How To Stop Censorship & Protect EndUsers

Features and Ideas
1

I’ve been saying this all along, It’s not entirely been clear though until literally yesterday here thanks to

https://www.loomio.org/d/ikJUaz3l/word-tag-filter-option

My original concerns, post & inquiry re: issues began after being directed both on Twitter & while i was on Diaspora itself to come here:

https://www.loomio.org/d/tuFjC4Tn/concerns-re-abuse-child-safety

So, This is what i propose & have all along & why.

#1. You are making #podmins #censors which is not needed. The only system you have in place in current build of this network is to ‘report/flag’ someone for what they say. That means you then make the podmin the censor. That’s not freedom, that’s not free speech & that is entirely contrary to why we all need / desire a voice on a decentralized foss platform.

#2. In order to comply with both US and International Law re: Minor’s and Pornography. That part is really, really simple. When a new user signs up on any pod, make them designate as adult or minor in their own country.

Once that part is in place, restrict all NSFW content so Minor’s accounts can’t view it. Voila! You’ve just entirely eliminated ALL legal liability for anything that is legal. ie. Adults can post porn, speak freely and be trolls. Kids can use Foss Diaspora Social Network on any pod and have the ability to not get sex ed the wrong way.

#3. Ultimately this is my belief, Using Tags, Minor Accounts, Clearly Warning Kids & Parents Overall With This Project PUBLICLY and making an effort to make it safe for kids to use alongside free speaking adults i think ultimately strengthens Diaspora’s stronghold in future development of said Decentralized Social Networks empowering free speech vs Censoring it as you do now.

#4. I don’t code ruby on rails, This is now your work :wink:

Note: This discussion was imported from Loomio. Click here to view the original discussion.

2

“#1. You are making #podmins #censors which is not needed. The only system you have in place in current build of this network is to ‘report/flag’ someone for what they say. That means you then make the podmin the censor. That’s not freedom, that’s not free speech & that is entirely contrary to why we all need / desire a voice on a decentralized foss platform.”

OHHHHH NOW I GET WHAT YOU’RE SAYING! Yes, I can see this. ONE person gets to decide the fate of others… Gotcha, gotcha.

3

Exactly! :slight_smile: Oh Thank God You Got It! :slight_smile:

4

*Cracks Beer In Celebration. +1 Theatre-X!

5

Hmm, what if there were a group of some kind that handles harassment? (Sorry, I tend to write things backwards)

6

That is censorship… why would you need it?

All you need to do is give endusers the tools to designate adult or minor, warn people to choose properly when signing up on all pods and then only deal with abuse if it’s literally illegal. Child Porn, Illegal Porn, Threats Of Violence, Etc.

7

Also to note, My system of Minor vs Adult accounts alleviates time needed for Podmins to even investigate any abuse since adults should speak freely and not be able to cry to a podmin and censor each others lol :wink: *Again, unless it’s literally illegal whatever they are doing.

It actually protects everyone better, legally & everyone’s sanity.

8

Options are good. From what I’m envisioning with this I think having the option of amending content for people is good however I don’t know if I like the idea of censoring due to legalities. That seems to sort of pander to the people who try and enforce censorship.

9

Complete freedom = Anarchy just for the record.

10

Now I keep interpreting the “legally” bit vaguely. Can you elaborate that a bit more?

11

It’s not about censoring, it’s about you are either an enduser or a podmin. It’s pretty simple. Either way you have legal restraints to what you can post.

By your logic last comment, Would it be acceptable to not report Child Porn then on Diaspora?

See my point? You’re not above the law lol. & you are making Podmins liable for otherwise doing something really cool for everyone who uses it.

12

Whether you realize it or not, This thread determines whether or not Diaspora & Loomio support Child Porn & reporting it, making it a safe haven for abuse & violence vs making it legally cool for both kids & adults to literally say anything. Just not threaten violence or post illegal porn or show adult content to kids. It’s quite simple.

Think about it. I will return tomorrow.

13

Which comment do you speak of? I was just putting that out there if you were speaking of the anarchy one. Hmm. I’ll meditate on this a bit.

14

Once that part is in place, restrict all NSFW content so Minor’s accounts can’t view it. Voila!

Please clarify “all NSFW content” — content that has been tagged with “#nsfw” or any NSFW content, including untagged adult pictures, pornographic texts, hate speech…?

15

+1 rekado! Thank You!

