Nice to see Newgrounds is still alive and more or less unchanged since its early days. With so many of the creative spaces online becoming highly censored hellholes, having a more laissez-faire platform is a breath of fresh air.
One of the worst cultural developments of this century has been creative people becoming censorship-hungry prudes. There is a certain romanticism about being anti-establishment, but then they became the establishment and couldn’t figure out what to do next.
I think you're blaming the wrong people. Most of the censorship I've seen is coming from ad funded platforms wanting to please corporations. Independent artists create all kinds of offensive content.
Unless you mean that there is less slurs and jokes against minorities, which is an improvement tbh.
No doubt the platforms are a problem too, but I was referring to the creatives themselves. Just a few examples I can remember.
In 2020 dozens of Hachette employees walked out over the publisher’s decision to publish Woody Allen’s memoir. Hachette cancelled the book.
Tina Fey asked NBC to remove 30 Rock episodes from all distribution.
Bill Lawrence (creator of Scrubs), asked to have episodes removed.
John Ridley (Oscar winning screen writer) asked HBO to remove Gone with the Wind.
Neil Young threatened to leave Spotify if they didn’t remove Joe Rogan.
The 2020 “Stop Hate for Profit” campaign which included Sacha Baron Cohen, Katy Perry, Jennifer Lawrence, Leonardo DiCaprio, Judd Apatow, Amy Schumer, Sarah Silverman, Jamie Foxx, Michael B. Jordan, Mark Ruffalo, Rosario Dawson, and MANY more, demanded platforms and distributors and channels remove content ranging from political ads to discussions of COVID.
I just asked ChatGPT and got about 10,000 examples of famous creatives demanding censorship. It didn’t used to be this way.
> Unless you mean that there is less slurs and jokes against minorities, which is an improvement tbh.
Censorship is bad unless I agree with it. Then it’s good. Stunning levels of thought and reason.
TV self-censored for years. Elvis was unfit for family viewing. Punks wouldn’t share stages with racists and ejected National Front supporters from gigs. Rock against Racism was founded partly in response to Eric Clapton’s pro-Enoch Powell racist remarks. Dead Kennedeys were not exactly coy about where they drew the line.
If you want medical analogies for COVID, AIDS disinformation is perfect. ACT UP and similar AIDS movements would have laughed you out of creative spaces for bringing misinformation about how AIDS was spread.
If you have ChatGPT tokens going spare, you can ask it for a balanced view of historical artistic deplatforming and self-censoring. I asked mine and, in classic one-liner machine-slop dunk, it said…
“The argument sounds like it is being made by someone under 40 who believes they’re living through a unique historical decline but refuses to read a book, or someone over 40 who missed the world around them. Ask them which they are.”
Elvis wasn't the one calling for censorship. It was religious viewers - the audience.
I'm not denying that there were examples of creatives - like punks - who called for censorship. I'm describing a massive shift in scale and scope.
I did as you suggested because it's important to have a broad and balanced view of the issues. I used the query "Do you believe the scale and scope of creatives calling for censorship is worse, better, or the same today as it was 50 years ago? Provide a detailed response but summarise with one sentence at the end." I used Sol 5.6 Extra High (I'm deliberately avoiding Sol 6 right now due to some issues with hallucinations). I have a system prompt which emphasises accuracy and citations over speed.
I won't paste the entire passage (Hacker News bans and/or rate limits accounts which do that), but I will paste the summary. Note that I've read the analysis in full, and while I am more informed now, it has not changed my opinion.
> "On the specific question of creatives themselves calling for lawful expression to be suppressed, removed or deplatformed, I think the evidence points to it being broader in scope and probably more common today than 50 years ago, although formal government censorship was in some respects more coercive then."
Feel free to ask your research model the same question. I would encourage you to use a better paid model with careful system prompt, direction, and effort. Your model sounds like a petulant teenager.
““use a better paid model” as an argument from authority is magnificent. We’ve somehow reinvented “my dad can beat up your dad,” except our dads are inference-time budgets”.
So there’s that.
Getting back to human responses; it’s hard to argue your robot’s conclusion when it only got to a weak “probably” while comparing the communication environments of 1980’s (no social media) and 2026 (very much social media). Lots more people with lots bigger platforms dealing with lots more voices on what should/shouldn’t be tolerated -> perceived increase in volume of censorship by both audience and other creatives (themselves taking role of both audience and performer playing to their own audience)
Elvis may not have been calling to censor himself, but the hosts and producers (themselves creatives) followed the demands of the audience - surely at least a somewhat close analogy to creatives amplifying the voices of their audiences today?
