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If we're going to have internet censorship, I don't want it to be a backroom thing. It needs to be transparent, auditable, appealable, with bright line rules a

If we're going to have internet censorship, I don't want it to be a backroom thing. It needs to be transparent, auditable, appealable, with bright line rules and due process guarantees. It's unfortunate if we need to live with some level of censorship. But I don't accept it being carried out in back rooms by unaccountable companies operating hand-in-hand with illegal DDoS attacks. Put it out there in the open, and let's have a legal democratic process around it that tries to guarantee some amount of fairness and attempts to give the weak protection from the strong.

idlewords 7y ago
Speaking as someone who runs a public site with the discretion to ban accounts, no thanks. Due process means people will game your policies. We've had arbitrary internet censorship by site operators since day 1 and it works pretty well.
- romaaeterna 7y ago
  Nobody is talking about your discussion forum. Rather this is an issue for internet backbone companies like AWS or Cloudflare. If any of these groups wants to get into the censorship business, I want them to do it in a heavily regulated environment than guarantees accountability, transparency, bright line rules, right to appeal, and due process. Same for ISPs (many of us fought hard for net neutrality for this reason). And I feel the same if the large platform monopoly companies like Google, Facebook, or Twitter, want to be in the censorship business. Not regulating their censorship practices is incompatible with us keeping democratic government for very much longer.
- Karunamon 7y ago
  >Due process means people will game your policies. And? If your policies are liable to being "gamed", then either your policies or your enforcement is insufficient. And I say this with a pretty good deal of forum moderation experience. When you find something that your objectively defined rules miss, you update your rules appropriately and continue on. Life as a mod is about a million times easier, for both you and your users, when you minimize the amount of judgment calls on edge cases that have to be made.
  - amyjess 7y ago
    > Life as a mod is about a million times easier, for both you and your users, when you minimize the amount of judgment calls on edge cases that have to be made. No, life is much easier when rule 0 is "don't piss off the people running the show", and anyone who complains about mod actions gets instantly permabanned.
    - Karunamon 7y ago
      I should have added "if you want happy users and not a e-fiefdom". I've been a part of many forums that moderate according to your description, and they're almost without exception, miserable places to be that could be so much better if the mods didn't let petty bureaucrat syndrome go to their heads.
- toast0 7y ago
  I think people generally don't have a problem with forums where the moderator declares upfront that access is subject to the whims of the owner which can and will be capricious. Certainly, I see some threads now and again where people complain about such and suck, but locking the thread and telling people if they bring it up again they'll get banned is usually enough to get people back on topic. Sure, it's a brutal dictatorship, but whatever, everybody knew it was at the start. I'm certainly not on HN because of its dedication to free speech, it's in part because of the swift and effective moderation that eliminates most off-topic stuff. The problem I have is if one of the services that says they'll provide services to everyone, especially those that say they support free speech, turn around and say we'll provide services to everyone, unless we agree that they're really reprehensible and our paying customers threaten to leave; in that case, we don't care so much about free speech or universal access. Having a MFFAM policy[1] seems like a much more honest approach to being a free speech supporter. Of course, if you have a free tier, it's hard to take the free you're getting from the customer whose views you don't like and send it off to an organization that opposes those views. [1] https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/about/faq#BecauseFuckNazisThatsWhy https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/about/faq#BecauseFuckNazisT...
Thaxll 7y ago
You know private company do whatever they want if you're not happy just host your stuff elsewhere they're not accountable.

idlewords 7y ago

Speaking as someone who runs a public site with the discretion to ban accounts, no thanks. Due process means people will game your policies. We've had arbitrary internet censorship by site operators since day 1 and it works pretty well.

romaaeterna 7y ago
Nobody is talking about your discussion forum. Rather this is an issue for internet backbone companies like AWS or Cloudflare. If any of these groups wants to get into the censorship business, I want them to do it in a heavily regulated environment than guarantees accountability, transparency, bright line rules, right to appeal, and due process. Same for ISPs (many of us fought hard for net neutrality for this reason). And I feel the same if the large platform monopoly companies like Google, Facebook, or Twitter, want to be in the censorship business. Not regulating their censorship practices is incompatible with us keeping democratic government for very much longer.
Karunamon 7y ago
>Due process means people will game your policies. And? If your policies are liable to being "gamed", then either your policies or your enforcement is insufficient. And I say this with a pretty good deal of forum moderation experience. When you find something that your objectively defined rules miss, you update your rules appropriately and continue on. Life as a mod is about a million times easier, for both you and your users, when you minimize the amount of judgment calls on edge cases that have to be made.
- amyjess 7y ago
  > Life as a mod is about a million times easier, for both you and your users, when you minimize the amount of judgment calls on edge cases that have to be made. No, life is much easier when rule 0 is "don't piss off the people running the show", and anyone who complains about mod actions gets instantly permabanned.
  - Karunamon 7y ago
    I should have added "if you want happy users and not a e-fiefdom". I've been a part of many forums that moderate according to your description, and they're almost without exception, miserable places to be that could be so much better if the mods didn't let petty bureaucrat syndrome go to their heads.
toast0 7y ago
I think people generally don't have a problem with forums where the moderator declares upfront that access is subject to the whims of the owner which can and will be capricious. Certainly, I see some threads now and again where people complain about such and suck, but locking the thread and telling people if they bring it up again they'll get banned is usually enough to get people back on topic. Sure, it's a brutal dictatorship, but whatever, everybody knew it was at the start. I'm certainly not on HN because of its dedication to free speech, it's in part because of the swift and effective moderation that eliminates most off-topic stuff. The problem I have is if one of the services that says they'll provide services to everyone, especially those that say they support free speech, turn around and say we'll provide services to everyone, unless we agree that they're really reprehensible and our paying customers threaten to leave; in that case, we don't care so much about free speech or universal access. Having a MFFAM policy[1] seems like a much more honest approach to being a free speech supporter. Of course, if you have a free tier, it's hard to take the free you're getting from the customer whose views you don't like and send it off to an organization that opposes those views. [1] https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/about/faq#BecauseFuckNazisThatsWhy https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/about/faq#BecauseFuckNazisT...

Thaxll 7y ago

You know private company do whatever they want if you're not happy just host your stuff elsewhere they're not accountable.