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What we mean by freedom of speech

We want to be transparent with everyone on our policies, so we're posting this up for full disclosure so more people understand our intentions with Poal.co

We've built this site on the cornerstone of the principle of the freedom of speech. It's our position that everyone may use their freedom of speech for any purpose except to limit others' freedom of speech. In other words, the rights of each among us end where the rights of others among us begin. The purpose of this ideal is to ensure the most freedom of speech for the greatest number of people.

That's all pretty abstract, so let's talk examples. It would take too much time and forethought to list every example, but we can list a few of them. So, let's say you have a bad actor. Let's call him - I don't know - let's call him John. Let's say John is some Alinskyite who wants to find loopholes in freedom of speech to limit others' freedom of speech. What might John do? Here are some scenarios:

Scenario 1:

John spams the hell out of Poal. His itchy finger presses the "submit" button way too many times as he floods a bunch of unwanted drivel onto /all/new. It pushes off the page the quality content from other people, which folks now must take longer to find and upvote. John has effectively censored other people by forum-sliding them into oblivion. He grins to himself, thinking, "I shore am a smart guy!"

Scenario 2:

John sees an opinion with which he disagrees. "We can't have this!" says John, as he proceeds to research the man who dared not share his beliefs. John finds out who he is, puts together his dox, and spams them to people on Poal. In fear of the ramifications, the doxxed person leaves, and so is effectively censored. He repeats this process with others, silencing them while claiming freedom of speech.

Scenario 3:

John doesn't like the idea of a free speech forum. He sees something illegal someone posted - let's say child pornography - and reports it to Poal. If Poal refuses to remove it on the grounds that it's free speech, John then goes to the authorities, and the authorities seize and shut down the whole platform. Now nobody has free speech. "Haha," mocks John, "you've all been hoisted by your own petard!"

Now let's say we act to prevent this stuff, and we ultimately ban John's account. John comes back on another account and says, "See? See everyone?! There was no freedom of speech after all!" If we don't explain well to folks here what we mean by freedom of speech, they might think, "Hey, John is right! These guys suck!" John then succeeds in his mission of stirring the pot and fracturing the community.

So, instead what we'd do in that situation is explain our thought process to the community and then ban John, after which his manipulations lose their effectiveness. If folks here have other ideas on how to deal with these problems without banning the accounts of the people trying to silence others' freedom of speech, we will hear them out, although the final decision on the matter will rest with Poal.

thanks to @mario for the help with this.

What we mean by freedom of speech We want to be transparent with everyone on our policies, so we're posting this up for full disclosure so more people understand our intentions with Poal.co We've built this site on the cornerstone of the principle of the freedom of speech. It's our position that everyone may use their freedom of speech for any purpose except to limit others' freedom of speech. In other words, the rights of each among us end where the rights of others among us begin. The purpose of this ideal is to ensure the most freedom of speech for the greatest number of people. That's all pretty abstract, so let's talk examples. It would take too much time and forethought to list every example, but we can list a few of them. So, let's say you have a bad actor. Let's call him - I don't know - let's call him John. Let's say John is some Alinskyite who wants to find loopholes in freedom of speech to limit others' freedom of speech. What might John do? Here are some scenarios: Scenario 1: John spams the hell out of Poal. His itchy finger presses the "submit" button way too many times as he floods a bunch of unwanted drivel onto /all/new. It pushes off the page the quality content from other people, which folks now must take longer to find and upvote. John has effectively censored other people by forum-sliding them into oblivion. He grins to himself, thinking, "I shore am a smart guy!" Scenario 2: John sees an opinion with which he disagrees. "We can't have this!" says John, as he proceeds to research the man who dared not share his beliefs. John finds out who he is, puts together his dox, and spams them to people on Poal. In fear of the ramifications, the doxxed person leaves, and so is effectively censored. He repeats this process with others, silencing them while claiming freedom of speech. Scenario 3: John doesn't like the idea of a free speech forum. He sees something illegal someone posted - let's say child pornography - and reports it to Poal. If Poal refuses to remove it on the grounds that it's free speech, John then goes to the authorities, and the authorities seize and shut down the whole platform. Now nobody has free speech. "Haha," mocks John, "you've all been hoisted by your own petard!" Now let's say we act to prevent this stuff, and we ultimately ban John's account. John comes back on another account and says, "See? See everyone?! There was no freedom of speech after all!" If we don't explain well to folks here what we mean by freedom of speech, they might think, "Hey, John is right! These guys suck!" John then succeeds in his mission of stirring the pot and fracturing the community. So, instead what we'd do in that situation is explain our thought process to the community and then ban John, after which his manipulations lose their effectiveness. If folks here have other ideas on how to deal with these problems without banning the accounts of the people trying to silence others' freedom of speech, we will hear them out, although the final decision on the matter will rest with Poal. thanks to @mario for the help with this.

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[–] • 3 pts

Can we have a "hide posts from this user" button? Then users can choose to just ignore spammers.

Don't down vote, don't respond, just ignore, and they go away.

The other option is that if a user gets negative points, they have to wait between consecutive posts. Or do what voat does and have a minimum points threshold before being able to submit a new thread.

Either way you probably want to find a way to automate this kind of thing, otherwise the trolls will just wear you down.

[–] • 3 pts

I need to find a more automated way, but I need to keep myself accountable when this type of thing happens. There is a block user function although I haven’t tested it so I don’t know how effective it is.

[–] • 2 pts

Thanks for your reply.

I haven't used the block user function myself either, however it seems that that only stops them from mailing you, but doesn't hide their posts from you.

I was thinking something more along the lines of "do not show posts from this user", or something like that, next to the "comments" link. So I can hide a post by say, "ethuggin", refresh the page, and all his bullshit is gone. If everyone does that, the trolls get no attention after the first post and leave.

The manual way of doing things is working for now, but like I said, it's going to be annoying and where you down: you don't really want to type a response - with attached supporting evidence for EVERY troll account you ban - right?

Also, a hide button allows individual members of the community to hide people based on their choices, so it won't require you to be held accountable at all.

[–] • -1 pt

Lol. Our admin, ladies and gentlemen.