Your Post Has Been Deleted By Quora Moderation

In Customer Service, Philosophy, Politics, Reviews by J Michel Metz10 Comments

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Well, it finally happened. I’ve read stories of Quora going through and deleting posts that they disagreed with, based upon political (and often nonsensical) reasoning, but thus far it had not happened to me. For the most part, my answers have been non-political, but then one question came down the pike that I felt compelled to answer.

Deletion bait?

The Question: What are your most unpopular opinions that most likely will offend a lot of people?

I suppose that if ever there was bait to trigger Quora’s moderation, this question would be it. Nevertheless, I figured that only the most twisted of people would actually get upset about the examples I wanted to give, but surely Quora moderation employed cooler heads, correct?

My Answer:

There is no such thing as “cultural appropriation.”

For decades Americans were known as “Ugly Americans” overseas because they rarely conformed, rarely attempted to fit in, and usually left a reputation as boorish, obnoxious “all about me and my culture” tourists.

Americans were rightfully criticized for not attempting to adapt and adopt to fit in with other cultures with whom they interacted.

Here we have an entire generation who are actively driving people to that mentality.

“Stick to your own kind” is the recurring theme here, but what it really attempts to mask (and fails to do so) is an unadulterated attempt to control people’s behavior by guilting them into admitting that they have done something wrong when they haven’t.

All of this is wrong:

And then there’s this, which just raised the bar to a whole new level:

SJW Attempts To Capture Black Suffering In Painting, Gets Accused Of Cultural Appropriation

There is nothing wrong with embracing or celebrating or eating or adopting or referencing or acknowledging elements from around the world. Nothing.

949 views · View Upvoters
22 Upvotes

Quora’s Response:

“Null.”

Yes, that’s right. The “violation” that they found was… “null.” Quora couldn’t even find a reason in their own T&Cs to identify the violation. After all, Quora itself has been quite clear on what constitutes their “Be Nice, Be Respectful” policy. So if they can’t even find something, then you know that there is substance to the criticism that Quora is following some shadow rules.

My Appeal

This answer complies with all of Quora’s BNBR policies. The very question itself requests an answer that, while NOT offensive, will yet still offend people.

In fact, the reason given for deleting this answer is “Null,” which seems to indicate that even Quora can’t determine what was wrong with this answer. There was no profanity, no ad hominem attacks, no cruelty, no disparaging groups or individuals based upon any race, sexual creed, political affiliation, or any other hot button topic. Instead, the answer explicitly states that there are those who do these things in the name of something called “cultural appropriation,” and that it, itself, is wrong.

This decision to delete should be reversed.

Bottom Line

We shall see whether or not Quora reverses their decision, but from what I can tell from reading other answers from people who have had similar things happen, it appears unlikely.

This isn’t a major answer, and in the long run it doesn’t affect what I’ll be doing in the long run, or even in the next 5 minutes. But it certainly does deepen the distrust of platforms such as this.

 

Update:

Whether something can objectively be called “violation” or not, it appears Quora is on a full warpath for anything and everything, whether it runs afoul of their “guidelines” or not. They’ve killed off the following answer too:

 

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Comments

  1. Reply

    Wow! There was nothing wrong with your reply. In fact, true cultural misappropriation has really limited applications, such as sports teams with Native American mascots and chants, whites using the N-word among themselves as a term of bonding, or whites portraying blacks or Asian Americans in films. The rest is just calming victimhood, and diminishes the real forms of cultural misappropriation.

  2. Reply

    ** The rest is just CLAIMING victimhood, and diminishes the real forms of cultural misappropriation. **

    1. Reply

      Has post deleted for apparently using the word “idiot” either that or saying the “Russian collusion hoax” is a hoax.. the original answer that I responded to used the word idiot twice, and “stupid” once.. appealed and looks like I lost.. no big deal tho. It was just for principle anyway. Not a big user of quora, and think I’ll delete my account, because this is truly the stupidest thing I’ve experienced anywhere in social media. Never had a post deleted anywhere! In fact I intentionally don’t even use profanity when I post, except for “damn” maybe once in 10years. I’ve seen people threaten someone on quora and never got post removed!?!?

  4. Pingback: Harmful Beliefs – J Metz's Blog

  5. Reply

    Quora is worst of the worst among social platforms. Their moderation is broken and censorship (dictatorship) is real. I deleted my account (I had more than 2000 answers) and I suggest everyone to do the same. Don’t be their unpaid workers (yes, they make money from your content (answers) and let them know that their free speech is more important for us than using their platform & it’s not okay for us to silence our criticism.

    1. Reply

      yeah, I just asked a question about Chinese politics and my post has been deleted and I received a warning, that totally irritated me !

      1. Author
        Reply

        They have been getting much, much more arbitrary. They took another one of mine down recently. In fact, I’ll add it to the main article…

  6. Reply

    Similar thing happened with me today they deleted my answer and I am not a blogger but that is making me very angry.

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