Cultural context

At the time of this conversation, a controversy was going on in Europe about a new law on copyright which many people feared would result in serious limitations to fair use and freedom of speech. This resulted in the creation of the #SaveYourInternet movement and multiple protests against the law and article 13 (then 17) specifically. In Italy, this was exacerbated by Italian Wikipedia self-obscuring their website in protest.

The law and its potential reach were discussed at length on Hyperuranium Network in the topic-appropriate group chats. When the public discourse on the subject became too heated and too polarised, the Administration Team issued a Network-wide ban on the subject, forbidding users from posting about it; BigClaudia was well aware of this since she was an active member of the Café group where the original heated arguments and subsequent instating of the rule occured. Please note that, even before this measure, political debate was only appropriate in the group chats dedicated to the topic: Hyperuranium Vore Club was not such a group.

The Rules only allow users to post links to external sites if either the site is among a list of always-permitted resources (such as galleries, wikipedia, youtube, etc…) or the user obtained approval, before posting, from the Administration Team; this is to prevent malicious links from being posted, allowing automated tools (bots) to respond faster than a human moderator can react. These rules are frequently reminded and are accepted upon joining the group; while one may certainly not agree with them, they always have the option not to join.

From July 4th 2018

BigClaudia: *link* “Tomorrow we vote”
Mod3: “It’ll never reach 1.000.000”
BigClaudia: “I knoooooow”
FyreDraygg: “Very well, I forward it here too 🤦‍♂️” (frustrated tone)
FyreDraygg: (forwarded message): “Dear guys, I encourage you not to raise alarm in the network, nor in yourself. Similar laws have been accepted all around the world many times already and a long time ago, from America to Europe. No site or service has ever really considered them, nor have there been significant changes to our life online. Internet has effectively no law because, whether they abide by every regulation or not, netizens will invariably keep doing nothing less than everything they want. There is no institution or government able to exercise an effective power over cyberspace, much less today with the existence of distributed protocols, anonymisation and point-to-point routing. Legislators have no power over the internet”
FyreDraygg: “I’ll explain it one last time with this example (and I could produce thousands more) in the hopes that you will finally understand
The law is EUROPEAN
My servers are in NEW ZEALAND
How many fucks do you think I should giveabout what an European law says?
Go in peace”
BigClaudia: “The issue is that not all of us has server outside europe. And then why TOR exists? I would use it to bypass but not everybody knows its existence?” (sic.)

Comment:

• Take note of FyreDraygg’s extremely frustrated tone. The debate had been going on for multiple weeks and had become so heated that the Administration Team had to intervene in multiple flame wars.
• Big Claudia here is violating multiple rules at the same time. Despite that, FyreDraygg still decided to handle her with patience and produced a canned response (the forwarded messages) instead of banning her outright.

FyreDraygg: “No service that would be affected by this law has European servers.
Tor has nothing to do with it”
Group Member 4: “But what about those with a server in europe? Like super small companies?
Not everyone can afford billions to develop that famous anty-copyright filter”
FyreDraygg: “Companies don’t have any business that includes infringing others’ intellectual property”
BigClaudia: “The government has citizen’s money
This is why humanity is in crisis”
Group Member 4: “The way I see it we always need to foresee the worst outcome possible”
FyreDraygg: “I’ll tell you more, at most it’ll block rascal newspapers from taking advantage of artists’ creations without paying”
BigClaudia: “And then if [the law] gets passed it will come into force at the beginning of 2019”
FyreDraygg: “Do you know how many newspapers use cover pictures stolen from someone’s deviantart [account]?”

