Vivaldi: Violating CoC on forum may close your email account(vivaldi.com)
vivaldi.com
Vivaldi: Violating CoC on forum may close your email account
https://vivaldi.com/privacy/code-of-conduct/
216 comments
Exactly. Take them off the forums after, say, 3 warnings. But leave their access to the service up.
A support forum for a commercial product is not a "community".
I disagree. If users can comment/contribute, and it's not just a private direct line to support, then people will start to hang out and talk and learn about each other, and that's a community, no matter the subject.
#offtopic channels attached to otherwise strictly topic-oriented chat servers can build up quite a community.
I suspect that a Vivaldi email account is for conducting Vivaldi business. IE, it's assumed that you have a separate email account for personal business.
The same could be said about a work email account. You shouldn't mix work and personal business.
The same could be said about a work email account. You shouldn't mix work and personal business.
What do you mean "vivaldi business"? It's a free, publicly available web browser, isn't it?
Vivaldi Mail is a webmail service - it's typically marketed through the Mail feature of the Vivaldi browser https://vivaldi.com/features/mail/
It's not anything explicitly business-related.
It's not anything explicitly business-related.
If your e-mail provider openly states that they will ban you if you say something they don't like, nobody should use that e-mail provider. The risk is far too great.
If your email provider doesn't ban you for sending spam, phishing emails, etc, then you better switch providers. Otherwise the service will attract spammers and criminals, and your outgoing emails will end up in spam folders.
Vivaldi's code of conduct tells you not to use ALL CAPS. This is a world of difference away from sending spam, which is already prohibited by US federal law*. The two aren't remotely comparable, nor is banning for sending spam remotely close to banning for violating a CoC.
They also say "We will warn you for most first-time misconduct", which is presumably what would happen if you type in ALL CAPS. They have a list of offenses which may result in instant bans: "Spam, scams, harassment, pornography, copyright-infringing material, self-promotion, and/or any other language that is offensive or in violation of local or international laws".
I agree that many of those items (harassment, copyright-infringing material, self-promotion, offensive language) are vague and could be abused by Vivaldi if they were out to get you for whatever reason. So it comes down to whether or not you trust Vivaldi to enforce their policy reasonably and fairly. If you don't, then you shouldn't use them.
At the end of the day, any service provider needs to have some discretion on these things, because the line between malicious and legitimate usage can be too blurry to express as a precisely defined policy.
I agree that many of those items (harassment, copyright-infringing material, self-promotion, offensive language) are vague and could be abused by Vivaldi if they were out to get you for whatever reason. So it comes down to whether or not you trust Vivaldi to enforce their policy reasonably and fairly. If you don't, then you shouldn't use them.
At the end of the day, any service provider needs to have some discretion on these things, because the line between malicious and legitimate usage can be too blurry to express as a precisely defined policy.
>and/or any other language that is offensive
That's crazily vague
That's crazily vague
"Pornography" is pretty vague, too. Even the U.S. Supreme Court has had difficulty coming up with a coherent definition for that.
Edit: to me (and I suspect most of us) pictures of women breastfeeding infants are not "pornography", but you still hear about such images being banned all the time.
Edit: to me (and I suspect most of us) pictures of women breastfeeding infants are not "pornography", but you still hear about such images being banned all the time.
SCOTUS's current definition of pornography is a three-prong test:
1. whether the average person, applying contemporary "community standards," would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest;
2. whether the work depicts or describes, in an offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions, as specifically defined by applicable state law; and
3. whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
1. whether the average person, applying contemporary "community standards," would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest;
2. whether the work depicts or describes, in an offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions, as specifically defined by applicable state law; and
3. whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
...so well defined that famous art posted by museums now gets blocked by over-eager bots and moderators...
> any service provider needs to have some discretion on these things
Of course, but that's not the issue under discussion.
The issue under discussion is the combination between (a) how vague these things are (b) the extremely wide range of badness (don't tell me that "self-promotion" falls into the same category as "spam/scams") and (c) the fact that your email account can be locked if you violate these rules on the forum.
