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Comment by threepipeproblm | Hacker News Reader

I will probably try this, out since Reddit seems unwilling to address corruption in its management.

Wondering how free speech issues will play out here.

Did you even read the article? They are explicitly saying that they will (and do) ban bullying and hateful communities. They are not free speech absolutists.

I probably didn't express my view well here. I did read the article & understand they aren't free speech absolutists.

Still wondering how free speech will play out here, because I wonder if they will stick to eliminating trolls or if their moderation will be subjective and "politicized".

Probably depends on how you define politicized. Take the example of /r/fatpeoplehate... some people think banning it was simply eliminating trolls and abuse, while some people think it was SJW left-wing censorship.

There's no free speech if you want to ban "hate speech" or "trolling".

This more or less means removing all challenging opinions and basically focus on being an echo chamber even more so than reddit. Basically thought-crime policing

How is preventing racism and slurs a thought crime policing? You're free to think all the dehumanizations of all the demographics you like. Many sites are available for you to even express them. You just are not allowed to do it at imzy. No different than say, not shouting slurs at black people in a cafe. That's not a thought crime issue, that's a "stop pushing out demographics out" issue.

While I understand it is tricky to properly moderate a forum without stifling dissenting opinions, it isn't impossible. You can censor clear, vulgar, abuse while not censoring challenging opinions.

Trolling, name calling, and abuse are NOT "challenging opinions", and removing them does not stifle discourse. There is no opinion that can't be expressed in a way that doesn't resort to abuse.

I think it can be easy to differentiate name calling and trolling from actual discourse. I say this, based on past participation in a local political forum that did allow a wide variety of viewpoints... including viewpoints that were banned on the forum that spawned us.

It seems to me that many sites who have censored particular viewpoints point to hate speech and trolling inappropriately. It also seems like people here do not have high expectations for Imzy, in this way.

I have more or less given up on online political forums, and these issues seem to come up less for hobby/tech topics.

> This more or less means removing all challenging opinions and basically focus on being an echo chamber even more so than reddit. Basically thought-crime policing

If you think left groups never disagree with each other, you're sadly misinformed. Left wing groups are famous for splitting over disagreements. Don't you remember the Judean People's Front and the People's Front of Judea?

free speech is moving to voat and gab this site is not advertising itself as a free speech zone more like a polite speech zone

Voat does not really support free speech, as per their user agreement:

    You may not use Voat to break the law, violate an individual's privacy, 
    or infringe any person or entity’s intellectual property or any other 
    proprietary rights.

(...)

    You agree to not post anyone's sensitive personal information that relates to 
    that person's real world or online identity. Do Not Incite Harm: You agree 
    not to encourage harm against people. Protect Kids: You agree not to post 
    any child pornography or sexually suggestive content involving minors.

No site which recognizes the authority of laws prohibiting content or expression of any kind truly supports free speech. When most people say free speech it seems what they really mean is a degree of censorship that doesn't interfere with them personally.

Free speech doesn't mean "anything goes even if illegal"

It sort of does by definition, but nobody implements it that way.

To me, it does. Free speech is an upper bound on human expression - anything less than absolute is something less than "free."

I'm not advocating for this - sites should police certain illegal and immoral activities. Doing so is clearly in the benefit of society and the quality of any online community. But accepting this is subjugating free speech for the sake of cultural norms and legal necessity.

That is an extremely loose definition of freedom. Ever heard the dictum "One man's freedom ends where another's begins"? Or, as somebody once put it: "My freedom to swing my fist ends where your face begins."

Liberty for all is only attainable when all restrict their individual liberty to accommodate others. If that isn't the foundation of your society, "homo homini lupus" is what you get.

> "My freedom to swing my fist ends where your face begins."

Ever heard it? How could we ever escape it? I've been reading this smug, patronizing sentence on the Internet for 20 years. I've come to believe that this formulation is so important to the people who say it, because they know they're exceptionally punchable.

Hm, you have honestly intrigued me. How is that a "smug, patronizing sentence"? Could you imagine any society worth living in that is not based on this rule?

To me, respecting another person's freedom is the only way to ever get anywhere close to a society that offers "liberty and justice for all". Can you offer an alternative approach?

I don't disagree. But it suggests an extremely low opinion of the intelligence of the audience to point it out. There's no need to point out to a civilized adult, especially professional, educated adults prevalent on a site like this, that freedom doesn't include violating others. And it's a strawman, because nobody is ever arguing that freedom includes violating others. What's usually being argued is whether a specific action should be considered a violation of others' rights, as opposed to those others being e.g. oversensitive, controlling, or intolerant.

I was not addressing the audience in general, but the user whose comment I was referring too, specifically this statement:

> anything less than absolute is something less than "free."

Now maybe I misunderstood the poster, but that does sound pretty much like what I was talking about... If you felt patronized, my apologies, but my remark was not aimed at you.

I prefer to see it as an idealistic definition, albeit one that most people wouldn't tolerate in practice. But as a philosophical point of reference, I think it's useful because it's absolute - other definitions of of free speech depend on a particular framework of law or cultural referents that not everyone agrees on.

Voat has rules against brigading other sites, which is not illegal.

I heard about Voat recently when expressing unhappiness with Reddit. Will probably be checking it out, also... I am not that interested in the political discussion though, and on a first look it wasn't clear if Voat had much going on with techie/hobby type things.

To me I think free speech is important as a political right, but these are private sites, and it's not clear to me 100% free speech is useful. I am more interested in good, ethical management. If people are going to be banned for being jerks, especially across communities, it's not necessarily a deal breaker for me. When it amounts to filtering out particular viewpoints, I'd leave.

Voat seems to be geared toward the stuff that got banned or reddit. Gab.ai is people who got banned on twitter. I don't see any reason to look for tech stuff there.

Look at the pic of the founders hugging plush toys, I'm sure you can imagine it.

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