Reading through old threads is something that all Talossans should do frequently (although please avoid the many threads where I say stupid things I now regret).
https://talossa.proboards.com/thread/7972/petition-happier-kingdom
To clarify: I'm not endorsing the original post. I think political attacks are part of a democracy, and are fine, as long as people play the ball and not the person. I just think the thread is a very interesting read, for various reasons.
Disclaimer: Sondra Lomaira and Sarac'h Txilvertescu both later turned out to be ESB sockpuppets, which puts the things they are saying in a rather different perspective
Also, I forgot Miestra's thunderdome suggestion was that old. I thought the idea originated much later.
The Thunderdome is not actually an original idea from me. I got it from online forums organising anti-Scientology activism; many of those people came from 4chan and similar hives of scum and villainy, so the problem of "balancing free speech with keeping flamewars from taking over the board plus fights being free entertainment" was a pressing one.
For me, the most ironic thing about that thread is that the person who started it was also on record saying that "the Republicans" were a major problem in Talossa. He was just allergic to people disagreeing, and his solution to that was shutting people up / political exclusions.
I really enjoyed reading this thread, and stand by what I said all those years ago. Purportedly apolitical policing of speech is dangerous, and we would do well to try to keep political discussions more centralized and a lot of the general interests harmless chatting stuff should probably go on this board instead of a hidden board. Maybe this is something Txec could think about in terms of a renaming or reorganization of the boards to try to normalize chatting in a more casual way here, If he likes the idea.
Thank you, Gluc.
Quote from: Glüc da Dhi S.H. on September 17, 2020, 02:04:33 PM
Disclaimer: Sondra Lomaira and Sarac'h Txilvertescu both later turned out to be ESB sockpuppets, which puts the things they are saying in a rather different perspective
Yeah, it's kind of amazing to look back at discussions around this time and see how much of it was one person controlling half the conversation from multiple fictional people. I like the tag out of one personality and tag in of the next!
I am in favor of having a place where all the loud arguments can go that won't interfere with the other stuff that is happening. Reading the latest 59 sometimes becomes an effort in scrolling to get to things I need to read. I'm not entirely sure how I'd organize a Thunderdome and I also don't want to be blamed for moving things to it or be seen as being a censor.
If there is general agreement I'll re-create the Thunderdome. I'm also thinking that I can add something to Wittiquette with whatever criteria I will use to determine how threads get moved.
Quote from: Dr. Txec Róibeard dal Nordselvă, Esq., O.SPM, SMM on September 17, 2020, 03:10:08 PM
I am in favor of having a place where all the loud arguments can go that won't interfere with the other stuff that is happening. Reading the latest 59 sometimes becomes an effort in scrolling to get to things I need to read. I'm not entirely sure how I'd organize a Thunderdome and I also don't want to be blamed for moving things to it or be seen as being a censor.
If there is general agreement I'll re-create the Thunderdome. I'm also thinking that I can add something to Wittiquette with whatever criteria I will use to determine how threads get moved.
There is definitely not general agreement. I vociferously disagree with any person in power getting to censor speech by removing it from the public square and putting it out of sight based on whether or not they think the tone or topic is to their liking. The only time the government should get to interfere with the free speech of its citizens is if there is some sort of check on this power and if it is for the fairly unambiguous good of the public order.
I know it's well intentioned now, but it will be way too easily abused by someone less scrupulous than you.
Personally I'm pretty tired of random threads becoming partisan battlegrounds overnight, but I dont know what to do about this. Maybe instead of banishing political talk into its own section, we could reverse it and have a section in which political talk is banned instead -- thats what the people at r/unitedkingdom did when they collectively moved to r/casualuk and left the pundits to bicker at the old place. I'm not particularly attached to that idea though, just some food for thought.
I'm not actually in the government. I'm a civil servant. Just FYI.
Quote from: Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial on September 17, 2020, 03:40:20 PM
Personally I'm pretty tired of random threads becoming partisan battlegrounds overnight, but I dont know what to do about this. Maybe instead of banishing political talk into its own section, we could reverse it and have a section in which political talk is banned instead -- thats what the people at r/unitedkingdom did when they collectively moved to r/casualuk and left the pundits to bicker at the old place. I'm not particularly attached to that idea though, just some food for thought.