It's one thing to claim that you're closing someone's forum account because they were harassing someone on it, and another to close their email account. That's not protecting your forum, that's trying to give yourself the ability to legally retaliate against someone for anything that they did that you don't like.
Of course, but that's not the issue under discussion.
The issue under discussion is the combination between (a) how vague these things are (b) the extremely wide range of badness (don't tell me that "self-promotion" falls into the same category as "spam/scams") and (c) the fact that your email account can be locked if you violate these rules on the forum.
It's one thing to claim that you're closing someone's forum account because they were harassing someone on it, and another to close their email account. That's not protecting your forum, that's trying to give yourself the ability to legally retaliate against someone for anything that they did that you don't like.
> don't tell me that "self-promotion" falls into the same category as "spam/scams"
The issue with humans, is that whatever policy you come up with, there's going to be someone who reads the policy and skirts just around the edges. For example, they could say "no unsolicited marketing" and "no impersonation", which seems like a reasonable enough policy. But then you can imagine a user who habitually responds to support question on the forum with: "Great question, I can figure that out for you, email me at [email protected] for a quote." It's not unsolicited per se, and not impersonation per se, but I can see why Vivaldi would want the discretion to ban this hypothetical user and disable his email address.
The issue with humans, is that whatever policy you come up with, there's going to be someone who reads the policy and skirts just around the edges. For example, they could say "no unsolicited marketing" and "no impersonation", which seems like a reasonable enough policy. But then you can imagine a user who habitually responds to support question on the forum with: "Great question, I can figure that out for you, email me at [email protected] for a quote." It's not unsolicited per se, and not impersonation per se, but I can see why Vivaldi would want the discretion to ban this hypothetical user and disable his email address.
They can warn people once or twice, but banning people for ALL CAPS will still remain wrong. You cant justify bad rules by saying there is a warning system.
and we all know how clear copyright infringement is
They also have
"Don’t use sarcasm and jokes that can be misinterpreted."
in their CoC. This makes perfect sense of course, we wouldn't want to get mixed up with the dreaded sarcasm-users.
"Don’t use sarcasm and jokes that can be misinterpreted."
in their CoC. This makes perfect sense of course, we wouldn't want to get mixed up with the dreaded sarcasm-users.
A soft ban which blocks you from sending emails, but lets you receive them can prevent that kind of abuse (but not all other abuse). When I worry about losing an email account, I primarily care about receiving emails, because accounts on other websites rely on that to verify my identity.
Why is Vivaldi operating an email service to begin with? I do understand that Opera had an email client, but here the fields seem just too far apart to make sense.
I think Opera also had a mail and blog service, and a quite lively community. They are trying to replicate it, I assume.
Is there something particularly pernicious about simultaneously providing an email service and publishing a web browser?
Google Chrome + Gmail? With hindsight maybe yes, but generally not. I'm surprised to learn that Vivaldi offers an email service. What for?
I've been using Vivaldi for years for best-viewed-on-chrome websites and I didn't know they had their own email server. Maybe I knew they have an email client but I'm using Thunderbird and I'm not switching.
I've been using Vivaldi for years for best-viewed-on-chrome websites and I didn't know they had their own email server. Maybe I knew they have an email client but I'm using Thunderbird and I'm not switching.
One of the big problems with Facebook, twitter, ticktok, reddit and snapchat is that its well known that they are loose in enforcing their own code of conduct.
This means that most people can be utter shits to each other and not have any repercussions.
In humans terms, they are the people that have loud house parties, and lets some people shit on the rugs. Regardless of the quality of the furnishings, the equality of the bill setup, the subtle neo-georgian architecture is all for nothing, because it's known as "the shit house."
Freedom of speech is important. But as a company when most of your reputation is defined by your users, hosting a forum which turns out you be a cesspool directly damages you.
This means that most people can be utter shits to each other and not have any repercussions.
