this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2023

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Have your say: What is and isn't acceptable speech in the community. (feddit.uk)

submitted 1 year ago by GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk to c/feddituk@feddit.uk

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We're looking to put together some more detailed rules on what should and should not be submitted to the instance. Things such as, but not exclusively:

What types of message you would always like to see removed on sight
Whether there are any types of message which should be left up (borderline, with strong corrections from the community)
Where the line is drawn on political views (and how gray areas should be treated)

I'll make no bones: Moderating uk/ukpol has been a learning experience for me.
I've learned that there often isn't much difference between "leaving a comment up because the community has done an excellent job highlighting flaws" and "I should have removed this hours ago, the community shouldn't have to do this".
As there isn't a way to mod-tag a post, inaction on negative posts can reflect badly on the instance as a whole.

Having some clear guidelines/rules will hopefully simplify things.
And more admins should mean that if a report isn't looked at, someone can review it as an escalation.

I've also enabled the slur filters. And we'll be listening to see if anything needs adding/removing (the template had swearing blocked :| )

So...Answers on a postcard, I guess!

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[–] clara@feddit.uk 31 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

alright, since i'm first up to comment, i'll start with an easy one

tiananmen square massacre denial should probably be banned or removed on sight.

i'm making this suggestion because there is a... particular... audience and demographic in the fediverse that for some reason, has issues with accepting this. i will not name this audience, because this same audience also likes to brigade posters that dare to stick their head up above the trenches and point out that actually, some of their takes might be verifiably wrong. i hope that not naming them reduces my chance of being detected, and then drawing targeted fire. one of us had to be the person to point it out, so i guess it's my turn.

by all means, debate casualty figures, sure. debate why there were protests, sure, that's not the thing i have issue. but if a poster is trying to sincerely argue that nothing happened, in my opinion, it's a strong indiciation that the poster is acting in bad faith

how to implement this as a rule? maybe i would go with "no denial of historically verified massacres"? it sounds obvious really, but if you don't spell it out, people can and will say "ahh but the mods didn't say i can't! 🥴"

i dunno how you want to go about it exactly, but yeah.

[–] blackn1ght@feddit.uk 12 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I'm sure we all know which instance (or instances, there's two that stick to mind) you're talking about! Their takes are usually crazy and extreme and their behaviour (it's usually the one of the two that are more problematic) is annoying as fuck.

That said, it sounds like we want to censor people who are arguing in bad faith? I think this might be broad enough, but I worry that people might get banned or content censored when they raise something that is deeply against the commonly held view a the time but later turns out to be correct.

Personally I think we should just downvote people who express these "opinions", as long as they're not being offensive. The more rules there are the more work the mods have to do, but they can also open up the possibility of mods banning people they disagree with under the guise of that rule.

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[–] Rogue@feddit.uk 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think this can be covered by the "no intentionally inflammatory comments/posts" rule that u/flamingos proposed.

If someone is outright denying facts then they should just be downvoted, reported for trolling, and ignored.

I don't engage with the communities you're referencing so it may be things are worse than I'm aware - but the argument I've seen from more prominent members of the communities is that we shouldn't trust everything provided by the CIA as it is in their interest to demonise enemy states.

I believe that's a different opinion from outright denial of historic events so shouldn't be censored.

I can't imagine why these topics would be coming up in UK communities though so hopefully this is an entirely non issue and can be moderated on a community by community basis rather than instance wide.

[–] Syldon@feddit.uk 1 points 11 months ago

As much as I like the idea of a trolling report function, it is a very subjective thing to introduce. Some people fall foul of believing the propaganda of their own country, and penalising them for living in a state that does this should not be a thing in my opinion. Ideally you should be convincing people of the truth with irrefutable evidence of the facts.

[–] wildeaboutoskar@feddit.uk 26 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Key thing I think is no transphobia (or racism against GRT) For some reason they are the two things that still seem acceptable in UK online spaces and it's just depressing.

[–] britishteadrinker@feddit.uk 3 points 11 months ago

It depends on your definition of transphobia. If your definition of transphobia is hateful comments against trans people, then yeah, sure. If it includes people who want to debate the climate, such as bathroom issues, pronoun discussions etc, then no. That's just censorship and not allowing debate.

Same with GRT, actual racism against them, sure, ban it. But that shouldn't be used as an excuse to stifle discussion around real issues. If a GRT community are illegally camping on land, then that's a crime and it's not racist to point it out.

