Mansfield mansfield at ondollo.com
Fri Jan 8 02:57:54 GMT 2021
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I've been 'thus said'ed!! :-D Thank you.
On Thu, Jan 7, 2021 at 1:03 AM Sean Conner <sean at conman.org> wrote:
It was thus said that the Great Mansfield Mansfield once stated:
Hello!
One of my goals has been to have a client / server pairing that
supports helping non-technical users go from downloading a client to
posting content as quickly and painlessly as possible. In my mind this
means allowing new accounts to be created *without* moderating their
creation... which leaves me wondering how I might respond to side-effects
like any unwelcome content (illegal, offensive, spam, etc.).
I understand that walking down a path that allows un-moderated account
creation is asking for trouble. I'm still interested in exploring
the possibilities to see if a compromise might be found for
my implementations.
I am not a lawyer, so take what I say with a few bolders of salt.
How concerned are you? I can see where you might be subject to:
* laws where you live
* laws of the domain you register (for instance, the purely
fictional .fd top level domain (Freedonia) might subjects you to
its punative libel and copyright laws despite where you or the
server or your users are located)
* laws where the server resides
* laws where the user lives
All of those might be the same country; it might not. The US has strong
freedom of speech codes and thus libel cases are harder to prosecute (to a
degree); the UK has less free speech and very strong libel laws (compared
to
the US) so you might be liable for something a user said. Again, it
depends upon jurisdiction.
I know the US (since I live there) tries to make a distinction between a
"publisher" and a "platform" and one of the differences comes down to
moderation---do too much and you can fall into the "publisher" category
which makes you more liable for what is said than if you are in the
"platform" category. Too little moderation and, as you say, is also
troublesome.
I think I'm following your walk through the legal aspect... I guess thatwas part of my thought process too... not too dominant, but part.
I'm not too worried - and now I can see how attempts to find a desirableoutcome from constricting and controlling too much might lead to anundesirable outcome anyway if the situation is seen as more-like-publisher.Good food for thought. I get the sense that you would lean more towardlittle to no moderation, which can make sense. From the little that I'veseen, I *think* that if I wanted an 'account' on your gemini server I wouldneed to email you. Are you able to keep up with the invites, or, saidanother way, do you sometimes wish you weren't in the middle?
Okay, ignoring legal liabilities, one way might be to use an
"invite-only"
system. The website Lobsters (https://lobste.rs/) uses an invite system.
Users can invite new users (even ones they don't know) but they then become
liable for the new users behavior. I'm checking the current moderation
queue for users [1], and while most are userid changes (foo changed
username
to bar), some users have been banned (mostly for spamming; one for
"repeatedly trying to use Lobsters to whip up an online outrage mob against
organizations they don't care for"), some have had invites disabled for
inviting too many other people who have been banned. That seems to work
for
Lobsters.
This idea of invites becoming some form of responsibility appeals to mequite a bit.
Also, trying to invoke a community spirit can help.
-spc
[1]
https://lobste.rs/moderations?moderator=%28All%29&what%5Busers%5D=users\
<https://lobste.rs/moderations?moderator=%28All%29&what%5Busers%5D=users%5C>
I'm not sure if you can read the link if you aren't a member.
The link worked fine for me and I'm not a member. Interesting that thereseem to be a dozen to a few dozen 'moderation actions' a week.-------------- next part --------------An HTML attachment was scrubbed...URL: <https://lists.orbitalfox.eu/archives/gemini/attachments/20210107/82ac90c8/attachment.htm>