In humans terms, they are the people that have loud house parties, and lets some people shit on the rugs. Regardless of the quality of the furnishings, the equality of the bill setup, the subtle neo-georgian architecture is all for nothing, because it's known as "the shit house."
Freedom of speech is important. But as a company when most of your reputation is defined by your users, hosting a forum which turns out you be a cesspool directly damages you.
The problem is when you have companies that bundle multiple services under an account and ban them wholesale.
Like, if I screw around on Reddit enough to get banned, I lose my Reddit account.
If I screw around on YouTube enough to get banned, I lose my YouTube account, my email account, my domain name, my cloud stored files, my music, and my cellphone apps.
Like, if I screw around on Reddit enough to get banned, I lose my Reddit account.
If I screw around on YouTube enough to get banned, I lose my YouTube account, my email account, my domain name, my cloud stored files, my music, and my cellphone apps.
I didn’t screw around on YouTube but I did get banned from YouTube for some odd reason last month.
The rest of my google account is still working.
You’re right though. I had this HUGE sinking feeling for the initial moments when realizing what had happened. Regretting not having moved my Gmail away yet and so on.
This is still a huge risk. Maybe if whatever YouTube trip I ran over was more severe, my entire Google account would have been banned.
The rest of my google account is still working.
You’re right though. I had this HUGE sinking feeling for the initial moments when realizing what had happened. Regretting not having moved my Gmail away yet and so on.
This is still a huge risk. Maybe if whatever YouTube trip I ran over was more severe, my entire Google account would have been banned.
And now remember that a substantial amount of us had accounts on both services before they merged. I'd like to see them slapped hard for this in the future. Was I supposed to read multiple dictionaries worth of legalese to understand that they now unilaterally have the right to ban my (now not so important) google account if I call someone a troll on youtube?
That is both deeply concerning and somewhat reassuring at the same time. Best of luck with recovering your YouTube account.
I think the problem is more that we lack laws and rulings for a fair treatment of users. A wholesome ban for a trivial reason should simply not be allowed, considering the importance of most services today. Something like an industry standard how to handle this, with proper escalation-phases should be the norm, instead of just nuking everything as it is now.
You flamed someone on YouTube? Ok, now you have lost the ability to chat on YouTube, instead of losing the whole account with all your videos, the gmail-account and all your android-apps you paid for.
You flamed someone on YouTube? Ok, now you have lost the ability to chat on YouTube, instead of losing the whole account with all your videos, the gmail-account and all your android-apps you paid for.
Maybe sue for damages but the problem is the difference in size between any of those commpanies and any of us.
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Sounds like you should diversify.
Your username is Kaiser. That could be a bannable offense.
Now what if hackernews gets bundled with Gmail and that ultimately tied to your name and they just ban you from using a whole range of Extremely important services?
If this sounds far-fetched you're probably exhibiting the near sighted "if I have nothing to hide I have nothing to fear" fallacious thinking (or coping mechanism).
Now what if hackernews gets bundled with Gmail and that ultimately tied to your name and they just ban you from using a whole range of Extremely important services?
If this sounds far-fetched you're probably exhibiting the near sighted "if I have nothing to hide I have nothing to fear" fallacious thinking (or coping mechanism).
I think you are conflating enforcing rules with arbitrary rules.
given that there are literally streets with it on[1] I doubt its a bannable offense. plus, you'd expect that to be filtered out at the very start. Plus if they adhere to their escalations then it wouldn't result in a ban.
Hopping onto your wider point, Facebook et al are cesspools because they _don't_ enforce the rules well enough. if you look at Facebook's code of conduct, its actually really good. Readable, simple & comprehensive. (go read it, i promise you its good.)
the problem is, its not being enforced evenly. Us mortals only get automoderated. Popular posts (5m+ views, I imagine) will get the overworked human treatment. Politicians will be given free reign, because of reasons that are not immediately obvious.
> If this sounds far-fetched you're probably exhibiting the near sighted "if I have nothing to hide I have nothing to fear" fallacious thinking (or coping mechanism).