I think nudging would get us a lot of the way there. Merge the chat room and this board, create a new chat called political discussion, and encourage a norm where people start or continue political discussions there.
Quote from: Sir Alexandreu Davinescu on September 17, 2020, 04:09:29 PM
Merge the chat room and this board, create a new chat called political discussion, and encourage a norm where people start or continue political discussions there.
Wait, how would that be different from having another Thunderdome (albeit with better PR)?
Quote from: Sir Alexandreu Davinescu on September 17, 2020, 04:09:29 PM
Merge the chat room and this board, create a new chat called political discussion, and encourage a norm where people start or continue political discussions there.
That's certainly a feasible idea.
Quote from: Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial on September 17, 2020, 04:14:22 PM
Quote from: Sir Alexandreu Davinescu on September 17, 2020, 04:09:29 PM
Merge the chat room and this board, create a new chat called political discussion, and encourage a norm where people start or continue political discussions there.
Wait, how would that be different from having another Thunderdome (albeit with better PR)?
Because the thunderdome is a place where posts are forcibly segregated when someone in power doesn't like their tone or thinks the topic should be different. This would just be providing a purposely marked place to encourage folks to segregate their own speech.
I made a political party to do just that xD
Maybe nasty arguments could simply be drowned in a multitude of fun topics, for instance by reducing the number of subforums of subforums. The more every particular whimsy talk has to be taken to its own rarely frequented niche, the longer it takes to find all the pearls of the everyday talk of Talossans, and the more the heart of Wittenberg is just looking like a dry boring desert where nothing interesting is ever happening unless a wild uncontrolable argument is exploding like a shell.
Quote from: Dr. Txec Róibeard dal Nordselvă, Esq., O.SPM, SMM on September 17, 2020, 04:35:57 PM
Quote from: Sir Alexandreu Davinescu on September 17, 2020, 04:08:30 PM
Quote from: Dr. Txec Róibeard dal Nordselvă, Esq., O.SPM, SMM on September 17, 2020, 03:46:48 PM
I'm not actually in the government. I'm a civil servant. Just FYI.
Small g government, yes :-)
Txec <--- tired teacher brain.
I actually wasn't familiar with the distinction until relatively recently, since it's not a phenomenon in America. I think it's a kind of fun little way to distinguish, but like a lot of things (eg pretty much every aspect of heraldry) it took me a while to get it (if I even do).
Quote from: DNVercaria on September 17, 2020, 05:25:45 PM
Maybe nasty arguments could simply be drowned in a multitude of fun topics, for instance by reducing the number of subforums of subforums. The more every particular whimsy talk has to be taken to its own rarely frequented niche, the longer it takes to find all the pearls of the everyday talk of Talossans, and the more the heart of Wittenberg is just looking like a dry boring desert where nothing interesting is ever happening unless a wild uncontrolable argument is exploding like a shell.
I certainly support this. Get rid of the chat room!
The real problem with "stopping arguments", is the problem we had with the Biondeu suggestion, the lessons of which have not appeared to have been learned by most people here.. This point is that arguing isn't the problem, it's people behaving reprehensibly that's the problem. One of the ways manipulative abusers survive is that they cloak their abuse in innocent "harmless chatting", and then make the people who try to stop them/contradict their lies appear to be "mean people starting arguments". Denying, Attacking, Reversing Victim and Offender.
However, I don't think the Thunderdome is feasible unless we find a moderator who is ruthless and won't be swayed by whining and complaining and "working the ref" for pulling a Red Card on a particular thread, or a particular poster.
Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN on September 17, 2020, 06:02:00 PM
The real problem with "stopping arguments", is the problem we had with the Biondeu suggestion, the lessons of which have not appeared to have been learned by most people here.. This point is that arguing isn't the problem, it's people behaving reprehensibly that's the problem. One of the ways manipulative abusers survive is that they cloak their abuse in innocent "harmless chatting", and then make the people who try to stop them/contradict their lies appear to be "mean people starting arguments". Denying, Attacking, Reversing Victim and Offender.
However, I don't think the Thunderdome is feasible unless we find a moderator who is ruthless and won't be swayed by whining and complaining and "working the ref" for pulling a Red Card on a particular thread, or a particular poster.
