Hey all,
In light of recent events concerning one of our communities (/c/vegan), we (as a team) have spent the last week working on how to address better some concerns that had arisen between the moderators of that community and the site admin team. We always strive to find a balance between the free expression of communities hosted here and protecting users from potentially harmful content.
We as a team try to stick to a general rule of respect and consideration for the physical and mental well-being of our users when drafting new rules and revising existing ones. Furthermore, we've done our best to try to codify these core beliefs into the additions to the ToS and a new by-laws section.
ToS Additions
That being said, we will be adding a new section to our “terms of service” concerning misinformation. While we do try to be as exact as reasonably able, we also understand that rules can be up to interpretation as well. This is a living document, and users are free to respectfully disagree. We as site admins will do our best to consider the recommendations of all users regarding potentially revising any rules.
Regarding misinformation, we've tried our best to capture these main ideas, which we believe are very reasonable:
- Users are encouraged to post information they believe is true and helpful.
- We recommend users conduct thorough research using reputable scientific sources.
- When in doubt, a policy of “Do No Harm”, based on the Hippocratic Oath, is a good compass on what is okay to post.
- Health-related information should ideally be from peer-reviewed, reproducible scientific studies.
- Single studies may be valid, but often provide inadequate sample sizes for health-related advice.
- Non-peer-reviewed studies by individuals are not considered safe for health matters.
We reserve the right to remove information that could cause imminent physical harm to any living being. This includes topics like conversion therapy, unhealthy diets, and dangerous medical procedures. Information that could result in imminent physical harm to property or other living beings may also be removed.
We know some folks who are free speech absolutists may disagree with this stance, but we need to look out for both the individuals who use this site and for the site itself.
By-laws Addition
We've also added a new by-laws section as well as a result of this incident. This new section is to better codify the course of action that should be taken by site and community moderators when resolving conflict on the site, and also how to deal with dormant communities.
This new section provides also provides a course of action for resolving conflict with site admin staff, should it arise. We want both the users and moderators here to feel like they have a voice that is heard, and essentially a contact point that they can feel safe going to, to “talk to the manager” type situation, more or less a new Lemmy.World HR department that we've created as a result of what has happened over the last week.
Please feel free to raise any questions in this thread. We encourage everyone to please take the time to read over these new additions detailing YOUR rights and how we hope to better protect everyone here.
https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/#80-misinformation
https://legal.lemmy.world/bylaws/
Sincerely,
FHF / LemmyWorld Operations Team
EDIT:
We will be releasing a separate post regarding the moderation incident in the next 24-48 hours, just getting final approval from the team.
EDIT 2 (2024-08-31):
We've posted a response, sorry for the delay.
Don't feel there are many people who actually use the phrase "free speech absolutist" these days, as a forward self-identification, who have much personal integrity or actual understanding of what that phrase might mean.
It means they want the right to spew misinformation knowingly or otherwise and not get in trouble for it.
I'm of the opinion that people attempting 'legitimate' claims on unsourced dangerous posts should be stamped out with impunity regardless of a forum being more free speech.
It's one thing to say you believe this despite insufficient evidence. It's another thing to willingly present near universally incorrect information as truth just because one study might call it into question.
We learned a near decade ago now that deplatforming hate speech, dangerous rhetoric, and misinformation stops it in it's tracks.
If you want to share your bullshit with other people you know in your heart of hearts is wrong, go to Signal lol.
No disrespect to Signal. They have a place as a secure messaging that's mostly by invite only for those groups. Not publicly viewable forums.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07524-8
https://www.npr.org/2021/01/25/960466075/is-deplatforming-enough-to-fight-disinformation-and-extremism
The FBI and governments don't try to shut down these places for no reason lol.
I agree, and also of the opinion that a significant portion of people who yell the loudest about “freedom of speech” are only doing so because they want to force others to listen to what is essentially bullshit, and any attempts to call them out is somehow impinging on a non-existent right to free speech. And I do hope it’s understood that there is no right to free speech other than pertaining to the government; mods and site operators are free to edit, block, delete or silence as they see fit no matter what we think. However, I do agree there is some form of social contract to at least enforce a perceived right to free speech in society.
Personally, I have become intolerant of intolerance - especially of the kind that believes it has the right to spew what is objectively bullshit.
that makes sense, given the pardox of tolerant societies exists.
You have to be intolerant of some level of intolerance otherwise your society is no longer tolerant, it's that simple.
Uh ... source? Really not sure what world you're living in, but I'm living in one with covid conspiracy theories.
Are you really fucking asking for sauce when there's two literally already in the comment and somehow got two other people to agree with you lol?
Yea neither of those says anything got anywhere near stopped in its tracks. Slowing the spread on the one platform where accounts were removed is not terribly impressive. lol?
I'm a free speech absolutist, but only for "Free as in free beer", and "speech as in Oscar acceptance speech". Don't let people charge to hear what they have to say, and start loudly playing music over them if they go on too long
free speech absolutism is the same as any other absolutism, it's silly and likely not going to work very well.
Free speech absolutists just think that being an asshole harassing people and lying is socially acceptable if they so desired.
What value it may have had as an identifier was destroyed by Musk IMO.