I have lots to hide, and a boat load more to fear. Again you are mixing in issues here that should be separate. Yes, I as a singular citizen should be able to hold any opinion I wish. I should be allowed to speak about it. Should that be free from consequences? In all but clearly laid out cases, yes. Should I be able to force that opinion or content onto someone else? no.
In the US, you are more or less allowed to say what you like, but I, crucially don't have to agree, or indeed agree to broadcast your opinion(whether you like it or not, a forum is a broadcast by a third party).
I am crucially aware that _true_ freedom of speech has never existed. I do not like that single corporations are given such power to censor things at will without oversight, but that's just newspapers and TV. That's before we get onto "fighting words" and the like.
I want people to be able to say most things all of the time. The issue we have with online/text discourse is that its really simple to bully people without consequences. Society does not work if there are no consequences for actions that cause harm and injury.
Do I want to curtail freedom of speech? no. do I want china style censorship? no. Do I want a multiplicity of services to cater to the wide range of thought and speech? yes. Should everyone be forced to carry all opinions regardless of impact or outcome? no.
[1]https://goo.gl/maps/k2wVzDEBt4FUMY5b6
given that there are literally streets with it on[1] I doubt its a bannable offense. plus, you'd expect that to be filtered out at the very start. Plus if they adhere to their escalations then it wouldn't result in a ban.
Hopping onto your wider point, Facebook et al are cesspools because they _don't_ enforce the rules well enough. if you look at Facebook's code of conduct, its actually really good. Readable, simple & comprehensive. (go read it, i promise you its good.)
the problem is, its not being enforced evenly. Us mortals only get automoderated. Popular posts (5m+ views, I imagine) will get the overworked human treatment. Politicians will be given free reign, because of reasons that are not immediately obvious.
> If this sounds far-fetched you're probably exhibiting the near sighted "if I have nothing to hide I have nothing to fear" fallacious thinking (or coping mechanism).
I have lots to hide, and a boat load more to fear. Again you are mixing in issues here that should be separate. Yes, I as a singular citizen should be able to hold any opinion I wish. I should be allowed to speak about it. Should that be free from consequences? In all but clearly laid out cases, yes. Should I be able to force that opinion or content onto someone else? no.
In the US, you are more or less allowed to say what you like, but I, crucially don't have to agree, or indeed agree to broadcast your opinion(whether you like it or not, a forum is a broadcast by a third party).
I am crucially aware that _true_ freedom of speech has never existed. I do not like that single corporations are given such power to censor things at will without oversight, but that's just newspapers and TV. That's before we get onto "fighting words" and the like.
I want people to be able to say most things all of the time. The issue we have with online/text discourse is that its really simple to bully people without consequences. Society does not work if there are no consequences for actions that cause harm and injury.
Do I want to curtail freedom of speech? no. do I want china style censorship? no. Do I want a multiplicity of services to cater to the wide range of thought and speech? yes. Should everyone be forced to carry all opinions regardless of impact or outcome? no.
[1]https://goo.gl/maps/k2wVzDEBt4FUMY5b6
> given that there are literally streets with it on[1] I doubt its a bannable offense. plus, you'd expect that to be filtered out at the very start. Plus if they adhere to their escalations then it wouldn't result in a ban.
Here in Atlanta, Georgia USA they're already changing street names that are deemed offensive [1]. Sometimes these are family names that were made famous by a historical figure tied to a "bad" thing but sometimes it's an English phrase where the implications are bad. I would be wary of general purpose words like Kaiser that make people think of "bad" things as those are also open to scrutiny.
[1] - https://www.npr.org/2018/10/04/648290022/atlantas-mayor-sign...
Here in Atlanta, Georgia USA they're already changing street names that are deemed offensive [1]. Sometimes these are family names that were made famous by a historical figure tied to a "bad" thing but sometimes it's an English phrase where the implications are bad. I would be wary of general purpose words like Kaiser that make people think of "bad" things as those are also open to scrutiny.
[1] - https://www.npr.org/2018/10/04/648290022/atlantas-mayor-sign...
