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posted by n1 on Wednesday August 20 2014, @06:17AM   Printer-friendly
from the it's-time-to-grow-up dept.

Jessica Roy reports at NY Magazine that news aggregator Fark has became one of the first original link aggregators to ban misogyny from its community making moderators responsible for ensuring that misogyny doesn't make its way into headlines or comments. Banned headlines include rape jokes, calling women as a group "whores" or "sluts" or similar demeaning terminology, and jokes suggesting that a woman who suffered a crime was somehow asking for it.

There are lots of examples of highly misogynistic language in pop culture, and Fark has used those plenty over the years. From SNL's "Jane, you ignorant slut" to Blazing Saddles' multiple casual references to rape, there are a lot of instances where views are made extreme to parody them. On Fark, we have a tendency to use pop culture references as a type of referential shorthand with one another.

On SNL and in a comedy movie, though, the context is clear. On the Internet, it's impossible to know the difference between a person with hateful views and a person lampooning hateful views to make a point.

According to Roy, Fark's new guidelines are a "refreshing departure from the misguided free speech arguments that sites like Reddit that bend over backwards to defend the handful of misogynist communities that are among its ranks, not to mention the free-floating slut-shaming that snakes its way into regular comment threads."

 
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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by zafiro17 on Wednesday August 20 2014, @10:41AM

    by zafiro17 (234) on Wednesday August 20 2014, @10:41AM (#83480) Homepage

    i don't necessarily agree. I'm interested in how other forums work, how they manage their users, and what is and isn't acceptable on the web. The ongoing discussion about moderation, karma, anonymity-vs-forced names in web forums and the like all make this relevant. Besides, I think it's cool Fark is going to stand up for this. Considering 99% of Fark's users are probably men, the issue of misandry is probably a nearly non-existent one.

    --
    Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis - Jack Handey
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 20 2014, @02:32PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 20 2014, @02:32PM (#83539)

    The thing is I think it is massively hypocritical of them to say making fun of this one group is not cool. The whole site is basically 'look how cool I am in relation to this dork'. Look no further than the stories they have on their front page.

    Mention a D/R fight in the story and they will pretty much be a 600+ discussion on how one or the other stinks.

    The whole site is designed to make fun of people. That is their user base. It is a small notch above daily mail, fox news, or Huffington, or gawker but less work because they just aggregate the stories off them.

    It is a mixture of 'you should feel guilty' and 'check out what this darwin award nominee' and 'lets internet rage on someone for doing something we told you to feel guilty about'.

    Its a good step forward, however they have a *LONG* way to go to clean up their act. Once they do they will not be as interesting.