For my part, I am wary when the head of the Government proposes putting in place a censor, specifically chosen for ruthlessness, in order to police speech with an undefined standard that sounds incredibly subjective and prone to abuse by the powerful. I'm sure that you have good intentions, but the next Seneschal or censor might not be so scrupulous about trying to silence their critics. I can easily envisage a scenario where a powerful political party discusses on Facebook or Slack the latest outrages by the enemy with the Secretary of State (or whoever the censor might be) and educates the uninitiated in appropriate attitudes. Even if such a group wasn't perfectly secure, it would be deeply problematic for our democracy. We can't always hope that we'll have virtuous and kind officials in charge, and we need to plan for someone hateful and abusive in office. What's the Madison quote? If men were angels, no government would be necessary, right?
"Working the refs" in politics means pre-emptively attacking the media (or other arbiters of truth) for "bias", to intimidate them and make sure the bias goes the other way. The classic example is D. Trump's relationship with the New York Times - he treats them mean to keep them keen. For example, a good way to make people unwilling to put a stop to your antics is to drop snide accusations that they're doing so as part of a political conspiracy against you. Screaming BIAS and CORRUPTION are quite effective ways for Donald Trump to delegitimise anyone who wants to stop his evil deeds. They're similarly effective in Talossa, sadly.
What we really can't have in Talossa is censorship based on "tone of voice" (eg. if someone starts using cusswords) or political content (as if, for example, a nasty flamewar about the Star Wars sequel trilogy would be hunky-dory). The best thing about the Thunderdome is it's not actually censorship. Free speech goes on unabated - in a forum where it doesn't get in other people's faces. The reason the last Thunderdome stopped working was that the moderators were bullied out of it by people whose posts kept ending up in the Thunderdome, and they didn't like it.
Anyone who characterises having a thread moved to a different subforum as censorship, and to spin persecution fantasies about it, is not only telling on themselves (i.e. revealing their true agenda, which is never to get negative feedback ever), but is cordially advised to grow the hútsch up.
I'm an American progressive activist, so I'm quite familiar with the phenomenon of working the refs, believe me.
When someone in power edits a conversation to eliminate the speech of some of the participants, that is certainly censorship. We should be candid when discussing such proposals. If you bridle at the use of that term, that's an appropriate reaction.
Obviously I don't have any problem with negative feedback, since I'm the one vigorously arguing against censorship... And if you can't understand why I might fear that this power over the speech of the citizenry might be misused, then it might be worthwhile for you to think more in terms of the hypotheticals that you scorn. Would you be okay with giving the Seneschal the authority to pass PD's without a counter signature, for example? Of course not, because even though you might be a certain that you would never abuse that power in an arbitrary and cruel manner, you don't know that a future leader would be as restrained with indulging their vendettas, right?
I should also note that no-one had any problem with the absolute independence of the SoS to run NewWitt the way he saw fit under the previous incumbent. But we had some problems with the King's shenanigans on OldWitt precisely because he could not be held accountable for what he did with his private property.
What are the current methods of accountability for the SoS?
1) he reports to the Ziu, in the person of the Túischac'h and Mençéi (El Lex. C.2.1)
2) he can be removed by the King on the recommendation of the above, or the Seneschál, for stated misbehaviour. (El Lex. C.3.1.)
3) the legal requirements for Witt moderation are given by El Lex. J.2:
QuoteThe Secretary of State or their designated representative(s) shall act to maintain a minimum level of acceptable behavior on these boards when such action is requested whensoever their own judgment directs that it is necessary. This behavior is not defined in specifics, but shall include generally treating others in a manner that respects Talossa as a community.
If you want the SoS to be under any other requirements for administration of Wittenberg, then they will have to be
legal ones. To put it bluntly: the only way we get to force the SoS to administer Witt in any other way than the above is to pass a law.
I'm impressed by the rhetorical slight of hand where Facebook groups to which the gentleman is not invited are dubious hives of possible corruption, collusion and other forms of badthink against said gentleman; but on Wittenberg, all speech MUST be unregulated! Except where it upsets the gentleman, of course.
This reminds me of the gentleman's previous record of trying to break into confidential Cabinet discussions to see whether people are saying bad things about him. I try to not be a "backstabber", myself, and I don't say anything substantive in private that I wouldn't say on Wittenberg. It's just in public I try not to use cusswords. Anyway, the gentleman has got to accept that people are going to say unpleasant things about him if he... well, does what he does, and the real policing of speech is trying to shut that down or make it seem illegitimate.