Ok, NSFW is Porn.

Hate Speech, Freedom To Spout Anything & Everything Unless It’s Literally A Threat Under Law Should NOT Be NSFW.

Re: Minor Accounts. This is WHY having a disclaimer & warning parents publicly is a GOOD IDEA. It actually saves all your asses from lawsuits & angry folks like people i know on twitter lol.

So, If a kid see’s a neonazi trolling someone, that’s fine by me, As long as they themselves can stop the abuse if they troll their public page on posts they make for their friends & family.

I see no reason why disabling comments on posts from an abusive user is ‘censorship’ since they can easily post public rants about said enduser and i support such action should they desire. That i suppose is more of a cyberbullying issue i’m less concerned with as i feel if

a.) a child & parent know beforehand people speak freely & just how freely lol, that’s needed.

b.) giving kids a safe place to be amongst their peers and adults while protecting abuse on their own pages.

c.) consider a group for harassment like Theatre-X proposed i think would be good for harassment publicly or threats…

The entire point is, Protect kids from porn. Protect Podmins from Lawsuits, Protect Free Speech & Stop Pretending Your System In Place Isn’t CENSORSHIP LOL.

It most certainly is. Think about all this.

16

Also to note, in my report i suggested you strip and enforce stripping of ALL EXIF data regardless on every pod on every build and make it priority.

Additionally from an infosec perspective, not encrypting user data on pods is a serious security fail. Think about that, you create a thread as i don’t rubyonrails and i am not here to flood this community with MY voice only.

The other question i have is Diaspora Pods & TOR?
Why isn’t this being done?

Why on earth hasn’t Moglen figured out yet this is essential for future freedombox dev? :wink: Think about it peoples.

Also, i suggested instead of arguing over better and safer ways to improve your network, maybe you could even have people teach users about security, things like steganography for example :wink:

https://plus.google.com/113772323131310131648/posts/EKGTrhg1kQA

I mean, doesn’t this actually all make sense to you now thinking about it all? I’m your ally, not the enemy folks.

17

There are a number of challenges:

  • There’s no consensus on what constitutes porn, legally or morally. Child porn was legal in Japan until earlier this month as one example.

  • There’s no way to force users to tag porn, or for software to automatically recognize it. See previous point.

  • it’s unlikely you’ll be able to get users to tag content that is illegal as being so, for fear of prosecution.

As far as I can tell, this means we need a mechanism where users can report posts and/or comments they find offensive/illegal, so a human being can make a judgement based on their own values, laws, and TOS. A mechanism which as far as I can tell we have already.

18

It is not possible to automatically block underage users from seeing any youth-inappropriate content. That is why youth have parents.

  • Children and teens routinely claim to be older so they can evade any restrictions on what they can view and post. We all know people who had Facebook accounts when they were 8-10 years old, despite the US age limit of 13.
  • Without voluntary “NSFW” classification by the original poster, it would require invasive content-scanning, which is guaranteed to misclassify some posts. There is no guarantee that the original poster will be in a jurisdiction with the same laws as the viewer, either, so even after automatic scanning, some inappropriate posts will be delivered.
  • School filters – I still remember hearing teens talking about how easily they evaded the filters and how many things the filters did not catch – why would anyone think that we’re suddenly going to solve something that school censors and the companies they hire still cannot fix after fifteen or twenty years of continued effort?

In the end, we have to depend on those who post to have the courtesy to mark things #nsfw that may not be appropriate in workplaces, homes, schools. This is a judgment call by the poster and may not match what an underage viewer in another country should see.

19

“It is not porn, it is art !”. Hop ! You’re fucked up ! What is porn to you might not be porn to me. Especially child porn. E.g : is a picture of a nude child, child porn ? Yes ? Unless it is a holliday picture in a naturist camp which is perfectly legal in some countries. And nude babies ? Would you be offensed ? Try to count how many parents post photos of their babies in bath on Facebook. Nobody’s shouting against it. Since then, over which age nudity is not cuteness anymore and become child porn ?

Furthermore, you can’t demand to stop podmins censorship while trying to enforce your censorship for some categories of users ! Your speech is pointless man !

20

Concerning the law, in France here is what the law says which means that in his actual form, D* is perfectly respecting it.

But you didn’t read it since you can’t speak french, right ?
So how can you assert that D* is not in accordance with the internationnal laws since you cannot have read the law of the 197 countries in the world ?!