Group Member 4: “That’s obvious, there’s some good in it
But the law is still too vague!”
“For this reason it shouldn’t pass, because it needs to be rewritten”
BigClaudia: “I’ve never seen things [in newspapers] coming from the internet”
FyreDraygg: “[The law] is still inapplicable”
BigClaudia: “And then the memes, the parodies and the fandom”
FyreDraygg: “The law doesn’t apply to anything which is no-profit, so these are only false scaremongers”
BigClaudia: “And then the taxes on links”
Group Member 4: “Exactly, what can you tell me on that?”
FyreDraygg: “Earnings are earnings. We are tired of children getting paid via adfly”
BigClaudia: “That some contents won’t be sharable anymore. Think about it, Wikipedia will close.
I already can’t go on wikipedia”
Group Member 4: “Wikipedia is FOUNDED on linking articles
for the sources”
FyreDraygg: “And guess whose fault is that? Oh right, Wikipedia”
Group Member 4: “Why so?”

BigClaudia: “Wikipedia is not guilty. It’s at risk and it had to obscure the site to protest”
FyreDraygg: “Wikipedia is responsible for its own actions. I wonder why only the Italian Wikipedia tried (and failed) to obscure itself”
Group Member 4: “But guilty OF WHAT”
BigClaudia: “How so?”
FyreDraygg: “Nobody told them to obscure the site”
“They decided to do that on their own”
“If you can’t reach Wikipedia, it’s because Wikipedia decided so, not Europe 😂”
BigClaudia: “Wikipedia is an information source. And it stayed for years
Is it to spread the news? That’s what they do” (sic.)
FyreDraygg: “Avengers called, they want Captain Obvious back.
What does this have to do with the conversation?”
Group Member 4: “It’s a protest! It has to create discomfort and bring your attention what they see as an issue”
BigClaudia: “Exactly”

FyreDraygg: “And they did that by their own initiative, so don’t come here and give me bullshit like “It’s Europe’s fault if I can’t reach Wikipedia””
Group Member 4: “i never said that”
FyreDraygg: “Not you”
Group Member 4: “the point is that, in the future, unless Wikipedia asks for donations constantly (instead of once a year) it wouldn’t be able to survive this law
[Wikipedia is] simply protecting its own sake and what it represents”
BigClaudia: “You know well that UE wanted to start by causing a controversy” (iniziate > iniziare, typo)
Group Member 4: “I personally use Wikipedia, especially for the sources’ links!”
BigClaudia: “If you want that memes continue to live then do the right thing”
“And then with wikipedia I search for useful information for school”
FyreDraygg: “Who gives a damn about what you, private citizens, do with Wikipedia 😂”
BigClaudia: “How do you think I collected information for school projects? From my panties?” (rude and disrespectful)
FyreDraygg: “Is it possible that you guys are at such a level of functional illiteracy? I’m not surprised they deceive you so easily
All it takes is taking away your candies and you start a crusade against anything they make you believe is responsible”
“Please wake up”
FyreDraygg: “With the way you are arguing through catchphrases and slogans it feels like it, that being said a thing exists called “library”
Group Member 4: “sorry sorry sorry”

BigClaudia: “It’s easier to find [stuff] on wikipedia because where I live there are no libraries”
FyreDraygg: “How much do you pay to use Wikipedia?
Is it something that you bought?
I bet you never even donated 2€
Yet you talk like you’re entitled to use it”
Group Member 4: “wikipedia is free, but I’d gladly pay to access it
and anyway wikipedia become a sort of essential instrument”
BigClaudia: “The service is free. The donation is to support the site’s projects”
FyreDraygg: (answering Group member 4) “Very good. But first of all let’s not take for granted something which comes from other people’s generosity”
Group Member 4: “Something which comes from a community’s work”
FyreDraygg: (answering Big Claudia) “No, no, bullcrap, there are people paying out of their pocket on a regular basis to allow the servers to stay on, we’re talking much more than 500 euros”
BigClaudia: “And then wikipedia is a no-profit site”
Group Member 4: “of course someone is paying!”
FyreDraygg: (answering Big Claudia) “Again with factoids irrelevant to the discussion”

Group Member 4: “i don’t really understand why you’re so stubbornly in favour of this law”
BigClaudia *angry Cuphead sticker*
FyreDraygg: (answering Group member 4) “The point is I’m not in favour of this law. I am against those who let themselves be fooled by the first who goes on strike”
Group Member 4: “So all of this debate because of a misunderstanding”
BigClaudia: “There we see who’se the one being aggressive in the conversation”
Group Member 4: *** **** (censored exclamation)
“damn me and damn my mental disability
I knew of this even before Wikipedia striked, and still this event only confirmed the importance and the catastrophes this law could cause to a lot [of people]”
BigClaudia: “This law will cause a big damage”