Like everything in life, it's nuanced.

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[–] flamingos@feddit.uk 14 points 1 year ago

This is going to sound annoyingly vague, but I'd like to see some kind of rule on inflammatory comments/posts. By inflammatory, I mean they don't add to the discussion, but are just there to rile people up. An example would be this from the recent Rowling thread.

I'm not saying that these should be removed on sight, but if this is all a user does then they should probably be banned.

[–] smeg@feddit.uk 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hard to be black and white about it but I think you have to be transparent about whatever you do, i.e. offer a proper reason for every ban or run the risk of becoming the cliché power-tripping Reddit mod.

Also I'm always hesitant about any auto-word-filtering, it tends to treat users a bit like children. Trolls who really want to use slurs will find a way around them, and sometimes you want to refer to a particular word without having to asterisk it out like you're afraid of the internet police. You can refer to a bad word without invoking its meaning, we're all grown-ups here. That said I have no idea how easy that is to enforce, might be a lot less effort all round to just auto-remove the slurs!

[–] GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Honestly, people here are pretty good at not using the worst slurs, it's mostly a word that refers to mental disability that gets used, with people sometimes not understanding that it's not really acceptable for use an insult nowadays.

I think if filters are used, it would be words where there are generally good alternatives in technical uses (there are very few situations where "slow" or "delay" are not valid alternatives, for example).

[–] bugsmith@programming.dev 1 points 11 months ago

I'd throw another one in for being against word filters. I think it's condescending, and ultimately words are really only bad in context. What if I want to quote someone who used the word? Or what about if a bread making community takes off, where the word is pretty appropriate.

Certainly it's acceptable to remove posts, etc, when some words are used in certain ways, but I think this should be left to the discretion of the moderators.

Ultimately, anyone here who wants to ignore the rules and use those words will get around the filters anyway.

[–] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I think we should only really step in when people are being flat-out hateful, like actual nazi type crap

[–] BluesF@feddit.uk 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Outside of what is genuinely illegal I think it is better that speech considered to be objectionable by the community remains visible so that our collective attitude towards those things are also visible. What I mean is I would rather see bigots hounded and debated than just banned... I don't think defaulting to the ban hammer is the way outside of specific safe spaces.

[–] GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I appreciate the input. I'll be honest, bigots getting hounded is my preference too.
But a couple of times, I've been hounded for not deleting the bigot posts. That's one of the reasons I was keen to get feedback, to find out what people would prefer.
As if most of the feddit.uk members are keen for that, it'll become policy.

[–] BluesF@feddit.uk 2 points 1 year ago

I wish I could say I was surprised... I think there's a need for online spaces where bigotry is just absolutely not tolerated, but I'm not sure every space should become one.

[–] bugsmith@programming.dev 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Absolutely second this.
Let's not throw blanket bans out and create an echo chamber whilst stifling discussion.
Those who break the spirit of the rules will be called out, downvoted, and argued with. This isn't a bad thing. Serial offenders will be apparent and can be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, with warnings and bans.

I say this as an admin of another large instance, having to deal this this myself.

[–] IbnLemmy@feddit.uk 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Personally hate speech should not be allowed. By hate speech I mean anything that promotes discrimination, hostility, or violence towards individuals or groups. I'm sure someone can word it better.

Also we should naturally not allow breaking of the law. No, i don't mean Piracy which is debatable, but clear cut things like discussions related to say cases that are currently in court.

Everything else is fair game. even though i may disagree with it. The community through vote based regulation will need to manage the rest.

[–] GreyShuck@feddit.uk 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Discussion of current court cases is not illegal - unless that discussion would be prejudicial to the outcome as I understand it, and if we are going to prohibit any discussion of them, I think that is a fairly crucial distinction. I really don't think that we should be imposing blanket bans on any discussion.

[–] GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It's often a fine line between discussing the case, and people making statements like "X was bothering underage people off-stage at Z"

[–] GreyShuck@feddit.uk 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes, but then do we really want to ban comments along the line of 'did you hear what the judge said today in that case where climate protesters are taking the government to court?".

Surely we can be nuanced enough to avoid the one without banning the other?