And as for the turnabout issue: I fully accepted 23 years ago that, when I'm not around, Talossans whom I have rubbed the wrong way are going to retail all the garbage they possibly can about me. All I can do is challenge it when it gets into the public domain.
Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN on September 17, 2020, 07:25:14 PM
I'm impressed by the rhetorical slight of hand where Facebook groups to which the gentleman is not invited are dubious hives of possible corruption, collusion and other forms of badthink against said gentleman; but on Wittenberg, all speech MUST be unregulated! Except where it upsets the gentleman, of course.
This reminds me of the gentleman's previous record of trying to break into confidential Cabinet discussions to see whether people are saying bad things about him. I try to not be a "backstabber", myself, and I don't say anything substantive in private that I wouldn't say on Wittenberg. It's just in public I try not to use cusswords. Anyway, the gentleman has got to accept that people are going to say unpleasant things about him if he... well, does what he does, and the real policing of speech is trying to shut that down or make it seem illegitimate.
And as for the turnabout issue: I fully accepted 23 years ago that, when I'm not around, Talossans whom I have rubbed the wrong way are going to retail all the garbage they possibly can about me. All I can do is challenge it when it gets into the public domain.
... I think you must be confused. I am vigorously arguing that the authorities should not police speech here, to the maximum extent in keeping with public order. I don't think I anywhere suggested that we should be policing private Facebook groups or that speech that "upsets me" should be censored. I am emphatically arguing pretty much the exact opposite, actually. I've actually tried really hard to make that clear. I think that no matter who is in power, the government should as much as possible not being involved in monitoring or censoring our communications. As the thread linked above shows, I have been consistent about that both when I was a politician and my party was in power, and now that I'm a private citizen.
I also thought I was pretty clearly establishing an elaborate hypothetical. I was not seriously suggesting that you and Txec were engaged in that behavior or that either of you would abuse your power. that is the whole point of the hypothetical... We aren't trying to make laws that will only apply for the current occupants of offices, but to all future occupants.
Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN on September 17, 2020, 07:25:14 PM
I'm impressed by the rhetorical slight of hand where Facebook groups to which the gentleman is not invited are dubious hives of possible corruption, collusion and other forms of badthink against said gentleman; but on Wittenberg, all speech MUST be unregulated! Except where it upsets the gentleman, of course.
The real irony of this point is that a good 30–40% of the posts on the FreeDems Facebook group mention Mr Davinescu by name, often in the form of tactical "tips and tricks" on how to deal with him, including employing the very same gaslighting tactics that AD himself stands accused of, e.g. "Never take anything AD says in good faith." So there's that.
All this is true, apart from the use of the term "gaslighting", which indicates to me that you don't understand what the term means.
Hmmm. I can no longer see you on the membership list. Does that mean you quit? Did you quit because you consider that our collective responses to AD are somehow improper?
I'm sure I don't know. I don't presume to understand your motivations. I wouldn't want to be labelled a "narcissist" or some other pop-psychological term.
What I know is this: I see a lot of double-dipping, where AD is publicly called out for gaslighting people, and then privately members of the FDT are exhorted (by the party leadership, no less!) to gaslight and provoke AD, to never take his criticisms in good faith, etc. I happen to think AD has a point about censorship (relative to Talossa, i.e. summarily moving posts around and altering them). Maybe it's easier to label people as devils than it is to engage with their ideas, even when the implications of their criticisms might be uncomfortable, or cause the government to lose face?
Edit: Proposing a party-wide tactic of just ignoring all of AD's posts and literally pretending he doesn't exist like children might do on a schoolyard strikes me as kind of gaslighting, but hey, I'm not a psychologist and don't claim to be.
It's pretty clear that you don't know what "gaslighting" means, or that you're using it in a VERY different sense than I do. The Free Democrats do not use gaslighting tactics, defined as "deliberately lying to confuse people and make them doubt their own perceptions" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting), we never have, and I don't know why you have to add that when your shocking exposé about "Free Democrats discuss AD's manipulative tactics and how to counteract them" has made a sufficient splash.
Also, that's a new definition of "double-dipping" as well. If you mean "hypocrisy", then that's a perfectly cromulent word.
I'm fine with calling it hypocrisy. Tis the sport to have the enginer hoist with his own petard.
