[HN Gopher] A meta-analysis of the effects of trigger warnings a...
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A meta-analysis of the effects of trigger warnings and content
notes
Author : snomad
Score : 59 points
Date : 2022-11-25 18:21 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (osf.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (osf.io)
| sbf501 wrote:
| "Overall, we found that warnings have no effect on affective
| responses to negative material nor on educational outcomes (i.e.,
| comprehension). However, warnings reliably increase anticipatory
| affect. Findings on avoidance were mixed, suggesting either that
| warnings have no effect on engagement with material, or that they
| increase engagement with negative material under specific
| circumstances. Limitations and implications for policy and
| therapeutic practice are discussed."
|
| The characteristics of the meta analysis were largely focused on
| the general public and attempts to limit anxiety in that domain.
| But I think they forgot an entire other application: NSFL
| warnings.
|
| Whenever I see NSFL I ABSOLUTELY avoid clicking, I even stop
| reading, and that has greatly improved my peace of mind. Learned
| that the hard way during the early internet: I've accidentally
| seen way too many horrific things I wont even tangentially
| mention to last me 1000 liftimes. Sure there is an anticipatory
| impact, but NSFL works for me!
|
| It seems like one message here is that more moderation is needed
| if anticipation has similar impact as the actual content.
| XorNot wrote:
| There's a very practical use of trigger warnings that's existed
| uncontroversially for decades and it's the use of story tags
| for internet erotica, dating back to the usenet days.
|
| Story tags there serve two important purposes: so you can find
| what you want to read, and not read that which you definitely
| do not.
| roughly wrote:
| From the discussion, this stuck out:
|
| > One possibility is that most people are not skilled at
| emotional preparation (e.g., reappraising emotional content or
| using coping strategies). Thus, the uncomfortable anticipatory
| period is unlikely to reflect any form of helpful action. This
| conclusion is supported by Bridgland et al. (2021) who asked
| participants to explain what they would do when they came
| across a trigger warning; only a minority of participants
| mentioned some form of approach coping strategy (e.g.,
| reappraisal strategies, such as reminding themselves to focus
| on non-emotional aspects of the situation; Shiota & Levenson,
| 2009). Indeed, trigger warnings (including those used in the
| present studies) typically warn people about the distressing
| reactions they may have, but do not explain how to reduce these
| reactions.
|
| Basically, content warnings aren't useful on their own without
| additional therapeutic training, which makes sense. "Something
| bad is about to happen" isn't useful if you don't have the
| means or experience to prepare for it.
| lazide wrote:
| Eh, NSFL type warnings (and experience) might provide an
| alternative explanation?
|
| The warnings don't help when people's curiosity (morbid,
| compulsive, or otherwise) has not been counteracted by
| learned experience (or tools via therapy) that they don't
| like it or it doesn't help them.
|
| The warnings are generally not generic (aka 'bad stuff
| here'), they're usually quite descriptive of what category it
| covers. Far more than a NSFL warning for sure!
|
| If someone keeps going, it's not because they did so
| accidentally. They either thought it was going to be fine and
| they could handle it (and most can), or couldn't stop
| themselves even if they knew it was going to be bad.
| slothtrop wrote:
| Makes me wonder what the overlap is between those demanding
| trigger warnings and those habitually stumbling upon NSFL
| material. I'd venture very little. Notwithstanding, I have
| avoided virtually all NSFL stuff and don't understand
| trigger warnings. However, I think content should be
| described when rating media.. for instance, R/M ratings
| could have "rape" in its description when depicted which
| would make trigger warnings redundant. When it comes to
| mere conversation (on yt or whatever), it's already
| redundant.
| civilized wrote:
| I imagine the things people consider NSFL depend on their
| personality and background. These studies seem like they'd be
| more illuminating if they looked at e.g. rape content warnings
| for rape survivors.
|
| Effects on the rest of us matter as well, but shouldn't be
| considered the whole story.
| wpietri wrote:
| Exactly. If I'm going to warn people about content, it's
| because of what those specific people might struggle with. It
| was something I understood better once I found a piece of
| pretty ordinary media traumatic. And here I should say:
| content warning for cancer and death.
|
| Some years back my mom was getting treated for a brain tumor.
| It was a glioblastoma, and as one of her surgeons explained,
| "This is the thing you will die from." Median survival time,
| 14 months.
|
| I was very involved in her care and it was draining. She was
| still fighting hard at that point, but we knew that a moment
| would come when we'd have to decide to stop treatment. So
| when I saw that a local theater was having a triple feature
| with one of my favorite directors, Edgar Wright, I
| immediately bought tickets. At last, a light and fun evening.
|
| What I had forgotten in the years since I had seen it was
| that in Shaun of the Dead, a zombie rom-com I adored, there
| is a scene where the protagonist's mom gets bitten. That
| protagonist, played by Simon Pegg, struggles with what to do.
| When his mom turns into a zombie, he is forced to shoot her.
| At that point I was about a month away from having to pull
| the plug on my own mom, and the scene was just devastating. I
| had to leave the theater. A decade later I've still not been
| able to watch the film.
|
| I should be clear here: I'm not saying Shaun of the Dead
| should have had a content warning. I had seen it! And I think
| that sort of need is better served by things like
| https://www.doesthedogdie.com/ . But I am saying that it was
| a profoundly shitty experience. In the same way I'm going to
| avoid literally stepping on somebody's toes (because that
| hurts!) I'm going to avoid retraumatizing somebody when I
| can.
|
| I think people already do that pretty naturally with things
| that are widely seen as disturbing. E.g., I was visiting a
| friend and went to pick up a textbook on his coffee table. He
| warned me not to open it, as it belonged to his brother in
| law who was studying to be a hand surgeon. I was grateful for
| that warning, as I can't unsee that stuff. To me content
| warnings are just extending that courtesy to less common
| horrors.
| lazide wrote:
| Sorry to hear about your loss and experience. It does sound
| really terrible.
|
| The challenge society wide is, of course, where is the
| line, and when is it useful to do at all?
|
| Which the study seems to be saying, it isn't generally
| useful for the 'less common horrors', at least not with a
| somewhat generic warning.
| wpietri wrote:
| Sure. I think it's something we have to figure out
| jointly between people of different experiences. But I
| agree with others that definitionally the effectiveness
| for less common stuff can't be measured by looking at the
| general-audience reaction.
| everforward wrote:
| I typically see content flagged NSFL when it's generally
| repulsive regardless of background (excepting those seeking
| out the content). Stuff like graphic videos of beheadings or
| people set on fire that's upsetting even to people with no
| traumatic background. It's kind of like a trigger warning for
| an average person; background doesn't matter if the content
| is bad enough.
| weinzierl wrote:
| I absolutely agree that different people are triggered by
| different things, and in my opinion it's good that we
| recognize and respect that.
|
| On the other hand I'm convinced there are things that are
| universally NSFL for everyone and I believe that the parent
| comment is geared in that direction.
|
| The meta-analysis seems to include only papers that deal with
| the first kind of trigger:
|
| _" The warning, as conceptualized by the authors of the
| relevant publication, was intended to notify participants
| that forthcoming content may trigger memories or emotions
| relevant to past experiences. "_
| drewpc wrote:
| Does NSFL mean "Not Safe For Life"? I wasn't familiar with this
| term before and have never seen content labeled with it.
| andy81 wrote:
| Exactly. It differentiates e.g. gore from pornography.
| [deleted]
| Pxtl wrote:
| I usually hear it as "not safe for lunch", as in something so
| horrifying it will make it difficult to keep food down.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> I usually hear it as "not safe for lunch",
|
| Decades ago, I was having lunch at my parents house. There
| was a newspaper on the table, unopened, just brought in. I
| looked over the top of page 1. Unfolded it, and there was a
| picture of a dead body in the street. It was a story about
| some conflict in another country (Bosnia perhaps). I'm OK
| with seeing that if I'm already reading about it and in the
| right frame of mind, but "not safe for lunch" really hit me
| that day. So much that I called the newspaper to complain
| about "being surprised with a dead body on the front pafe
| during lunch". I've never done that before or since. ;-)
| snapplebobapple wrote:
| So the reasons people are for this stuff are pretty uniformly
| incorrect and the reasons people are against this stuff are
| either also incorrect or possibly correct depending on the
| situation?
| asingh11 wrote:
| That's a fair point, but psychology is so malleable and that
| even if people believe that it helps them prepare/digest
| sensitive info, it will directly help them digest it ...
| placebo effect is real.
| TexanFeller wrote:
| I grew up in a religious fundamentalist household that tried to
| shelter me from every "bad" thing in the world. I wasn't allowed
| to watch many cartoons because they were "too violent. It's
| probably for that reason that few things fill me with more
| disgust and rage than trigger warnings and censorship. Thank God
| for the Internet coming along to enable me to see every form of
| violence, abuse, pornography, torture, death, suicide advocacy,
| and bomb making material in the world. I am eternally grateful to
| be the worldly person I am to day and horrified to see trigger
| warnings appearing in most of the executive communications at my
| workplace. I used to have crippling anxiety, PTSD, thought of
| suicide every day, and struggled with a large assortment of
| chronic mental health conditions that disable many people, so in
| theory I'm someone that should want this. Deliberately exposing
| myself to as much of the worst of the world as possible made me
| much happier and stronger.
| valryon wrote:
| This comes right after the release of our game Flat Eye [0],
| which includes a quite new Content Warning system.
|
| So far players really likes the fact that the system exists and
| that they can choose to skip or see the content. It's all about
| being warned anf having the choice.
|
| [0]: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1358840
| romwell wrote:
| This study seems to be pretty limited regardless of how it's
| carried out.
|
| People seem to be hung up on the _new_ term "trigger warning"
| when we've had _content warnings_ since time immemorial.
|
| Nobody seems to be writing the articles on "efficacy" of movie
| ratings, or putting "18+" labels on content. We, as a society,
| understand that not all content is suitable for all audiences...
| when it comes to sex, and sex only, it seems.
|
| Then there's the issue of _trust_. Any source that gives a heads-
| up of what 's coming and _doesn 't_ spring 2girls1cup on you
| without a warning is going to be more trusted than the one that
| _does_.
|
| Why is that even a question when the same principles applies to
| content _other_ than an unclothed female nipple or (gasp)
| genitals? Is it so hard to make the leap to other subjects, such
| as vivid depictions of rape and violence?
|
| Why isn't it common sense that, regardless of studies of
| "efficacy", giving a heads-up about shit that some people in the
| audience might not want to see _unprompted_ is, like, _polite_ ,
| and is universally a _good thing_?
|
| It's frankly exhausting to even have these discussions, again and
| again. Trigger warnings are about _not being an asshole to the
| people who choose to listen to you_.
|
| The effect is they might choose to listen to you _again_ ,
| because you're not a dick. End of story.
|
| _______
|
| TL;DR: the study focuses on nebulous "effects", whereas they
| should be looking at bounce rates.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| The study was about content warnings and anxiety triggers.
| kulahan wrote:
| He explains this in the thread - it appears as though trigger
| warnings only serve to increase anxiety until the trigger is
| experienced, and at no point does it improve or worsen the
| experience.
|
| So he analogizes this by saying "Imagine a doctor prescribed
| you a pill and you asked if it was going to help".
|
| If "Oh no, it won't help, but it _might_ cause some very minor
| harm. " was the response, you'd probably find a new doctor. So
| why do we do the opposite here?
|
| In reality, you're "being an asshole" _with_ the trigger
| warnings, assuming you continue doing them knowing now that it
| does not help, and may actively harm.
| igorbark wrote:
| this analogy breaks down on a number of levels.
|
| 1. patients invented and self-prescribed the pill originally
|
| 2. the doctor has concluded that the pills are harmful by
| studying what happens who do not have the illness the pills
| are meant to treat take the pills
|
| 3. the doctor didn't really keep track of what doses were
| given to different patients
|
| i.e.
|
| 1. trigger warnings were not originally forced on people,
| they were created by people who found them helpful to help
| themselves
|
| 2. the studies in the meta analysis are all on general
| populations, in particular mechanical turk and college
| students
|
| 3. there is no discussion of the different effect different
| implementations of content warnings can have. for example,
| the only study that measured physiological responses instead
| of using self-reported anxiety showed the highest anxiety
| response. probably, because it also gave a completely general
| and non-specific content warning that went like this: "The
| next page has the link to the movie clip. Researchers have
| been asked to give a trigger warning for the clip". so they
| showed that when told some arbitrary but highly disturbing
| thing could happen at any point during a video, people in
| general will be more anxious when watching the video. and
| concluded that content warnings are a harmful practice.
| romwell wrote:
| Don't forget:
|
| 4. The doctor didn't keep track of of how many patients
| ditched him, forever, because the doc doesn't understand
| the above
|
| -----
|
| Thank you for a thorough reply and debunking of the
| argument by broken analogy.
|
| The whole idea of content warnings is giving the audience a
| _choice_ ; it's about _informed consent_ -- a concept that
| both HN and the researcher seem to struggle with.
|
| No shit Sherlock that a content warning of the form "some
| thing you won't like will happen, _BUT I WON 'T TELL YOU
| WHICH THING NOR WHEN IT WILL HAPPEN_ is anxiety inducing!
|
| For fuck's sake, that's a bad faith thing to say.
|
| How about:
|
| >"Warning: I'm going to talk about rape, about 15 minutes
| into the talk, for about 5 minutes. I'll give you a heads-
| up, so you don't have to worry. If you don't want to hear
| about rape today, you can skip this part and stay with us
| for the rest."
|
| _This_ is a trigger warning.
|
| It enables _informed consent_ to consume any /all parts of
| the content.
|
| Similarly, "what follows in 10 seconds is a depiction of
| rape" is a _warning_.
|
| A trigger "warning" without the option to _opt out of
| consuming the content_ warned about isn 't a "warning",
| it's a _threat_.
|
| And a "warning" that isn't specific about _either_ content
| or _time_ is torture.
|
| >"Somewhere in this talk, we'll show something that we know
| you asked us not to show you out of the blue. We'll still
| show it out of the blue, but we're _warning_ you about it
| _now_. No, you can 't leave"
|
| -- apparently, we need a research article to tell HN that
| this is fucking bullshit.
|
| The cherry on the pie remains what I said in the first
| place: that the natural outcome of such "warning" (i.e.
| _lack_ of warning) is that affected people won 't choose to
| interact with you again -- and that's exactly what this
| study _doesn 't measure_.
| [deleted]
| maxbond wrote:
| (TW: Suicide)
|
| I'd like to share a personal annecdote that I think may be
| instructive to people who have never found trigger warnings to be
| useful.
|
| Once a friend of mine wanted to show me a visual novel. They
| skipped the trigger warning at the beginning because they felt it
| was spoilery. We played through the whole thing in one night;
| about halfway through the story (given the path I took), we were
| lead to believe a character committed suicide (and that it may be
| because you rejected them romantically), and then at the end it's
| revealed they were literally trolling you.
|
| I had fairly recently gotten out of a traumatic relationship with
| someone suicidal. When I would try to leave the relationship,
| they would threaten to kill themselves. Sometimes they would beg
| me to kill them. Needless to say, suicide was a difficult topic
| for me to engage with in an immersive, RPG-like setting.
|
| I felt blindsided & stopped having a good time after I was lead
| to believe the character took their life. I was uncomfortable but
| didn't know what to do but keep playing. When I finished the game
| and the twist was revealed, I didn't feel pathos. I think some of
| you may relate to the moment you realized the show Lost was never
| going to resolve the mysteries it was putting forth, that the
| show runners were throwing things out to grab your attention with
| no plan to resolve them; like my emotions had been manipulated in
| a cheap way to engage me. I felt toyed with.
|
| I think if I had had the trigger warnings, I would've been able
| to mentally prepare myself. Or I'd have the opportunity to decide
| I didn't want to play.
|
| I want to make informed choices about the media I consume and how
| I consume it. Make of that what you will.
|
| (This was all many years ago & I'm doing well.)
| Gare wrote:
| Was it DDLC? A 12-year old boy in Croatia commited suicide
| partly because of emotional trauma caused by it.
| maxbond wrote:
| No, I don't remember the title (and I feel like the post is
| better with keeping it abstract, I don't want to get into the
| weeds of discussing this particular story) but I have played
| DDLC and it wasn't that one in particular.
|
| That's terrible about the 12 year old boy. I would say DDLC
| is a powerful and compelling piece of art that subverts &
| interrogates it's own genre and reveals the flaws of that
| genre, and I'm certainly not advocating for people not to
| make really challenging art like that. I wish things could
| have been different for that boy, but I'm not sure that's
| something better trigger warnings would solve.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| Do you have a reference for that? I can only find a 15 year
| old in Manchester vaguely linked to it (without any real
| evidence the game was involved.)
|
| https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-
| manches...
|
| > Ms Kearsley said it was 'commonsense' to question the
| game's emotional impact but recording a verdict of suicide,
| she said: "We can make no direct link between Ben's death and
| his online gaming. Ben was a young man who potentially had a
| number of complexities."
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| Hmm. I am torn for several different reasons including the
| topics I would want to address, but I feel I should focus on
| one thing.
|
| << I want to make informed choices about the media I consume
| and how I consume it.
|
| That is a reasonable statement and even expectation on the
| surface. I might accept it as rationale for graphic movies and
| so on, but your example is visual novel, where you choose your
| own adventure - a form of media that is almost guaranteed to
| put you in unusual and unexpected situations? Unless you play a
| game built around satire of everyday life ( say.. Stanley
| Parable ), is it not expected to expect unexpected including
| some questionable predicaments?
|
| But more to my real point, should art imitate life or should it
| be a 'safified' version of it? I can absolutely relate to
| seeing something you should not see ( my buddy dared/forced me
| to watch "Hostel" with him and it was not a pleasant experience
| and have stumbled onto some real bad stuff on the 90s net - I
| completely buy it can mess you up if you are not mentally
| prepared ).
|
| In your example, how would you know this could have been the
| outcome without having gone through it? It seems like catch 22.
| Trigger warning would give you only a very general idea.
| maxbond wrote:
| There was a TW on the opening screen about suicide. I'd have
| liked to see it. Obviously that was my friend's error and not
| the game's, and we discussed this afterwards. What I wanted
| to highlight is that a trigger warning was erased, and this
| was a very vulnerable time for me when it would have been
| very useful.
|
| I'm not entirely sure I've understood your objection
| properly, but I'll try to address your questions.
|
| Yeah it's expected that I'll be put in unusual situations, no
| I don't expect authors to anticipate each trauma I could
| possibly have, but surely the very obvious ones can be
| covered.
|
| Should art immitate life or be safe? Neither and both,
| there's plenty of room in this world for the most gritty
| horror movie and for Blue's Clues.
|
| How could I have known it was the outcome? The trigger
| warning was as specific as it needed to be - "TW: Suicide" is
| plenty.
|
| ETA: The general vibe I'm getting here is you're asking,
| "where do you draw the line?", as if this were a slippery
| slope. The answer is, it's a matter of taste and judgement.
| It's not any less tractable then the question, when do you
| decide a work of art is done?
|
| Naturally this opens up the observation that, if it's about
| judgment, one could decide to include no trigger warnings,
| like my friend did when presenting the game to me. And sure,
| I'm not saying that's invalid. More that its bad taste, and
| I've elaborated as to why I feel that way.
| esperent wrote:
| I usually see two viewpoints on trigger warnings from
| reasonable people (i.e. not people caught up in US identify
| politics).
|
| Those who oppose trigger warnings like the commenter above
| you, who believe that you should be ready to handle
| anything a piece of fiction throws at you. After all, it's
| just fiction, right? Generalizing, this usually comes from
| people who have never experienced deep trauma or at least
| who have never confronted it. Or possibly they have, but
| they were lucky enough to have an upbringing that gave them
| the tools to remain mentally stable while doing so. They
| also tend to be low in empathy - they believe everyone has
| a mental state similar to them so they can't understand, at
| an emotional level, why other people would _need_ trigger
| warnings. For them, quite reasonably, trigger warnings are
| annoying spoilers and they dislike that.
|
| Then there's the people who support trigger warnings. Often
| this comes from having experienced deep trauma without a
| support system (internal or external) that was strong
| enough to deal with it. Or they have observed this in
| people they love. These people know how fragile mental
| health is for many people and they want to start building a
| more supportive society, one small part of which is adding
| labels to fiction that will let people know when dangerous
| traumas might be triggered by reading it. And undealt-with
| traumas are dangerous - they are the basis for all kinds
| are dark behavior which I won't list here.
|
| And then there's me. I just don't wanna read about sad
| shit. Give me happy fantasies man, not that dreary misery
| loving suicidal bullshit.
|
| (Or maybe I'm in the second group but I've reached the
| denial stage)
| maxbond wrote:
| For what it's worth I would totally support a mechanism,
| like a registry key, environment variable, wherever
| configuration information can be accessed, to opt out of
| trigger warnings. Software should work for everyone and
| everyone means everyone.
| igorbark wrote:
| content warnings were originally and imo ongoingly most
| importantly an accessibility issue. afaict, all but maybe one of
| the studies don't delineate between members of the population
| this accessibility aid is supposed to help and gen pop
|
| language politics of whether trauma is a "disability" aside, the
| existence of a meta-analysis over studies which purport to study
| whether a disability aid works by using it with people who do not
| have that disability is saddening
|
| some other limitations the i don't see the authors comment on
| (though i haven't read thoroughly so happy to be corrected): -
| the effect of different kinds of content warnings isn't discussed
| (some interesting dimensions are specificity and prominence) -
| the fact that almost all of the studies use self-reported anxiety
| scales, and thus it is unclear whether content warnings increase
| anticipatory anxiety or increase self-reported anticipatory
| anxiety
|
| like with most accessibility aids the interesting questions are
| not "does it help". they're "who do different forms of the aid
| help or harm" and "morally, when should we expect or even enforce
| a particular level of implementation"
|
| looking at how other accessibility aids work is helpful for
| answering some of these questions. to take the classic university
| classroom example, you could for example look at the way some
| departments handle students who aren't able to take lecture
| notes. a student can request note taking accommodation for a
| particular class, and then a peer volunteer (or as a fallback
| university employee) will take notes for that student. just like
| that, we don't need to have a national debate about whether it is
| helpful or harmful if all university professors are forced to
| provide note taking services for all of their students.
|
| anyway, i guess i'm upset because i'm tired of the ongoing
| massive debate and apparently research industry that completely
| misses the point.
| twic wrote:
| Twitter thread about the work by the author:
| https://twitter.com/paytonjjones/status/1563950340944560128
| all2well wrote:
| "To many conservatives, trigger warnings are a symptom of a
| world gone mad: a fragilizing ritual meant to insulate the
| delicate worldview of a weak-minded generation."
|
| Conservatives routinely get upset about the presence of gay
| people in media, among many other things. Is that somehow in a
| different category?
|
| (This is in reply to the article linked by the author of the
| study in that Twitter thread)
| kadoban wrote:
| josephg wrote:
| Most people only extend empathy to their in-group. The left
| just has a different in-group.
|
| Your comment weirdly supports this reading. To me it reads
| as an attack on conservatives. Ending your comment with
| "...worth empathy to _them_." implies conservatives are the
| out-group to you. Sounds to me like you don't think this
| out-group (conservatives) deserve your empathy either!
|
| I might be misreading your intent, but as it stands it's
| pretty ironic!
| komali2 wrote:
| > Most people only extend empathy to their in-group. The
| left just has a different in-group.
|
| Depends on how you define in-group I guess? Most of my
| leftist friends are straight and white, yet all of them
| support LGBT rights as human rights, went to Black Lives
| Matter protests, etc. Yet similar straight, white
| conservative former friends of mine do not extend empathy
| to the black american experience, or will outright say
| homophobic things.
|
| Considering a tenant of leftism is _tolerance_ regardless
| of _identity_ I basically have to hard disagree with a
| blanket "the left just has a different in-group." A core
| tenant of leftist ideology is universal empathy, as a
| basis for support for universal human rights, equity,
| etc.
|
| I don't count authoritarians masquerading as leftists,
| such as tankies ("Marxist Leninists" my foot) or the
| hilarious new "MAGA Communists" in this.
| kadoban wrote:
| I have empathy for most people, I am still able to
| criticize people though. Having empathy for someone does
| not mean their actions are immune from all comment.
| [deleted]
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Man, you are very optimistic about human nature to apply
| this specifically "to them" when honestly it feels like a
| general human impulse regardless of political ideology. I
| see Schadenfreude and death threats by all stripes...
| (although I suppose only ideological groups that highly arm
| themselves are likely to successfully act on such threats?)
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| It is not that simple.
|
| https://www.salon.com/2022/10/16/do-conservatives-really-
| hav...
|
| "that liberals and conservatives alike report more empathy
| toward members of their own "in-groups" than outsiders"
| Filligree wrote:
| aaron695 wrote:
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| I think the overall concern is that people in general seem
| all too willing to ignore reality. I can't really speak for
| any particular group in US ( or even in the old country ),
| because I am sufficiently weird that I do not really fit
| anywhere. Yay me.
|
| That said, trigger warning is already a trigger word and may
| need to replaced with something else to avoid emotional
| reaction ( although I admit I do not have a good replacement
| off the top of my head ).
|
| Some of the other posters mentioned movie ratings I almost
| chuckled a little, because I imagined a future, where I send
| an email in corporate settings with various tags to allow
| other people to ignore it in time and corporate code of
| conduct, where you agree to always read some upsetting
| tags..but I digress.
|
| << Is that somehow in a different category? << Conservatives
| routinely get upset about the presence of gay people in
| media, among many other things.
|
| Please correct if I am wrong ( I have done my best to limit
| my news intake lately ), but conservatives being angry over
| gays does not ring true to my ears. If I understand current
| zeitgeist correctly, it is, currently, about a 'conveyor belt
| upon which progressives plan to place their
| children'(paraphrasing certain host). The difference is
| notable. Is it possible you are using old caricature for
| specific effect?
|
| And this kinda brings me to the other point. Lately, it
| seems, it is not conservatives are not the ones calling for
| boycots, bans, deplatforming and demonetization. It is
| actually their opponents, which, in itself, is already
| interesting.
| alexander-litty wrote:
| >Please correct if I am wrong ( I have done my best to
| limit my news intake lately ), but conservatives being
| angry over gays does not ring true to my ears.
|
| We JUST experienced an LGTBQ nightclub shooting in the
| _last week_ where the shooter 's father was a MAGA
| republican.
|
| When you are selective about your news sources, you can
| frame an argument in any light. There's nothing here about
| a conveyor belt or a progressive plan -- It's just a
| hateful man who killed some people he can't tolerate.
|
| Not convinced? Go ask some conservatives outside your
| circle how they feel about the LGTBQ community. Ask what
| they want to do with gay and trans people that enter their
| life.
|
| Literally -- If you're seriously not convinced, go do it, I
| dare you. Enlighten yourself.
|
| >it is not conservatives are not the ones calling for
| boycots, bans, deplatforming and demonetization
|
| Damn straight, these conservatives you speak of do nothing
| to stop white supremacy ideology.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| tldr: calm down. we actually have something to talk about
|
| Eh. I try to abstain from political discourse on HN ( try
| being the key word ) for a variety of reasons including
| the one that the interlocutor and/or their audience
| rarely change their minds based on the exchange ( worse,
| they end tend to ossify in their views, which is a little
| counterproductive; also I survived one witch hunt on a
| social media platform and one is enough ), but allow me
| to retort regardless.
|
| << We JUST experienced an LGTBQ nightclub shooting in the
| last week where the shooter's father was a MAGA
| republican.
|
| Ok? Who is 'we' here? I just posted I try ( again, key
| word, try since here I am not HN ) to limit my news
| intake. Have you considered the possibility I was not
| aware of it? Can I not be blissfully ignorant of the
| surrounding world or am I allowed a week of vacation,
| where I try to not engage with the world outside?
|
| That said, I was aware of this particular news, but it is
| just plain rude to assume I should have my face glued to
| TV stations 24/7. It is doubly rude to lay all this
| emotion at me in one place on almost the entire web ( HN
| ), where emotions should be at least somewhat curtailed.
| Can you even consider accepting my safe space from
| emotion here?
|
| Now comes the difficult part. Do you want us to focus on
| the shooting part, LGBTQ part, MAGA father or something
| else? I assure you, you will not like the results of this
| conversation, because ( just to give you a taste ):
|
| 1. Sadly, mass shootings are so common now I ( and I
| suspect likely a good chunk of US population ) has a
| mental filter placed for them. It is going to sound
| awful, but they barely register now.
|
| 2. It would appear the shooter identifies as non-binary,
| so he is LGBTQ+ ( dunno what is the proper spelling these
| days ), so I am not automatically convinced he is a
| victim of evil anti-LGBTQ+ propaganda as opposed to say..
| lover's quarrel gone wrong. But hey-- quick -- lets jump
| on that 'lets hate evil republicans' bandwagon. No
| political agenda there.
|
| 3. Sins of the father and all that. I am responsible for
| what my dad did? If not, why not? If yes, why yes? And
| that is before we get to the part about, you know, father
| being estranged, kid changing his name ( seemingly to
| avoid association with his father -- I just checked --
| that was CNN[1] ) and all those little details that are
| conveniently left out of narrative you were ( are? ) so
| quick to embrace and sell here.
|
| Like I said, if you really want to have this debate here,
| we can have it, but I sincerely doubt you will have a win
| for your 'cause', whatever that may be. This is me giving
| you an opportunity to bow out.
|
| << When you are selective about your news sources, you
| can frame an argument in any light.
|
| We are in an agreement.
|
| << There's nothing here about a conveyor belt or a
| progressive plan -- It's just a hateful man who killed
| some people he can't tolerate.
|
| I am trying to find an appropriate comparison for this
| set of sentences and it is hard, so I won't try doing
| that. Instead, allow me to ask you one simple question.
| How do you know this? How do you know he just hates
| anything gay period? Or actually, more broadly, how do
| you determine that you know anything about this case?
| Maybe we should try to establish a set of facts we can
| actually agree on before we proceed? What do you say?
|
| << Not convinced? Go ask some conservatives outside your
| circle how they feel about the LGTBQ community. Ask what
| they want to do with gay and trans people that enter
| their life.
|
| Eh. Have you tried what you yourself advocate? I am being
| very genuine here. I hear a lot of chatter, but I can't
| say it is that much different from the crazy stuff I
| heard 20+ years ago. What I did see however lately was
| generic threat for LGBTQ community supporters that went
| something along the lines of 'cut it out or your pronouns
| will be was/were'. That is new ( and funny ).
|
| So, yeah. Not convinced.
|
| << Literally -- If you're seriously not convinced, go do
| it, I dare you. Enlighten yourself.
|
| Another eh. If you have evidence to provide, please do
| so, but I am relatively certain I have access to the same
| data set you do. At this time, all I got was assertions
| and emotionally laden post so forgive me if I am being
| somewhat dismissive.
|
| << Damn straight, these conservatives you speak of do
| nothing to stop white supremacy ideology.
|
| And here, at the very ending paragraph, is where we
| actually have an actual problem. I dislike people, who
| believe they have the power to silence others. Apart from
| it being wrong on my internal 'good/evil' scale , I also
| happen to think it is severely counter-productive.
|
| How would you feel if I managed to, say, convince OFAC to
| put alexander-litty on SDN list, because I simply do not
| like their politics?
|
| 1. https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/21/us/anderson-lee-
| aldrich-color...
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| "because I am sufficiently weird that I do not really fit
| anywhere"
|
| Do you _want_ to fit somewhere but haven 't yet found a
| place to fit, or do you not _care_ about fitting anywhere?
| If it 's the latter you may have a social-variant blindspot
| (halfway down this reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/En
| neagram/comments/kx0wfa/russ_huds... ). If it's the former
| you're probably just looking in the wrong places, or aren't
| engaging enough with the right people to find their
| similarities to you (or find out if they know of someone
| else similar to you).
|
| "where I send an email in corporate settings with various
| tags to allow other people to ignore it in time and
| corporate code of conduct"
|
| My employer uses a system called "Bucketlist" for kudos or
| something of the sort. I don't really know because the
| moment I saw it I created a filter that autodeletes every
| single email with that word in it. I can handle being
| reminded of death, but I don't want it popping into my work
| inbox.
|
| "Please correct if I am wrong ( I have done my best to
| limit my news intake lately ), but conservatives being
| angry over gays does not ring true to my ears."
|
| It depends. Media talking points should never be taken at
| face value. The Log Cabin Republicans continue to be denied
| a booth at the Texas Republican state convention:
| https://www.texastribune.org/2022/07/24/texas-log-cabin-
| repu...
|
| But, as you indicate, conflation of lesbians, gays,
| bisexuals, transgender, transsexual, and a variety of other
| groups make it difficult at times to figure out what people
| are actually in favor of or opposed to.
|
| "Lately, it seems, it is not conservatives are not the ones
| calling for boycots, bans, deplatforming and
| demonetization. It is actually their opponents, which, in
| itself, is already interesting."
|
| It's all sides. If you're noticing one side and not the
| other it's because of the bias of the media you're
| consuming. Examples:
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/04/06/why-
| half-...
|
| https://theoutline.com/post/6140/a-brief-history-of-
| batshit-...
| rsynnott wrote:
| > That said, trigger warning is already a trigger word and
| may need to replaced with something else to avoid emotional
| reaction ( although I admit I do not have a good
| replacement off the top of my head ).
|
| "Content warning" is fairly well-accepted (and broader, in
| that it makes more sense to use it to describe things that
| people simply _do not want to see_; see discussion of NSFL
| elsewhere.
| [deleted]
| all2well wrote:
| The point I was probably trying to make is that I suspect
| that the author of this study and the accompanying article
| probably has a particular political axe to grind. That's
| mostly just conjecture, though.
|
| Moral panics are nothing new, and (self-)censorship is
| nothing new either.
|
| I think it's naive to think that conservatives have "gotten
| over" gay marriage, or gay rights more broadly, especially
| given how recent progress has been in those areas, and how
| much opposition remains to things like trans rights. I
| personally have a number of queer friends who are estranged
| from their families because they're queer, and those
| families usually aren't particularly progressive, as far as
| I know.
| killdozer wrote:
| Yes they're never going to stop trying to restrict and
| rollback the rights of minorities, they have a lot of
| money and power they're willing to deploy to this end.
| Maintaining these rights will always be a constant
| struggle.
| zug_zug wrote:
| What the heck is this?
|
| The presumption of this article is that trigger warnings get you
| emotionally ready for an adverse subject, but I'm pretty sure
| that's not what they are for.
|
| I figure most people often want warnings on their
| books/videos/etc "e.g. this is a live-leak of somebody dying" so
| they can avoid the material.
|
| ---
|
| Per his twitter "Well, too bad for all y'all. Trigger warnings do
| not seem to encourage avoidance." ... Sounds kinda us-vs-them.
|
| I'm 100% sure I do not click on videos on reddit that indicate
| they are videos of somebody dying. No amount of statistical
| papers will change that. I highly doubt I'm the only one.
| [deleted]
| robertlagrant wrote:
| We've had that for decades as PEGI ratings or film
| classifications. I was under the impression that trigger
| warnings were something different.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Personally, the authors I've worked with use Content Warning
| as the term. For example, the opening of Law and Order SVU
| pretty clearly spells out you're in for some deeply
| disturbing shit.
|
| Trigger warnings are content warnings, just spelling out what
| the content is: i.e. suicide, cutting, rape, etc.
|
| To use one of my stories that's on a podcast:
|
| > This is an adult story for mature listeners, if that's not
| your cup of tea or there are children listening, you can skip
| this story and come back next week. Content warning: this
| story contains mentions of past self-harm and past traumas.
|
| Maybe that's a little specific, but it gives you an idea of
| how graphic the content is. Regardless, I personally know
| some of the people listening who will want to skip my story.
| all2well wrote:
| What about stuff like movie and game ratings? What about things
| like restricting sexually explicit material to minors? Seems like
| a weird point to make. What I like about content warnings is that
| I can choose whether I want to engage with something that might
| upset me in a more granular fashion than "entire profile." It's
| not like I'd stop avoiding content if there were no CWs anywhere.
| wincy wrote:
| I remember as a 14 year old boy with HBO I specifically looking
| for the "Nudity" warning on late night TV Shows. Teenage me was
| very disappointed by the TV Show "Oz" (which is about life in
| men's prison).
| komali2 wrote:
| Yeah this is where I was always confused, I think "trigger
| warning" has become one of those ill-defined concepts,
| especially in american political discourse, that mean so many
| things that they don't really mean anything anymore. Other
| examples: "liberal," which I've heard mean everything from
| anarchism through communism and all the way to its actual
| definition, "communism" which seems to mean fascism, "fascism"
| which seems to mean literally anything, "grooming" which seems
| to mean not being heteronormative or heterosexual, etc.
|
| I always thought a true trigger warning, the kind that I really
| like, are for example movies warning when there'd be things
| like gore and etc that I don't like to watch. I like it because
| I get a physically ill reaction that will ruin my night if i
| see fictionalized gore. I wish I didn't, but I do, so it goes.
| But as you've said I've seen "trigger warning" mean literally
| putting the words "trigger warning" on the top of a text post
| which seems pointless, or, saying it before telling a story,
| which also seems pointless.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| This is a fascinating concept to me. How granular should we
| get? Say.. in original Star Wars, should we add "Contains
| scenes of hand mutilation" or "Character may discover he is
| not, in fact, a child of a loving parental unit"?
|
| I get what you are getting at, but I am curious how much of
| that profile should be fleshed out in your view?
| igorbark wrote:
| well i'm not OP but here are some of my views:
|
| - one important dimension of the "should" in this question is
| how much choice the viewer of the media has in viewing the
| media. this is part of why schools are such a big part of the
| conversation about content warnings, because the students
| can't just choose to opt out of readings without consequences
|
| - another important dimension is the delivery platform and
| audience size. sometimes you can just ask the person who made
| or is showing you the thing about some very specific content
| you'd like to avoid or be prepared for, so specifying
| everything isn't as important there. otoh, if you're a giant
| media property with millions of viewers, maybe the
| cost/benefit of listing exactly when/where particular things
| happen looks a little better
|
| - depending on platform, lots of detail could be more or less
| practical. e.g. if you're making a web page it's easy to say
| "content warnings: click for details > detailsdetailsdetails
| click for more details > detaileddetailsdetaileddetails",
| which easily allows the viewer to choose how much detail they
| want rather than picking for them, but that can be harder to
| pull off in other formats
|
| - if you find this topic interesting, consider looking for
| literature on topics like accessibility and disability
| justice (not sure i could recommend a particular one since
| i've formed my views on this sort of thing piecemeal and
| through community). there is a _lot_ of interesting moral
| thought on the subject of "ok so this thing is helpful to
| some people sometimes, sooo how much should we actually do
| it?"
| danrocks wrote:
| I challenge the premise that Darth Vader didn't love his son.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| Hah! Good point. I think I phrased my example poorly.
|
| "Main character may discover a secret about their true
| ancestry"?
| [deleted]
| all2well wrote:
| Good question, I'm not sure there's necessarily one answer to
| that. That same sort of question arises in many places,
| though. Some people avoid watching trailers for movies or
| shows because they don't want to get spoiled by them, but
| obviously most people like trailers because they can get a
| sense for whether they'll like that movie or show before they
| watch the whole thing.
| kosievdmerwe wrote:
| So, interestingly IMDb has a pretty detailed parents guide.
| For example for Shrek:
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0126029/parentalguide
| Spivak wrote:
| They seemingly didn't study the thing that people actually want
| the answer to.
|
| Given a person who is triggered by a specific type of content do
| they avoid things labeled with that specific type of content more
| than if it was unlabeled? It's one of those things that seems so
| obviously true when you talk to people.
|
| To me this study is actually huge to support trigger warnings and
| content labels. They don't cause people across a population
| overall to avoid the content, they act as a positive signal for
| people who are looking for it (like R rating on horror movies),
| and they have no effect on the experience -- it makes the
| response no worse and doesn't spoil it for people who want it.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| I definitely use content warnings to avoid stuff. If I see
| suicide, "that's a nope from me dawg".
|
| I feel like I'm not asking for much here. :(
| Mezzie wrote:
| I struggle with trigger/content warnings as someone with PTSD
| stemming from severe childhood neglect/abuse (e.g. I was allowed
| to just rot in the basement for a week with a fever of 104+ as a
| child).
|
| The reason is because there seems to be a standardized list of
| 'real' triggers that people agree on, and I'm often triggered by
| depictions of _loving_ families. Which nobody is ever going to
| warn for. I also have major disassociation and emotional
| blunting, so I have no idea what makes violence or sexual related
| cross the line into needing a warning. So ironically, spaces that
| insist heavily on trigger warnings are hard for me to exist in as
| a person with PTSD without breaking the norms. It 's hard not to
| feel there are 'right' and 'wrong' triggers.
| maxbond wrote:
| Maybe a more generic tagging/metadata system would help people
| with more idiosyncratic/unanticipated trauma. Something I find
| promising in this is that it has the hallmark of many great
| accessibility solutions, it's useful for everyone even if it's
| more important to a specific group of people (eg, screen
| readers and sign language are just great tools, but are much
| more profound for people with sensory disabilities). It still
| wouldn't be perfect of course, things could be mislabeled, or
| the label you would want could still be missing, or like you
| mention you yourself might not entirely understand what you're
| looking for.
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