Hate speech / cyber-bullying. Avoiding bad PR

@blindsite It’s not that easy. As the text on top says: “Some countries have legal ramnifications for publishing certain material (be it copyright, cyber-bullying, hatespeech etc)”. This is not about censorship. This is about satisfying the law of those countries where podmins hosted their servers.

@blindsite I totally disagree with you and removing pedo content for example (as has been done on some pods lately…) is well justified and totally right from the podmin - TOS or no TOS.

For anyone wanting to post pedo or other sick stuff? Get off D* please …

IMHO it should be up to the podmin to decide what content he/she approves. And it is my right as a podmin to block with a firewall any pod who accepts pedo or other sick stuff.

IMHO it should be up to the podmin to decide what content he/she approves. And it is my right as a podmin to block with a firewall any pod who accepts pedo or other sick stuff.

Absolutely. I agree with Jason. And I disagree, as much as it is possible to disagree with someone, with Blindsite.

Free speech comes with responsibilities, and preventing certain types of post on a certain pod is not censorship, as you’re not preventing someone from saying what they want: you’re just saying ‘don’t use my pod to say that’. A podmin can be held legally liable for content on their pod, so it is their right - indeed, it can be seen to be a duty - to remove illegal content, to protect themselves from possible prosecution if nothing else. And it’s each podmin’s right to set up guidelines for content, which people who want to use their pod can agree to.

If you want to post hate speech/illegal images and so on, you are entirely at liberty to set up your own pod and post to your heart’s content. But please don’t ask me to start sharing with you.

Diaspora is not for ‘terrorists, paedophiles, holocaust apologists and neo-Nazis’. People like that can use Diaspora, yes, but I’ll bet you whatever you like that that people like that were as far as it’s possible to be from the minds of the people who set up this network. You’re misunderstanding the term ‘freedom’ as it applies to Diaspora.

The ‘freedom’ that Diaspora was founded for was the freedom to store or host your data wherever you like, on servers the security of which you are happy with. It is not the freedom to post illegal content. The latter is possible, but it is nothing to do with the founding ideas of Diaspora. Illegal content has no protection on Diaspora, and I hope that most sensible podmins will act against it when they see it.

And resisting criminal activity which damages real people (eg children in paedophilia) is hardly ‘an offensive moral crusade’. It is responsible behaviour to try to combat the abuse of individuals that happens in these crimes.

You want to post illegal content? Set up your own pod, or join a pod which advertises that it places no restrictions on illegal content. That is the freedom that Diaspora provides.

@goob I still believe that censorship in all it’s forms is wrong and that censoring in the name of “the law” is still wrong because it merely endorses and enforces state censorship. Pedophilia, or hate speech, or nazis, or whatever else, are just useful excuses for censorship. They’re hot buttons the state uses to play on people’s emotions to try and find an excuse to justify censorship, just like they use false flag attacks to justify wars or gun control. They’re playing the “keep us safe” card to strip us of our freedoms. I subscribe to Voltaire’s philosophy of “I may not agree with what you say but I will fight to the death for your right to say it.” That being said I will concede that yes someone who truly believes in free speech can set up their own pod. I still find the notion of censorship on Diaspora deplorable but in the same way that some pods have advertising and some don’t I suppose that yes some pods could have censorship and others wouldn’t and one could pick and choose which pods to use or if one would host their own. I should point out that in Pistos’ Libertree, each tree (pod) has a censorship feature which is limited to that tree. So an arborista (podmin) may moderate the posts within their own tree but not within the entire forest (Libertree network).

@blindsite I think you need to choose your words a little bit more carefully.

IMHO, a podmin removing content they disagree with is not censorship. Censorship would be the podmin somehow (magic?) preventing that content from being published anywhere. I’m not interested in any arguments about “hot button issues” or “slipper slopes”, we are not suggesting a “standard censorship system” (nor any censorship system!)…

What you say of libertree is true of diaspora, you (or anyone) can do what you like, but it is good and right that podmins would remove content that they :

  • suspect puts them in legal danger or
  • consider morally wrong or dangerous.
    I for one, have no intention of ever hosting pedo content, ever.