FyreDraygg: “No, there is no misunderstanding, now I shall present it to you in another way, consider this example:
In the next future the european union creates a law against cyberbullying (random example)
Wikipedia doesn’t agree and obscures itself
People who think like @BigClaudia begin raising a useless stink screaming “WAAHH THEY TOOK WIKIPEDIA AWAY FROM ME BAD EUROPEAN UNION” without thinking, only because the deceiver of the moment took away their candies”
Group Member 4: “i understand your example (since when you said “those who let themselves be fooled”) and I agree
BigClaudia: “1) cyberbullying can’t be controlled by an algorithm
2) intellectual properties have a database”
FyreDraygg: “The law is wrong, but going on crusades without thinking with your brain first is just as wrong”
Group Member 4: “Claudia, that’s not the point of our discussion!”
Admin1: (answering Group member 4) “To be honestly it confirmed how easily people panic over nothing”
BigClaudia: “He wanted to change the subject” (discorsso > discorso, typo)
Mod3: (answering Admin1) “Yes, indeed”
Group Member 4: “Let’s leave it be, nothing will change
Useless flame, better to douse it before it causes damage” (very frustrated)

BigClaudia: “It’s nothing, but you know how some people are able to do certain things” (sic.) (cosw > cose, typo)
Mod3: “But did nobody notice that only the Italian Wiki “went on strike”
That alone raises a few questions”
BigClaudia: “No guys stop. I’ve had enough”
Admin1: “I’d say to wait to see if there are any real repercussions before talking”

*BigClaudia left the group*

Mod3: (answering Admin1) “Yes, indeed”
Group Member 4: “OHHHH c’mon”
Mod3: “This is the usual scene of a person unable to take an argument
What do they do? Run”
Admin1: lol
Group member 1: Owo

Group Member 4: … 🚒💦🔥
FyreDraygg: (answering Group member 4) Right, right
Group Member 4: “Well, there’s still this huge doubt on what will effectively happen regarding this law
But let’s leave it be”
Admin1: “^ We will talk about it again if something will happen
For anything else is just empty talk so who cares, let’s go on with our things”
FyreDraygg: “If you’d heed me instead of not you’d already have the answer
Since it already happened around 5 times in the past with identical laws, the consequence is always the same: a good nothing”

Comment:

• The fallout from the posting of the link exemplifies exactly why the rule against it was instated: the topic was extremely sensitive, prompting at least one other user to immediately join the argument, derailing the group topic.
• Flame wars much worse than this one had been occurring off and on throughout the Network for the past two weeks and the Administration Team was at their wits’ end.
• Trying to stamp out the topic before the conversation even began had proved ineffective: users sanctioned for violating the ban would go on to cause even more chaos to protest against the ban itself. This is why FyreDraygg engages in the debate instead of handing out sanctions or trying to change the subject.
• Another user, Group member 4, participates in the argument with similar opinions to Big Claudia’s. By the end of the argument, they still hold differing opinions from FyreDraygg, but they are perfectly able to “agree to disagree” and de-escalate the tension.
• Big Claudia leaves the group herself rather than being banned. By the time she leaves the argument has already winded down and her leaving comes off as being more in response to multiple users joining the conversation and disagreeing with her rather than as a direct reaction to the argument itself.
• Since Big Claudia had already shown blatant disrespect for the rules, proven herself generally unpleasant in conversation, made several offensive comments and been reported by multiple users due to her behaviour on the internet, the Administration team took this opportunity to finally ban her.
• Despite the argument having become heated, no user except Big Claudia took any offense to anything. This kind of banter is slightly over what’s par for the course in an online forum such as our own and could definitely have been handled more calmly had circumstances not interfered, but it’s definitely nothing to get worked up about.