In my experience, yes, folk get angry seeing different opinions on hot button issues and report. Also, most mods on the net lean the same way so will usually oblige. Enforcement on most platforms leans one way so you end up with the so called silent majority who all self sensor to avoid trouble. It is the same but in opposite direction in the few platforms that specifically cater to the other side.
IMHO, something I learned on OSW, is that when it comes to any "community", most issues boil down to assessing malice and effort.
If the person is question is contributing to the overall forum and/or community, then they are going to get more slack cut for them. It's just how it works. That extends past our hobby as well. And it extends past this specific forum. The more you contribute, the more you set a "tone" that establishes the way you communicate, that is going to usually determine the kind of rope you get. Then you have to assess if the person is acting with just plain malice. Though sometimes people aren't. Some people have problems communicating, some are poorly socialized, some are just intentionally saying something different than the crowd or general consensus of a specific place to spark a reaction, some have mental health issues, some are just looking to instigate, etc, etc.
Something I find is people who operate with malice are usually lazy. Most communication problems can be overcome with simply more effort. In effect, filibuster the other person. Data, video, articles, polling, charts, reviews, analysis, podcasts, quotes, etc, etc.
The best way to counter "bad speech" is with more speech, not silence. Embrace confrontation. ( I believe the term "confrontation" gets a bad rap most of the time. Sometimes it's not a good thing, but many times it's actually essential to regulating basic order)
Basic rule of life - If someone keeps telling another person that what they are seeing with their own two eyes is not real, eventually there is going to be conflict. Sometimes it's a honest viewpoint. But a lot of the time it's just plain gaslighting and inferring that the person in front of them is too stupid to see otherwise.
I grew up in poverty. When I was a kid, it was rough. I'm not saying that to make others feel badly for me, because everyone in life has struggles and things to overcome. But part of the point here is I learned fast that you had no margin of error when you were starting the race many paces behind others. I learned it was better to be very polite. Have good manners. There's the saying, just because you were born in the ghetto, it doesn't mean the ghetto is born into you. When you are a kid and you have holes in your clothes, it's better to be seen as the polite mature kid, rather than the just the kid with holes in his clothes that you don't want near your own children who go the good schools. People judge your social class all the time. Your status. What you can do for them. What they can get out of you. What I'm saying is when someone acts like a tool, online or in person or anywhere, and they are engaging in relentless malice, IMHO, they are just holding up a big neon sign that says they came from trash. Their parents raised them to be trash. And, if they have kids, they are raising those kids to be trash.
Want proof? Every one here as a kid, my best guess is your parents knew some kids around you that they preferred you not be friends with out there. Or maybe you were often the kid that other parents warned their kids about. Or as adults, you see other kids and how they act, then you see their parents and how they act, and you don't have to go far to see that connection. It's not just this hobby, it's just how people work. No one wants their kind, their "people", near the bad seeds.
So the way I found to "detach" from people who are just tools with malice, if I decided it wasn't worth outright open violence against them, was to say silently to myself -
"They are going out of their way to say they are trash. They were born as trash. They were raised by trash. And if they have kids, they will breed those kids to also be garbage" That's the real cost of someone going out of their way to be a tool. Think about how pathetic it has to be for someone who was likely lucky enough to not be born in a ghetto to voluntarily make it clear that the ghetto was born into them.
You don't need to spit on someone who has already spit on their own kids. Their parents. Their cousins. Their siblings. Their family name. Nothing I said is particularly politically correct, but it's how many people feel in private, and IMHO it's the best way to fully "detach" from others with malice.
“I’m the one guy who says don’t force the stupid people to be quiet – I want to know who the morons are.”
— Mark Cuban