There is a whole world of difference, by the way, between hosting discussions about paedophilia, and hosting content showing it. I’m pretty sure everyone is talking about removing the latter, but you’re quote “I may not agree with what you say but I will fight to the death for your right to say it.” clearly applies to the former.

Since we’re all subject to the law of the country we’re in (or as podmins - the coutry that’s hosting the server) we can only operate within those boundaries.
(Almost) every country guarantees its citizens the basic right of free speech and other fundamental rights as part of the constitution - to the extent they are limited by the legislation (yes, I had a course “introduction to law - data and computer science” at university)
Also, there are some corpora delicti outlawed globally, like child pornography or slavery.

There is really nothing we can do that’s within the law to allow such kind of content. Other than that, it’s up to each admin, what kind of content they find objectionable or otherwise unsuitable to be hosted on their infrastructure.

@davidmcmullin I think you are misunderstanding what censorship is. Censorship is when content is removed because it doesn’t agree with the sensibilities of the one hosting it. It’s not only when the admin prevents it from being published, it’s also when the admin takes it down on their pod, or their own page. Facebook doesn’t prevent people from posting content but it does interfere with people seeing each other’s posts AND it does take down content and delete posts that it deems offensive. Same with Youtube. As do many individual Facebook member pages. If you are the admin of a page, website, Diaspora pod, Libertree tree, or a billboard it makes no difference. You are in control of what goes on that medium. If you take down what someone has posted on that medium because you do not agree with or for some reason find what they have said to be offensive then that is censorship, you are exercising control of what they can and cannot post. When one exercises control of what another can express on any given medium then that is censorship. It doesn’t matter if it’s visual, verbal or written, it’s still censorship.

I will concede that in the interests of freedom and the individual podmin’s legal safety that they should be allowed to censor and filter based on their on discretion however let us not misunderstand what it is we are discussing nor let us misunderstand the ramifications thereof. Each podmin must then therefore decide for themselves how much they believe and value freedom vs their own safety and their own personal agenda they are trying to put forward.

What I fear is that Diaspora will become just another Facebook, a place where posts that the establishment finds objectionable are spontaneously removed without the user’s consent. I for one would never use a pod that practiced censorship of any kind. If I want to have my data monitored, filtered and deleted when it doesn’t meet some moral standard I’ll just go on Facebook.

Let’s take a metaphor. A podmin is someone who opens his house. When you are in it, you have to respect what the podmin think because you are in his house. If you want to be completely free, just build your own house (pod).

What I fear is that Diaspora will become just another Facebook

Facebook is only a massive house instead of being a city. Diaspora* is just a lot of house talking together. As you do what you want in your house, Diaspora will never become as Facebook, this is technically impossible.

Let’s take a metaphor. A podmin is someone who opens his house. When you are in it, you have to respect what the podmin think because you are in his house. If you want to be completely free, just build your own house (pod).

Absolutely.

Censorship of content on a particular pod is not preventing someone from having free speech. If they want to say things that are not acceptable to the person who runs the pod, they are quite free (note that word) to find another pod which will allow that content, or to set up their own pod. That is the freedom which Diaspora gives and was founded on.

I really really do not want Diaspora to become or be known as a haven for neo-Nazis, paedophiles and the likes, but if they must use Diaspora, let them set up their own pods. Anyone posting hate speech or criminal abuse will not be welcome on the pod I set up. That’s my right.

I think that analogies between Diaspora and Facebook are going to be a bit flawed, because they are fundamentally different. It’s more accurate to compare Diaspora to a network like email, or the WWW.

If you post comments that I don’t like on my blog, I can censor you by deleting them…but you are free to put those comments up on your own blog, or someone else’s. Pods are similar.