[–] GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk 6 points 1 year ago

Things like this are why I was keen to make this post. I'd like to have lots of community opinions before drafting up guidelines.
And hopefully those guidelines (maybe with a few examples) would be enough to keep people on the right side of things.

[–] Emperor@feddit.uk 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's getting into libel territory and it is tricky as we may be expected to keep the evidence for prosecution.

There's also injunctions and super-injunctions, which are difficult to police as, by their nature, we don't know what they are about.

In all such cases, probably be guided by what the papers report as they'll have run it past their lawyers. You'd hope.

[–] GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk 2 points 1 year ago

Your comment on papers is a good one. I've always liked rules like "would you say it to your grandma" or "would you publish this with your full name on the article". (Not exactly like that, but you get my drift)

[–] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 1 points 1 year ago

Promotes discrimination where? Just say if someone was participating in a religion-based discussion about certain gender roles in religious institutions, wouldn't that be much different than someone saying "women should be banned from driving"?

[–] Rogue@feddit.uk 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Do not antagonise other instances/communities

I'm proposing this because a lot of the drama within Lemmy has been caused by the diversity of different communities. Personally I'd like the option to see the entire federated universe, but if members of this instance act inappropriately in another instance it seems to all too quickly lead to defederation.

[–] noodle@feddit.uk 7 points 1 year ago

Illegal stuff should be a hard rule. By that I mean calls to action and explicit hate speech should be aggressively removed. It puts the instance at risk.

Auto-filtering might be useful for catching especially egregious words. They're easy to bypass but I guess it should deter some trolling. But it could be tedious if it is overly sensitive. Is it going to block people posting or commenting? Does it let you know you've been caught?

I'm really not sure how well policing "political" topics would go. It's political by nature, so I think even coming up with rules will end up devolving into political discussion. It's probably easier to just say "no hate speech".

[–] Biohazard@feddit.uk 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I believe that free speech shows people's true colours and allows you to see who to block and who to listen to.

We should listen to all opinions even if they're wrong and stupid.

I think its better to leave something up even if its offensive so long as its not spam.

[–] Absolute_Axoltl@feddit.uk 2 points 1 year ago

My gut reaction is to agree with you. But at the same time I wonder if it's far easier for me to take this stance because it's very unlikely that I will ever be the target of any kind of abuse. I sit in a very safe position, very much in a majority in almost any way other than things I can choose. So despite my first thought being much the same as yours I can't by election but think I should instead listen to other voices around me?

[–] peter@feddit.uk 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think any rule put in place will be challenged by people hoping to spread hate speech so there should be a degree of leeway with the context of something. In a similar vein I'm against outright banning certain words but instead banning particular uses.

[–] GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Regarding word bans, I'm trying to find out if the filter blocks the comments, or just puts a mod review in.
In fact, I'll test it in here. banana is now on the list, lets see what happens.
Edit: Odd, nothing happened. Much to think about.

[–] burningmatches@feddit.uk 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We should definitely ban your “gray” spelling.

[–] GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk 5 points 1 year ago

I blame Firefox defaulting me to star spangled English when it updates. The number of Zs I've had to spot makes me sad.

[–] Risk@feddit.uk 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Banana. banana

Just thought I'd also test in case you have some sort of mod immunity to filters?

[–] GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk 4 points 1 year ago

Time to wash your mouth out with soap!

Yea, I think it's not working. No worries, thanks for the assist!

[–] jtb@feddit.uk 2 points 1 year ago

Scone should be pronounced scone. Scon is unacceptable.

[–] Syldon@feddit.uk 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Please do not go down the line that I have just experienced from worldnews@lemmy.ml

Someone asked the question regarding a slur "the river to the sea" that is being bandied about by some. They could not understand why it is considered antisemitic. I gave an explanation and a link to a newspaper article. This got me a 2 month ban for being antisemitic.

My post questioning this here.

Just show some common sense when instigating bans. At the very least respond when someone questions a ban. And finally be prepared to accept a mistake has been made.

[–] wewbull@feddit.uk 1 points 1 year ago

Sounds like anime_titties needs a reboot.

[–] britishteadrinker@feddit.uk 1 points 11 months ago

Personally, I think only nasty personal attacks on others and actual illegal speech. I don't like censorship, I think censoring opinions just pushes people to echo chambers. You may not agree with GC people, for instance, but deleting their comments just end up with people like Graham Linehan, stuck in their own echo chambers getting more and more extreme.