Re: Testing Discourse for Debian - Moderation concepts

[Andy Smith <andy@strugglers.net>]

Hello,

On Mon, Apr 13, 2020 at 10:33:25PM +0200, Mathias Behrle wrote:
> * Neil McGovern: " Re: Testing Discourse for Debian - Moderation concepts"
>   (Mon, 13 Apr 2020 19:56:28 +0100):
> > I just want to state, I won't debate any issues around freedom of
> > speech. I believe that these do not apply in this context
> 
> I think, freedom of speech *can be* an issue when you hand over moderation to
> a system and random people that are not explicitely delegated to do those tasks.
> 
> > - especially with Debian being a private entity.
> 
> I tried hard to understand this part of hte sentence, but failed. Could you
> please elaborate?

Not to speak for Neil, but it's generally argued that private
entities cannot censor, because a nation/state can tell you that you
cannot express an opinion using your own resources. By contrast a
private entity like Debian can only tell you that you cannot express
that opinion using *Debian's* resources: Debian can't prevent you
from publishing it independently, So Debian can't, under this line
of argument, censor you. And if you look back at some of the most
vocal critics of Debian recently, they certainly have not been
wanting for ways to express their opinions.

But on the other hand a lot of people have a much looser definition
of censorship which includes "I wanted to say X on site Y, but site
Y's admins said I couldn't."

Cheers,
Andy