In that article the streets being renamed are "Confederate <Something>". Clearly named after the Confederacy itself and not after people. Though they talk about possibly renaming streets named after people like Robert E. Lee or Nathan Bedford Forrest (founder of the KKK) later.
And an important clarification. To quote you:
> Sometimes these are family names that were made famous by a historical figure tied to a "bad" thing
These aren't streets that happened to share a name with these men, these were streets named for these men. The former (what you imply) is far less defensible (I'd say indefensible in general), but is not what is being discussed in your article. If you have another source where some non-Robert E. Lee named street is being renamed because it has the name "Lee" that would be a better example of what you're talking about.
And an important clarification. To quote you:
> Sometimes these are family names that were made famous by a historical figure tied to a "bad" thing
These aren't streets that happened to share a name with these men, these were streets named for these men. The former (what you imply) is far less defensible (I'd say indefensible in general), but is not what is being discussed in your article. If you have another source where some non-Robert E. Lee named street is being renamed because it has the name "Lee" that would be a better example of what you're talking about.
Of course when the history of a name can be directly attributed to a bad person then it will be attacked but what happens when the history is less clear? Will assumptions be made?
Probably, but people can at least defend it, "This is named after John Lee, the 3rd mayor of the town from 1784. It is not named after Robert E. Lee and we can show you the street on a town map from before Robert E. Lee was even born." But your argument would still be better if you could show an example of that kind of issue, and not a hypothetical about it. Your article did not demonstrate what you are talking about here.
> Your username is Kaiser. That could be a bannable offense.
Why? Kaiser is a royal title and widely used family name from the German sphere of culture. Who could be legitimated offended by this alone?
Why? Kaiser is a royal title and widely used family name from the German sphere of culture. Who could be legitimated offended by this alone?
In some online communities, there are people who can't write which country they are from because the name of their country is offensive from a USA-centric point of view. I don't even know if those names raise flags here on HN, so, I'll just give their capital cities: Podgorica, Niamey, Abuja.
Your name / title / country name could be safe in your own country but seem offensive to someone with an international bias.
Your name / title / country name could be safe in your own country but seem offensive to someone with an international bias.
Good point!
Similarly, there are also countries that are "offensive" from a Chinese point of view.
This journalist cannot even mention the name "Taiwan" and "country" in the same sentence without this WHO guy (from Canada!) treating her like pariah.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlCYFh8U2xM
Similarly, there are also countries that are "offensive" from a Chinese point of view.
This journalist cannot even mention the name "Taiwan" and "country" in the same sentence without this WHO guy (from Canada!) treating her like pariah.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlCYFh8U2xM
Let's be fair here, the issue with Taiwan is a geopolitical one. The same as it is with Israel and Palestine. And with many countries, territories, and borders, that are contested.
This isn't the same as the sheer ignorance it takes to assume that countries Nigeria, Montenegro, and Niger are connected to the US's issues with race and are therefore offensive. A US diplomat isn't going to sanction you for recognising Nigeria as a country. I'm also unaware of what such a person would call these countries instead.
This isn't the same as the sheer ignorance it takes to assume that countries Nigeria, Montenegro, and Niger are connected to the US's issues with race and are therefore offensive. A US diplomat isn't going to sanction you for recognising Nigeria as a country. I'm also unaware of what such a person would call these countries instead.
Its the same type of cancel culture, but this time it's a country being "offended", not a person.
https://qz.com/1911573/virtual-youtubers-suspended-after-cal...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/26/john-cena-very...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphjennings/2018/01/17/corpor...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-31/nasa-is-t...
https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4018580
https://qz.com/1911573/virtual-youtubers-suspended-after-cal...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/26/john-cena-very...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphjennings/2018/01/17/corpor...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-31/nasa-is-t...
https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4018580
No one is offended by the country names Montenegro, Niger, and Nigeria.
There was that Tiktoker who was shocked and offended to learn of Montenegro, but i have no idea if it's real or fake.
