getting_started | Moderation / Censorship on Dreamwidth?

I was a longtime LJ user back in the day, got sucked into the Facebook borg, and am now returning to my roots. Many thanks to the staff and volunteers for creating/maintaining Dreamwidth.

I'm still finding my bearings, so apologies if this is not the right place for this kind of question.

As y'all are probably aware, Facebook heavily censors a wide variety of topics, from porn, to vaccines, to erotic Bernie memes. (Ask me how I know about that last one). I've been banned (temporarily) and seen friends banned (temporarily and permanently), sometimes for posts they made years earlier that were consistent with Facebook's rules at the time.

As a result, I've become increasingly angry at being treated like a child by Facebook's Dolores Umbridge algorithms. One of the main reasons I've fired up my account on Dreamwidth is the founder's stated commitment to free speech:

"With servers in the US we're obliged to follow US laws, but we're serious about knowing and protecting your rights when it comes to free expression and privacy. We will never put a limit on your creativity just because it makes someone uncomfortable — even if that someone is us."

...and from the site's Operating Principles:

"We will not place limits on your expression, except as required by United States law or to protect the quality and long-term viability of the service (such as removing spam)."

While I'm heartened by the apparently vigorous commitment to free speech here, many sites that claimed to support free speech at their founding, grew to support censorship of a wide variety of topics. For example, when reddit was founded, it claimed to be a "bastion of free speech". Over the intervening years, however, it has censored or banned thousands of communities, on topics ranging from drugs to sex work to conservative politics.

The founders of Dreamwidth also don't seem very active on the site any more. denise hasn't posted publicly since 2015. mark hasn't posted publicly since 2013. Many of the founding documents are outdated with references to policies that don't exist any more (such as invite codes).

As a result, I'm hesitant to invest in a site that seems to be on autopilot, and de facto controlleded by volunteers who may not share the founder's commitment to free speech.

So, before trying to recruit my friends here, I'm trying to get a sense of the real boundaries of free speech on Dreamwidth.

To help clarify, I've made a list of topics that have been banned on other major services. Note, to be clear, I don't necessarily support the communities that were banned on other sites. For example, I'm not a Trump supporter, and I'm certainly not a Nazi. However, I'd like to occasionally be able to discuss those topics without fear of being banned.

Which of these topics, if any, is likely to put my Dreamwidth account/communities at risk of a ban/censorship?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts on this matter!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

No.

Inviting everyone in your circle to go participate in illegal activities is much more likely to be banned.

Protesting is legal. Vandalism, hate crimes, and harassment are not legal.

You seem incredibly concerned about censorship on a site that is pretty dedicated to free speech within the bounds of words on the internet.

Dreamwidth has been here a long enough time with a good track record.

Don't be a harasser, incitor of harassment or hate crimes, and you'll not get banned.

Edited 2021-05-29 13:50 (UTC)

"Inviting everyone in your circle to go participate in illegal activities is much more likely to be banned."

Looting and arson are illegal activities, and happened at many BLM protests.

"Dreamwidth has been here a long enough time with a good track record."

I don't know Dreamwidth's track record though. That's what I'm trying to determine.

"You seem incredibly concerned about censorship on a site that is pretty dedicated to free speech within the bounds of words on the internet."

And why do you think that is? The President of the United States and his supporters were deplatformed from many of the sites I use! If I'm going to devote a lot of time here--and invite others to do the same--I want reasonable assurance that the same censorship happening on many other sites isn't going to happen here.

"Inviting everyone in your circle to go participate in illegal activities is much more likely to be banned."

Looting and arson are illegal activities, and happened at many BLM protests.

Okay, here's the thing: if you encourage people to go do something legal, you should be fine. If something illegal then happens at that otherwise legal rally, that's for the authorities to sort out, but if you didn't encourage it here? Should be fine.

If you encourage people to go to a rally and specify they should bring bricks, tear gas, and/or fire-starters, that's when you're getting into trouble because you are right on that fine line of inciting illegal activity.

If you encourage them to go to the rally and use said accoutrements in illegal fashion (assault, destruction of property, etc), yeah, you're now over the line, I'd guess.

All of this is speculation: I'm not a volunteer or staff here.

Thanks! That seems like a reasonable "bright line" that would satisfy me.

Allowed: Everyone's invited to go with me to a BLM protest!
Not Allowed: Everyone's invited to go with me to a BLM protest, and also please bring gasoline, fireworks, and brass knuckles!

(If someone in a position of authority at Dreamwidth should happen to see this, it would be nice to hear that this is how the line will be drawn here.)

Edited 2021-05-29 17:35 (UTC)

"Harassment", "incitement" and "hate crimes" are also very expansively defined by many people.

For example, some people think that not using someone's preferred pronouns is harassment and repeatedly doing so can result in life-changing fines:

"...a person who intentionally and repeatedly refuses to use an individual’s preferred pronoun would be subject to fines (that could reach as high as $250,000 for multiple violations) under the New York law..."

A British comedian/youtuber ("Count Dankula") who taught his pug to make a Nazi salute was convicted of a hate crime and fined 800 GBP.

I realize that DW is governed by US law, which has better free speech protections, but the same cancel culture that led to this absurd conviction is nearly as prevalent in the US as Britain. For example, youtube also removed the video as "hate speech".

Edited 2021-06-01 13:53 (UTC)

I really did not keep up with Mark and Denise's views on censorship. When this discussion came up, I wondered "How would they prevent some of the instances when LJ went sideways?"

For example, when I was very active on LJ, there was a pro-ana group promoting anorexia. There are several subcultures of people not dealing with life in a healthy way where people exposed to other people with the same dysfunctional interest can make each other worse and more dysfunctional. The part where you could not recruit people to your cause could stop that even if encouraging other people to be anorexic is not illegal.

All the Encyclopedia Dramatica nonsense from LJ where a small group of trolls were really mean to everyone was another time when LJ went sideways. I have seen a lot of online communities just fall to trolls seeking attention. At some point, no one is left but the trolls seeking attention.

I feel like the major groups on Dreamwidth so far as there are any are "people who are participating in fandom" and "people who are not participating in fandom."

Moderation / Censorship on Dreamwidth?

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