Were Banning Social Media Links
Hi all,
We're introducing a new rule effective immediately: no social media links or embeds outside of the shoutbox, the news thread or in your profile.
We understand that social media is where a lot of news breaks and conversations happenbut it's also where a lot of toxicity, misrepresentation and manufactured outrage originates. It's also no substitute for making an argument. Too often, posts consist of links or embeds without any additional effort, often just to shock or illicit predictable responses bordering on trolling. This isnt what the forum is for.
This rule is about keeping the forum grounded in original discussion. We want to encourage thoughtful posts, not just quote-tweet pile-ons or viral clips with no substance.
You can still share links in the shoutbox or news thread, where theyre more appropriate. Full feature videos, if relevant to a discussion, are acceptable but not tiktoks or similar shorts.
Going forward, any post that includes a link or embed from social media outside these areas will be deleted in full. No partial edits. No warnings. If youre not sure whether something counts as social media, err on the side of caution.
Were doing this to keep the forum healthy, focused and worth reading.
The Mod Team
We're introducing a new rule effective immediately: no social media links or embeds outside of the shoutbox, the news thread or in your profile.
We understand that social media is where a lot of news breaks and conversations happenbut it's also where a lot of toxicity, misrepresentation and manufactured outrage originates. It's also no substitute for making an argument. Too often, posts consist of links or embeds without any additional effort, often just to shock or illicit predictable responses bordering on trolling. This isnt what the forum is for.
This rule is about keeping the forum grounded in original discussion. We want to encourage thoughtful posts, not just quote-tweet pile-ons or viral clips with no substance.
You can still share links in the shoutbox or news thread, where theyre more appropriate. Full feature videos, if relevant to a discussion, are acceptable but not tiktoks or similar shorts.
Going forward, any post that includes a link or embed from social media outside these areas will be deleted in full. No partial edits. No warnings. If youre not sure whether something counts as social media, err on the side of caution.
Were doing this to keep the forum healthy, focused and worth reading.
The Mod Team
Comments (71)
Quoting Benkei
The boundaries are a little fuzzy. Facebook is the poster child of social media. Then Instagram. Twitter, but that seems a bit less strong. Reddit even less strongly still, because the majority of Reddit is anonymous. Reddit is arguably as much social media as this site is.
Some people say any site with a comment section is social media, but that would include many news sites.
Edit: scrolling through your post history it doesn't really look like this will be a problem for you. I suppose it wouldn't be thephilosophyforum.com if someone didn't argue for the sake of argument...
I hope this doesn't include YouTube. I embed a lot of short clips from there.
Also, please add this change to the site guidelines page.
It certainly covers YouTube shorts. For other videos it will be context dependent. I will delete any video embedded where you say "oh lookie, this guy really argues my point well for me". People not willing to make an effort to create original content should stick to regurgitating other people's ideas on X.
Quoting T Clark
That was updated almost simultaneously but thanks for double checking.
I suggest also allowing it in the Lounge.
This is clearly part of Trump's Project 2025 program. Did Musk set you up to this?
Most of NOSs posts anyway.
Here in the US, and I assume elsewhere in the world, everything we don't like is Trump's and Musk's doing.
Did you learn that on social media?
Quoting T Clark
I believe Project 2025 states that all facts must be derived exclusively from social media sources.
This was posted on a verified account (I added the embedded link):
I think Musk's rationale for what he says/does came up in this thread.
The above message could serve as evidence.
But, moderation is a thankless, tedious job; going into that detail could make the job unreasonably time-consuming. :)
As for You Tube contributions, it's not that hard to post the title of a documentary or commentary and let those who are interested search You Tube for it.
Since so much of social media content these days is toxic, and so many platforms are controlled by what we naively refer to as 'bad actors', avoiding links with them seems a sound decision.
Shorts are a subset of YouTube content. So are we to presume that this doesn't apply to the remaining YT content?
:meh:
This little piggy went to market...
No. Those will be allowed in the shout box.
Yes, this.
I make my own videos posted that pertain.
Uh. Are you sure that's not publishing previously published work? Repeatedly? You've read the site rules right?
Like they think they're so important that other people should dedicate hours of their life just to find out if this video this random person posted online might be worth watching. The conceitedness of it... exhausting.
Significant + for site quality.
I'd hope at sometimes when the actual primary source is a Facebook posting or heck, a Signal-posting, then the actual source could be referred than to a news article concerning this. I find it good that moderator discretion is used.
For example, if Trump announces that the US is leaving NATO in a post in X with Elon applauding the act, would it still be OK to post this?