QuoteProposing a party-wide tactic of just ignoring all of AD's posts
The fact that I have been replying to AD today should indicate to you that your comprehension of that thread might have been wrong.
BTW, to drag the thread back on topic: this is
precisely the kind of thread that should be Domed - not because Eovart or myself are doing anything wrong (though a fine line is being trodden), but because we should give ordinary Talossans without "beef" a way to easily ignore this stuff if it doesn't add to their enjoyment.
One more point: I oppose the idea of abolishing the Chat Room because I think it's good for there to be a "Talossans-only" discussion forum. A group needs to have an internal space for discussions if it is to develop a healthy culture. The citizens-only fora in Penguinea were where all the good things happen; and as GV says in the History Project, private forums were crucial to allow the free debate which led to the end of KR1's tyranny.
Also, how about bringing back a forum along the lines of the old Republic's "Landing Pier" - a subforum open to Friends of Talossa as well as citizens, so we can get input from the outside world?
Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN on September 17, 2020, 11:14:14 PM
One more point: I oppose the idea of abolishing the Chat Room because I think it's good for there to be a "Talossans-only" discussion forum. A group needs to have an internal space for discussions if it is to develop a healthy culture. The citizens-only fora in Penguinea were where all the good things happen; and as GV says in the History Project, private forums were crucial to allow the free debate which led to the end of KR1's tyranny.
Also, how about bringing back a forum along the lines of the old Republic's "Landing Pier" - a subforum open to Friends of Talossa as well as citizens, so we can get input from the outside world?
+1 for landing pier
I don't think it's wrong to have protected spaces like the Chat Room, but I wonder why it should be neccessary to hide fun things like (e.g.) the Talossan Top Twenty away from publically visible spaces.
Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN on September 17, 2020, 07:05:51 PM
The reason the last Thunderdome stopped working was that the moderators were bullied out of it by people whose posts kept ending up in the Thunderdome, and they didn't like it.
Also by people who thought that posts that weren't sent to the Thunderdome should have been.
Quote from: Ian Plätschisch on September 18, 2020, 01:52:49 PM
Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN on September 17, 2020, 07:05:51 PM
The reason the last Thunderdome stopped working was that the moderators were bullied out of it by people whose posts kept ending up in the Thunderdome, and they didn't like it.
Also by people who thought that posts that weren't sent to the Thunderdome should have been.
Either way, the 'Dome moderator (or any moderator of Witt at all?) has got to have nerves of steel, total faith in their own judgement, sheer apathy towards attempts to work the refs, and political impartiality. It would be a perfect job for a properly retired politician or judge who wants to stay active but really doesn't GAF about contemporary debates.
Quote from: Éovart Andrinescù on September 17, 2020, 09:09:13 PM
Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN on September 17, 2020, 07:25:14 PM
I'm impressed by the rhetorical slight of hand where Facebook groups to which the gentleman is not invited are dubious hives of possible corruption, collusion and other forms of badthink against said gentleman; but on Wittenberg, all speech MUST be unregulated! Except where it upsets the gentleman, of course.
The real irony of this point is that a good 30–40% of the posts on the FreeDems Facebook group mention Mr Davinescu by name, often in the form of tactical "tips and tricks" on how to deal with him
This conversation appears to have taken quite a dramatic turn last night. This does help make sense of a lot of recent behavior.
My two cents: It's not censorship unless we're deleting, editing, or hiding ("shadowbanning") people and their posts. Merely moving a thread, or parts of a thread, to a new location does not constitute censorship.
I think that a reintroduction of the Thunderdome is well advised and, rather than move an entire thread, a moderator should move only the grossly inflammatory posts.
AD, if you're worried, you should exercise those legislative muscles of yours (you did write El Lexhatx, after all) and write up a draft of a bill regulating the standards for which some posts get moved. Otherwise we'll just have to trust the moderator's judgement :)
Quote from: Açafat del Val on September 21, 2020, 09:33:33 AM
AD, if you're worried, you should exercise those legislative muscles of yours (you did write El Lexhatx, after all) and write up a draft of a bill regulating the standards for which some posts get moved. Otherwise we'll just have to trust the moderator's judgement :)
I'm a citizen expressing their concerns to the legislators and leaders of the country. I am no longer a legislator and haven't been in office in quite some time now. It's actually a bit worrying how often I hear, "fix it yourself" from the people elected to run things! I appreciate the vote of confidence, but I think Talossans should be able to voice concerns about problems even if they're not legislators.