To get a bit better than your model’s “probably”, maybe we should shoot for specifics. If we agree there was a “dark past” where government and religious pressure created artistic censorship to comparable levels to today, and if I concede to move the argument forward that we’re in “historical decline” now. Where specifically do you put the beginning and end of the “golden age”?
The dark past could of course overlap with the start of the subsequent decline, creating not a golden age but a shit age, centered maybe on the late 80s.
throwaway2046 · · focus · HN ↗
Gareth321 · · focus · HN ↗
WhyIsItAlwaysHN · · focus · HN ↗
Unless you mean that there is less slurs and jokes against minorities, which is an improvement tbh.
Gareth321 · · focus · HN ↗
In 2020 dozens of Hachette employees walked out over the publisher’s decision to publish Woody Allen’s memoir. Hachette cancelled the book.
Tina Fey asked NBC to remove 30 Rock episodes from all distribution.
Bill Lawrence (creator of Scrubs), asked to have episodes removed.
John Ridley (Oscar winning screen writer) asked HBO to remove Gone with the Wind.
Neil Young threatened to leave Spotify if they didn’t remove Joe Rogan.
The 2020 “Stop Hate for Profit” campaign which included Sacha Baron Cohen, Katy Perry, Jennifer Lawrence, Leonardo DiCaprio, Judd Apatow, Amy Schumer, Sarah Silverman, Jamie Foxx, Michael B. Jordan, Mark Ruffalo, Rosario Dawson, and MANY more, demanded platforms and distributors and channels remove content ranging from political ads to discussions of COVID.
I just asked ChatGPT and got about 10,000 examples of famous creatives demanding censorship. It didn’t used to be this way.
> Unless you mean that there is less slurs and jokes against minorities, which is an improvement tbh.
Censorship is bad unless I agree with it. Then it’s good. Stunning levels of thought and reason.
canarypilot · · focus · HN ↗
If you want medical analogies for COVID, AIDS disinformation is perfect. ACT UP and similar AIDS movements would have laughed you out of creative spaces for bringing misinformation about how AIDS was spread.
If you have ChatGPT tokens going spare, you can ask it for a balanced view of historical artistic deplatforming and self-censoring. I asked mine and, in classic one-liner machine-slop dunk, it said…
“The argument sounds like it is being made by someone under 40 who believes they’re living through a unique historical decline but refuses to read a book, or someone over 40 who missed the world around them. Ask them which they are.”
Gareth321 · · focus · HN ↗
I'm not denying that there were examples of creatives - like punks - who called for censorship. I'm describing a massive shift in scale and scope.
I did as you suggested because it's important to have a broad and balanced view of the issues. I used the query "Do you believe the scale and scope of creatives calling for censorship is worse, better, or the same today as it was 50 years ago? Provide a detailed response but summarise with one sentence at the end." I used Sol 5.6 Extra High (I'm deliberately avoiding Sol 6 right now due to some issues with hallucinations). I have a system prompt which emphasises accuracy and citations over speed.
I won't paste the entire passage (Hacker News bans and/or rate limits accounts which do that), but I will paste the summary. Note that I've read the analysis in full, and while I am more informed now, it has not changed my opinion.
> "On the specific question of creatives themselves calling for lawful expression to be suppressed, removed or deplatformed, I think the evidence points to it being broader in scope and probably more common today than 50 years ago, although formal government censorship was in some respects more coercive then."
Feel free to ask your research model the same question. I would encourage you to use a better paid model with careful system prompt, direction, and effort. Your model sounds like a petulant teenager.
canarypilot · · focus · HN ↗
““use a better paid model” as an argument from authority is magnificent. We’ve somehow reinvented “my dad can beat up your dad,” except our dads are inference-time budgets”.
So there’s that.
Getting back to human responses; it’s hard to argue your robot’s conclusion when it only got to a weak “probably” while comparing the communication environments of 1980’s (no social media) and 2026 (very much social media). Lots more people with lots bigger platforms dealing with lots more voices on what should/shouldn’t be tolerated -> perceived increase in volume of censorship by both audience and other creatives (themselves taking role of both audience and performer playing to their own audience)
Elvis may not have been calling to censor himself, but the hosts and producers (themselves creatives) followed the demands of the audience - surely at least a somewhat close analogy to creatives amplifying the voices of their audiences today?
To get a bit better than your model’s “probably”, maybe we should shoot for specifics. If we agree there was a “dark past” where government and religious pressure created artistic censorship to comparable levels to today, and if I concede to move the argument forward that we’re in “historical decline” now. Where specifically do you put the beginning and end of the “golden age”?
card_zero · · focus · HN ↗