Re: Future of online fora

On 4/3/2025 11:29 AM, Frank Krygowski wrote:

On 4/3/2025 11:03 AM, AMuzi wrote:

On 4/3/2025 9:54 AM, John B. wrote:

On Thu, 3 Apr 2025 09:12:46 -0500, AMuzi <am@yellowjersey.org> wrote:
>

The forum LFGSS (London Fixed Gear and Single Speed) is
among the early casualties of The Planners in the UK nanny
state.  Under the well invoked principle, "Everyone ought
to, because I say so", newly enacted internet regulation
makes online providers fully responsible for online content
including purported crimes of "revenge [whether personal or
by class], extreme pornography, sex trafficking, harassment,
coercive or controlling behavior and stalking."
>
Since interpretation of those can be highly subjective* and
in light of the huge volume of content, every word of which
is a possible offense, providers such as Microcosm, who
wrote the popular group forum software, have deleted all
activity and more have followed.
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>
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*c.f. plentiful examples of the last three right here on
RBT. Or not. That's the nature of subjective evaluation.

>
A week or so ago I read a notice that both Tom Sawyer and Alice in
Wonderland had been blacklisted by some group or another.
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Alice for the term "evil witch" or something similar.
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As for Tom I can only assume that any reference of the Civil war will
soon be unmentionable in polite society.

>
Yes, there's that.  And a greater loss, which is the nearly complete obliteration of Huckleberry Finn, a far superior volume to the forced and anemic Tom Sawyer.  It's among the most powerful anti racism works ever published, but it's been banned in schools for decades.

 Hmm. I just reread it a month or so ago. I thought the portrayal of Jim was too cartoonish. I also thought the ending was weak.
 Yes, just a subjective evaluation.

Further consideration (and apologies for responding to my own post):
Maybe I just engaged in a bit of "presentism" - that is, judging past actions by standards of the present, which is often unjust.
I don't doubt that Mark Twain's writing and his portrayal of Jim was groundbreaking in his day. The fact that a black slave (Jim) was shown as emotional, industrious, courageous and reasonably intelligent was probably shocking and eye opening to Twain's audience at the time. That's true even if the portrayal had a long way to go by present standards.
I reread _Huckleberry Finn_ as sort of prep work for the current novel _James_ which is, reportedly, the same story told from the slave's perspective. It's coming up soon on my list of books to read.
--
- Frank Krygowski