Anyway, I think it's already been exhaustively established elsewhere that the intended function on Witt is that each board is supposed to have their own standards/rules, and that they then request action from the Chancery if those standards are violated. I know it's the party line now that there should be a moderator who chooses what is acceptable speech in a given conversation, but that's not the law.
(https://www.thoughtco.com/thmb/aatGPt7WiZB-ylfxRWAHdPZMmMw=/1820x1365/smart/filters:no_upscale()/low-angle-view-scarecrow-against-cloudy-sky-562838541-5aaf18adfa6bcc00360a609c.jpg)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
(https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/red_herring1.png)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_herring
Yes, that does seem like a helpful article for you.
You suggested I write a law establishing "a bill regulating the standards for which some posts get moved" and I pointed out that there's already a law which has each board's authority (Dean of the College, Mencei, etc) writing the rules for their board and requesting any action from the Chancery to moderate. That's pretty much the opposite of a red herring, since it's a direct and topical response.
So yeah. Thanks.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_faith
I'll dance with you all night, if you'd like. Just know that I sorta have two left feet.
Quote from: Açafat del Val on September 21, 2020, 11:21:41 AM
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_faith
I'll dance with you all night, if you'd like. Just know that I sorta have two left feet.
Uh. Okay. If you're done with the weird meta-derailing, can we return to the topic? Maybe the marching orders on Facebook (https://wittenberg.talossa.com/index.php?topic=482.msg3672#msg3672) say differently, but this doesn't seem productive.
There should not be a place to segregate unpopular opinions. It's bad for the body politic. And in any other setting, the power to decide what is permitted to be said in a conversation would be called censorship, even if that makes us all uncomfortable to admit. There needs to be a public square that is only regulated to the extent that it is required for a minimum of public order -- things for which board moderators can reasonably set fairly objective standards, like spamming.
I've lost the trail in this thread...
I'm not entirely comfortable with a return of The Thunderdome. I also want to remind those who've forgotten (if anyone has) that we do have Wittiquette rules: https://wittenberg.talossa.com/index.php?topic=125.0.
Can we move on perhaps?
Quote from: Dr. Txec Róibeard dal Nordselvă, Esq., O.SPM, SMM on September 21, 2020, 12:02:42 PM
I'm not entirely comfortable with a return of The Thunderdome. ...
Can we move on perhaps?
Happily.
The really crappy thing is that I have to keep replying to AD, because someone not in the know would probably take him at his word that "unpopular opinions" are the problem - rather than trolling, bad faith, disinformation, personal abuse, slander, etc. I will be in continuous discussion with the SoS on how we can impose strong disincentives to "defecating in the pool of discourse" on Wittenberg.
Funny how a "progressive" should be repeating the very arguments that have allowed entities like the Murdoch press/TV networks, websites like Breitbart and Gateway Pundit, and more recently Russian chaos trolls, to poison US discourse to near the point of a fascist takeover. But then, Talossa is a place for doing things you can't do in real life.
I wouldn't argue for a government censor to decide which opinions were allowed on television, either. Giving the government the power to the side what is acceptable discourse usually does not turn out well for democracy.
Just as an example, the most recent occasion in which the Seneschal has called for censorship was the exact moment when a member of her party began spilling embarrassing information about their preoccupations. As soon as that happened, she said that that was the sort of posts that should be removed from the conversation by a government official. No one has to rely on my word about that... It happened just a couple of days ago in this very thread. Go back a page and everyone can see for themselves.
I want to make it clear I am not saying that this is corrupt or anything like that. I am sure that she genuinely believed that the general public didn't need to see these comments and that they were disruptive and not helpful. But from an outside perspective, the exact moment when the head of government began calling for someone to intervene and stop the conversation is when it started getting embarrassing, and that's just human nature at work. I'm sure I would become equally alert to how distracting a conversation has become in her same position! I could not ask for a more perfect illustration of the dangers here.
Again, just to reiterate: I am not alleging corruption or impropriety, just the inevitable consequences of human nature and excessive power. Absolutely anyone in the same position would be reliable to scrutinize inconvenient speech as potentially problematic.