner of derpibooru their freedom of speech.
5299267 I think I'll leave all conversation there, personally. You don't seem to be willing to change viewpoints and I certainly am not. So I'll wish you the very best with your endeavors.
5299269
How is a slippery slope a fallacy? We have plenty of historical examples of exactly these kinds of things happening, it takes a long ass time occasionally, maybe even generations, but it happens. Denying a slippery slope is tant amount to denying macro-evolution as far as I'm concerned
Hey, a badly made parody still has a right to exist even if it's horrid at communicating its intentions, if a parody is removed because its incompetents lead the moderator to believe it was promotional, that's still a wrongful misjudgment.
As I've said, promotion is a subjective thing, not everyone has as much faith in Derpibooru's moderation team as you do and justifiably so, ultimately we shouldn't need faith as we should have clear unambiguous rules that can't be misinterpreted by staff or users. Maybe what's acceptable now won't be acceptable in a few years when potentially incompetent or more sensitive staff start performing moderation.
Ultimately I'm not saying they can't censor things, but I am saying that if they believe Freedom of Speech to be a fundamental human right, then they have a moral obligation to uphold it in their own institution. Otherwise, I see them as performing vigilanty-esque activities. What I think of them and how they run their site ultimately has no bearing on their operations and I'm free to criticize them and see them in a poor light. Now, if I started censoring Derpibooru by DDOSing their site or something, then I'd be crossing a line that I could not justify.
5299270
I don't believe there is really any need for either of us to change perspectives on this matter as that certainly wasn't my goal here. Ultimately I just felt like sharing an opinion and I apologize if I came off as abrasive when it came to sharing, I tend to do that a lot as I'm someone who is severely socially inept. A lot of these opinions I've shared I've never before verbalized, so it was a bit of a learning experience for me since I learned where I stood on these matter as a typed, it was interesting
5299277 Nah, it's all good mate. Kinda refreshing to have a conversation about it and not immediately have the usual "Deflection/change-topic" used over and over.
5299278
It's interesting, simply by ending the discussion on a civil note has left me feeling a bit more sympathetic to the opposite side of this debate. There are certainly crazies out there calling everyone nazis, Dilarus kind comes to mind if I'm to be honest, he's a bit extreme going by his Twitter, but I don't see moderation as an inherently bad thing, I'm just worried over the potential for abuse as has already been lightly demonstrated by a few of the staffers. I have a strong archival mindset and losing anything, regardless of cultural value, hurts my sensibilities. Heck that's probably the main reason I dislike censorship, I have some kind of hoarder complex. It feels like there is no winning here. One group or the other is gonna try to purge their content regardless of what decision is made and the thought of losing all that content to the four corners of the internet stresses me out.
I really don't like people deleting things due to all this political turmoil, the art is blameless in all this, why do we have to punish the art? Sure it might exist elsewhere but in all likelihood I will never see it again, especially if I don't know precisely what I'm looking for, so to me the art is as good as gone.
Alright, I'll stop here, I can't just constantly vent my thoughts in some random comment section to a post that's only tangentially related to my worries. Here, have a picture of my elderly pet rat: i.imgur.com/QGWrOIR.jpg
5299295 Daw, such a cutie!
I don't have any pets, but I do donate to a bat shelter. Here's their oldest resident having a nap.
5299226
You are lacking the element of nuance. Just because I believe in free speech doesn’t mean I’d tolerate a Nazi propagandist in my house. When you give space to hatred you give them a recruiting ground and fuel to burn others. Hate Is not a point of view, genocide is never a good idea, and the belief of treating anyone inferior purely for what they are instead of who is something that should never be tolerated.
It is honorable to believe something in principle, but understand that there are degrees to it. You can’t yell fire in a public space, pedo porn is illegal, terrorist messaging is banned. Like it or not, these are limits. If I hear some Nazi yelling “death to all Jews” I have every right I want to say “get the hell out of my house.”
5299251
Okay, let’s play it by your reasoning.
You believe in complete, uncensored freedom of speech, yes?
Assuming that, is it not my philosophical right to say I believe in censoring Nazis? To advocate for my beliefs on the same grounds you state your own?
The great irony of free speech advocacy is that you have to then acknowledge we have the right, no, we are entitled to speak out against it however we please.
For the simple fact that you can’t tolerate us speaking out against pure uncensorship really shows your dedication to that ideal. Or rather your lack of it.
Free Speech is a double edged sword. If you don’t fully respect our right to speak out, but defend the right of Nazis to have their space, then it’s not Free Speech you’re protecting, Its Nazis