I totally understand the concern of dis/misinformation and usually I try always check everything I refer to that it's not fake. And I try to put at least the link to the source, even if it's very easy simply to copy paste the quote and find the actual link.
And if something is deleted, OK, fine. Hope that doesn't mean that people will be banned.
Quoting flannel jesus
This naturally shouldn't be done. And if you have a video, please explain in written just what it says or tells or what is the meaning for you to post it. If it's a longer one, good way is to give actual time when somebody says something that you think is so important.
Quoting ssu
This would be an exception it seems because it's not hearsay. It's from the horse's mouth.
Good.
There's a lot of that in our world today. (And refraining to put some whacky picture of a horse's mouth here)
Now, how do you legislate the viewing age of people in their own home?
My only issue with links to You Tube is that video content can be embedded. Sometimes I don't want great big moving pictures cluttering up my bandwidth; I prefer the option to follow a link or not.
Otherwise, this doesn't affect me either way, since I already avoid certain platforms.
I put it on YouTube so I can show it here.
Legal brain in action.
"The intention of the legislation should hold sway over nitpicking its wording." If no judge has said that yet, it's about time one did.
Opening a can of good intentions, the moderators were presented with a can of worms.
sad smile
Thanks! This is a good decision.
Just for clarification, if wrapped in an elaborated explanation and relevant context, with an actual argument, what then? Is it something like use common sense for when it is relevant? And longer YouTube videos are sometimes something else than social media opinion pieces, so what are the definitions on that? Is it mostly to get spamming twitter and other short form stuff that is forbidden?
Whenever I read the replies to this thread, I can't avoid laughing about some folks. I think it can't be clearer: Going forward, any post that includes a link or embed from social media outside these areas will be deleted in full. No partial edits. No warnings. If youre not sure whether something counts as social media, err on the side of caution.
But what counts as social media?
But what about straight news?
But what about long videos?
But what about YouTube?
But what about YouTube Kids?
:lol:
Only those who allow AI to think for them ask such foolish questions. Jesus, it will be worse than I expected.
I like your new feistiness, but many of the questions were reasonable.
@General: Since this is a new rule, there's not a 100% alignment between moderators yet as every moderator agreed in principle but they might still apply it differently.
If this level of uncertainty is too hard to deal with for some, I suggest those people put on a straightjacket and sit in a corner of a cushy white room and never engage with another person ever again.
Me either. It wouldn't make sense to lie about something anyone can go and check for themselves in seconds if they are in doubt.
Yeah, I dont think anything from such social media is of any relevance. But YouTube has a lot of quality channels that has really good material. But I agree that there has to be relevance to an argument being made, not instead of an argument.
Also, I prefer if people can summarise ideas as part of an argument, as opposed to just including what appears to be a chunk of undiigested ideas Sometimes, people don't back them up with an argument and it feels mere chunk of undigested information.
As far as links to other threads, including much older ones, I am unclear whether links to this site will be acceptable or not. I have never done this, but I do know people often do this because they don't wish to repeat themselves. Of course, it is possible to refer to threads by name and give the page number of a specific post. If someone is interested enough, it is easy to search for past threads.
Generally, social media posts carry a low level of reliability because anyone can post anything without limitation and footnoting it here then elevates it to a supposedly meaningful source.
If someone uses a social media post as a method of formally presenting their position and that is what is being debated, you have no reliability issue, so it should technically pass (like if Trump informs the world of his Greenland invasion on X).
However, I get that nuanced rules can quickly become impossible to enforce and moderation shouldn't require every mod to sit as a judge and sort through arguments. It's easier with a hard and fast rule, even if the net thrown is occasionally too wide.
In any event, I would think the necessity to cite to social media would be very rare. If this rule can eliminate without objection 99% of those cites, the objective has been accomplished. We'll deal with those rare moments when they occur, but generally, no one cares what Bob from Peoria thinks of climate change
I agree, but checking the work in an academic source would likely be laborious. Checking that Elon Musk tweeted something on X would not be.
Quoting Hanover
:up:
Actually, we do, just without the link to truth social.
I wonder how many original thoughts have been posted on this forum? Fifty years ago my math advisor said, "You might think you have an original thought, but it's likely someone has had that thought before, perhaps in another context".
Probably 2,500 years ago.
How exciting. Be sure and post its image on TPF. :cool:
Edit, it now reads:
Social media
We want to encourage thoughtful posts, not just share quote-tweet or viral clips with little to no substance. As a result, posts containing links and embeds to social media are deleted, shorts as well. Full feature videos, if relevant to the discussion and accompanied by original content of the posters, may be left standing. This is at moderator discretion.
Carve outs: