To approve, or not to approve


I’ve got my YouTube channel set to hold questionable comments for approval before posting them (it’s not a very flexible system, though, and lots of crap still gets through). This one was flagged as “likely spam”.

PZ Myers, if you continue to lead people to worship Satan after this notice, I shall rebuke you! “Maran Eashoa M’Sheekah, our Christ Lord, the Anointed Life-Giving Living Branch is the ONLY Name given to humanity by which you received the Covenant of Life.” – See My 2-video series: Lord Eashoa! Pray to the ONLY Name that heals and Saves! “Jesus the Messiah” NEVER performed ANY of the righteous works nor the good deeds recorded in the Holy Bible! That is not a living human being but is a baphomet neuter shapeshifting demonic carnivorous creature from below and Liar just like his son Hillary the Devil Cain Qain Gain of Satan and a killer of mankind from the beginning just like his father the false messiah Satan Donald JeSUS ZEUS SOS ISIS Trump that ancient shapeshifting serpent from the Paradise of Eden, the titan, not a creator of anything, just a demon from Sheol the house of the dead, that can present itself as a human being. You have been lied to. You have ALL been Commanded to work for the Creator of the heaven and the earth and the sea and the water springs. You cannot serve two masters! It is Judgment Hour and there are MANY universes yet to come after this one concludes which is coming quick! I am the Spirit and it is the Season of My Testimony which is on My channel, the Reveal of the Creator. HURRY! You have NO TIME to delay! You WILL NOT enter the Kingdom of Heaven if you sat by with idle hands. Faith without works is dead faith. Get busy watching the Reveal quickly and telling others that I am here, directing them to My channel and the Reveal of the Creator! WATCH: ‘WORLD WAR III IS NOW! SILENT WEAPONS – WMD’S ARE USED ON US NON-STOP! IT’S BEEN GOING ON! READ COMMENT BOX & PAY ATTENTION: WE ARE UNDER CONSTANT ATTACK BY SILENT WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION! PROOF! DROP EVERYTHING & WATCH THIS NOW! My Testimony: the Spirit confirming this for you NOW! HUMANS ARE BEING KILLED WELL INTO THE MILLIONS OF MILLIONS!

Now I have a dilemma, though. This isn’t any loonier than the comments from creationists, or libertarians, or Jordan Peterson fans, or anti-feminists, and in fact is probably less evil (slightly) than any of those. So I’ll ask you, O Readers, should I click on the “approve” button or not?

Note: I do not accept any variant of free speech absolutism — I’m going to filter no matter what, so the only question is where I should draw the line.

Comments

  1. Usernames! 🦑 says

    I would reject it because it is simply too goddamn long.

    …And–if for no other reason–the person go so excited, they kept pounding on their caps lock key, even in the middle of a word.

  2. J B says

    I vote reject. After the first Comma it fails in any way to relate to anything you might have mentioned in the video.

  3. Pierre Le Fou says

    I’d reject it because of the several instances of the author asking us to ‘watch’ something. Seems like he/she is really just trying to make money.

  4. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Sounds like nothing but an ad for somebody to espouse their weird ideas. Delete it.

  5. sparks says

    Freedom of speech is a necessary part of our Republic, freedom to speak irresponsibly is quite another and should not be tolerated. Seems to me this chap is yelling ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater where no such fire exists. And while it’s true that one never knows where the next piece of knowledge is going to come from, I’m willing to bet a substantial sum that it won’t be from this fellow’s videos.

  6. laurian says

    Abs-a-fucking-lutely not. Publishing that religious mania enlightens no one while it could serve to confirm the delusions of a ill person, making their disease even more crippling.

  7. asclepias says

    I admit I chuckled at that first sentence where the writer said he/she would reject you. Fine! Reject away, unknown person! You say this as if it makes any difference to me whatsoever.

  8. chrislawson says

    The question I would ask is “what purpose is served by publishing this?” And I can’t see any benefit. Free speech is not infringed by refusing to publish long, incoherent, delusional rants (the author is free to publish the rant elsewhere). And it sure isn’t going to generate valuable conversation.

  9. says

    cervantes, I’m curious why you think this is satire. Any religious satire I’m familiar with works with familiar takes on religion, even when the satirist is bad at it. When I first started reading the above quote I was thinking it was Dennis Markuze but it quickly went into different territory. It still has all the hallmarks of being a person with mental health issues who is steeped in a religious mindset.

  10. kebil says

    I read this as parody or satire, but it really depends on whether this individual actually believes any of this and is a raving lunatic or not.

  11. Sastra says

    I vote for publish. It’s an interesting variation of religious delusion and could be used to point out where it doesn’t deviate from the more common scripts. In addition, the comment contained a few awesome insults for Trump (“… ancient shapeshifting serpent … a demon from Sheol the house of the dead …”) Bottom line, I enjoyed reading it. Your mileage may vary.

    To me, the most important question is whether this was specifically written for you (and your audience) or whether it’s just a cut n paste job. That last one is insulting. In your own words, and look at me — it’s the least you can do, O wrought-up one.

  12. blf says

    The mildly deranged penguin points out this reads just like that Peterson kook, albeit perhaps less literate-seeming — no points at all are made, and their hinge has failed.

  13. DonDueed says

    Reject it. Letting it through would only encourage the crazy.

    I do wonder just how horrible your life would become after being rebuked, though.

  14. says

    I think it’s intended as parody because it’s absurdity seems too well constructed to be the typical word salad of psychosis. But on second thought, in case this is a real psychotic person, in the interest of the writer it would be best not to publish it.

  15. Dr. Pablito says

    Kook. Do not approve. Just like when you notice the Jehovah’s Witness ppl on your block, methodically working their way along your side of the street and you opt not to answer the door when they knock. They move along, leave the Watchtower for you on the porch, and you put it in the recycle bin or use it to sop up a grease spill. The world spins on.

  16. mmason0071 says

    You should approve this one. You cannot deprive the world of the phrase “baphomet neuter shapeshifting demonic carnivorous creature”. Can’t imagine anyone reading it past that point anyway.

  17. Owlmirror says

    FWIW, the person seems to be some sort of Aramaic revivalist — “Maran Eashoa M’Sheekah” is an approximate transliteration for “מרן ישוע משיחא”; “our teacher Jesus [the] Anointed”. Inasmuch as Aramaic never had the sound /dʒ/, I sympathize, although I’m not sure why they don’t use an initial Y for the yod.

  18. woozy says

    I guess I’m confused. What are stated criterion of moderation?

    I guess I’d feel if I were to moderate at all I’d have no qualms about using my judgement and dismiss this as pointless and incoherent babbling with no merit. Why not delete and not lose any sleep over it?

    Or do you have stated specific guidelines (if so what are they?) that this doesn’t specifically violate? Unless you stated you will allow everything that isn’t specifically banned (which doesn’t seem your style), I’d just say this is pointless, and “it had no visible merit” is a perfectly valid reason.

  19. says

    I agree with #4. Disapprove. Outside of the many other factors, it does not deserve approval simply because it has nothing to do with the video. It does not advance the conversation in any way.

  20. Rich Woods says

    When I was a teenager I had a pen-pal who descended into writing me religio-loon screeds something like this. I remember sitting stock still for several minutes one day after receiving the craziest of the letters, in a cold sweat at the fearful paranoid thought that I might have to move house. Fortunately it ended when I replied with a simple request for him to stop writing to me. Now stuff like this just looks laughable, so I’d say publish it for the entertainment value.

  21. Just an Organic Regular Expression says

    I turned on my VPN and through it visited the “Lord Eashoa” youtube channel, and watched a couple of minutes of the top video. To my surprise, the audio is delivered in what I’m pretty sure is a female voice. I had assumed any CAP-LOVING religious wacko would be male — should I feel guilty for stereotyping? Anyway it’s all a word-salad pretty much like the comment at issue, as if you ran the Book of Revelations through one of those AIs that compose “poetry” from a vocabulary file. So no, don’t approve, there’s nothing there.

  22. weylguy says

    God had me at heaven, the earth and the seas, but he’s also created water springs?! Now I’m super impressed. Thanks God!

  23. kenbakermn says

    That’s hysterical! Can’t wait to find out how he rebukes you. That should be good for more laughs.

  24. blf says

    poopyhead, Not entirely on-topic, albeit sort-of related, can you get in contact with Arun N M of Nastik Deliberations here at FtB — for months now, any(?) attempt to comment on their blog has resulted in the unhelpful response “Invalid security token.” The last known comments — that is, visible to me — were in July-2017, before they took a break on blogging. Since then, no comments, albeit I, at least, have tried several times…

    (I don’t see — perhaps I’ve missed it? — any direct way of contacting the blogger.)

  25. vereverum says

    Not approved.
    It’s not very good. BTW the capitalization in the middle o the word is just to emphasize the sibilance.
    I think the channel promotion is the deciding factor and you should rebuke it.

  26. says

    I think abbeycadabra’s reasoning is sound. At first I didn’t have a take so I didn’t comment, but reading abbeycadabra made me glance back up and find this:

    See My 2-video series: Lord Eashoa! Pray to the ONLY Name that heals and Saves!

    Yeah, in light of that I think this is commercial spam. Reject.

    @Owlmirror:

    I’m not sure why they don’t use an initial Y for the yod.

    Yeah, that struck me as weird as well.

  27. Owlmirror says

    Correcting my @#24: “Maran” is better translated as “our master”, or even “our lord”.

  28. davidnangle says

    “…his son Hillary the Devil Cain Qain Gain of Satan and a killer of mankind from the beginning just like his father the false messiah Satan Donald JeSUS ZEUS SOS ISIS Trump that ancient shapeshifting serpent from the Paradise of Eden.”

    Someone takes himself as seriously as TimeCube guy. (And, incidentally, if you think of Secretary Clinton as a man, then why use just the first name? Unless you really don’t actually think Secretary Clinton is a man, and you have no choice but to cater to your misogynistic practices…)

  29. gijoel says

    Reject, you’re under no obligation to be someone else’s soapbox.Besides I doubt they’ll extend you the same courtesy.

  30. lilc01f says

    I believe that pointing and laughing here is adequate.

    I would vote do not allow. It is spam. Damn hard to look at spam, but spam.

  31. rpjohnston says

    Ehhhh…f’real? Seems easy enough to me: What’s the point? Does it…add anything whatsoever to the discussion of the video? If I went to that video, and just typed “s”, a single character, would you let that through? You shouldn’t, because it’s completely fucken pointless.

    Seems to me the line shouldn’t be at just “inoffensive”, it should be at least, “purposeless waste of space”.

  32. nomdeplume says

    If you knew this had been recorded in an institution for people with mental disabilities you wouldn’t publish it. So why even consider publishing it?

  33. schweinhundt says

    I (tentatively) vote for approve. Even if it is spam (which is a good argument for blocking it), that is some Grade A original gibberish. And, not to make a free speech absolutism argument, there is nothing racist/misogynistic/etc. in it.

  34. Doubting Thomas says

    Reject, for many of the reasons above. No need to give this person another platform to spew nonsense.

  35. Chris Capoccia says

    spam for someone’s attempt at making money through conspiracy videos on youtube. google any of the titles he wants people to watch. DELETE. but way too much trouble to decide. people should try to say something interesting and intelligible not annoying, rambling and incomprehensible.

  36. keinsignal says

    mmason0071 @23 took the words out of my mouth… This is a rarefied level of crazy here. Well-nigh Frances E Dec tier. If it was my channel, I’d approve it this once just for laughs. Maybe drop the hammer if they start making a habit of it, especially if it becomes repetitive (which, sadly, it almost always does).

  37. blf says

    Pierce R Butler@40, I cannot recall if I’ve tried the “Tech Issues” black hole or not previously (I did not this last (most recent) time). The semi-snarky term black hole may provide a clew…

    As I know I’ve mentioned before, one flaw in the tech support here at FtB is the total — and I do mean total — lack of feedback. No replies. No acknowledgements. No questions.

    For instance, many months ago (last year?) something was done to speed up the responsiveness of the site — good! — but this happened at the cost of not updating the sidebar of “recent comments” if the thread’s origin was more than two(?) weeks in the past. This has been complained about on multiple blogs (including by some of the bloggers themselves) — and I presume to the black hole as well — and nothing in response. No fixes, no acknowledgments, no ticket IDs, no nothing. Black hole. Arguably, Generalissimo Google is more transparent than FtB about problems — and the Generalissimo is one of the most secretive gangs around…