No human is offended by those (I hope), but poorly-configured bots are easily triggered and can get an author censored or temporarily banned, or just annoy human moderators with irrelevant automated reports.
I'm in agreement that some vBulletin forums have laughable censorship, but it'd be because of incompetence that those country names would be filtered out, not because there's some kind of fear of saying/using those country names in the US.
Absolutely, I didn't formulate that clearly enough in my comment I guess, because you're not the only one saying this.
I remember ages ago “CmdrTaco” complaining about being banned from using that name, “because it’s a title”: https://slashdot.org/story/61868
Tell that to the people who are accusing everyone of being racist for having a "master" branch in their git repo. No, I'm not being funny.
"Kaiser" is a reference to the German Reich, and references to Nazism are not welcome in this community.
"Blueflow is a reference to toilets flushing on airplanes, and it is not welcome in this community."
I mean, if we're going to make up reasons out of whole cloth, any name is fair game.
I mean, if we're going to make up reasons out of whole cloth, any name is fair game.
A few years back a Russian guy created an Erlang library, and called it `coon`, as short for `raccoon`.
Enraged white Americans had a fit over this because in some (not all!) parts of America this is (or used to be) a racial slur. Many other Americans on the mailing list never even heard it used as a racial slur.
The guy was forced to rename the library.
Do you want to bet that whatever you say, or whatever you call yourself won't be a reason to get you banned? Do you want to tie an email address to the likelihood of this happening?
Enraged white Americans had a fit over this because in some (not all!) parts of America this is (or used to be) a racial slur. Many other Americans on the mailing list never even heard it used as a racial slur.
The guy was forced to rename the library.
Do you want to bet that whatever you say, or whatever you call yourself won't be a reason to get you banned? Do you want to tie an email address to the likelihood of this happening?
I'm guessing that's his point.
I mean the example is a bit contrived ... but his point that "I have nothing to hide" is a fallacy stands.
Another, better example: Normally, where you work is not a secret. It is something that most people would tell strangers if asked about.
Now, say you are testing your "market value" by sending out job applications. Now suddenly you may not want to disclose where you work.
This is actually not a contrived example, a friend of mine was let go because the HR guys handling one of his applications knew somebody from his current company, word got around and his current management deemed the risk of him "stealing work secrets" too high. So they put him on paid leave and he never entered that facility again.
Another, better example: Normally, where you work is not a secret. It is something that most people would tell strangers if asked about.
Now, say you are testing your "market value" by sending out job applications. Now suddenly you may not want to disclose where you work.
This is actually not a contrived example, a friend of mine was let go because the HR guys handling one of his applications knew somebody from his current company, word got around and his current management deemed the risk of him "stealing work secrets" too high. So they put him on paid leave and he never entered that facility again.
[deleted]
Which would be complete BS as nazis were very vocal about being against the royality and abolished them. Yes, of course can you always make up some lies to justify a random act of power. But then the user can prove them wrong, go viral on social media or sue them. And bigger companies are usually not that broken that they just randomly act on such lies.
Such details have never stopped dissidents from being sanctioned. This is how power plays work.
We are talking about online-services, not state terrorism. Companies are limited in their power play.
Hacker News has a fair constant stream of comments about various companies locking people out for no discernible reason with no recourse.
How would this scenario be any different.
How would this scenario be any different.
I live in Germany and "Kaiser" is everywhere. And I mean everywhere. That being said, coming from the US, I can easily see it being associated with the Nazi party by some strong-armed patriotic American moderator type.
Banning users from accessing their email accounts just for bad behavior at a public forum seems like an overkill approach. Email access should remain even if you can't access the forum.
Searching for Kaiser reveals several companies which provide a variety of services (care, raw materials, etc). Also some people call Schumacher the Kaiser of Formula 1 for his achievements. Doesn't sound like a bad username at all.
Searching for Kaiser reveals several companies which provide a variety of services (care, raw materials, etc). Also some people call Schumacher the Kaiser of Formula 1 for his achievements. Doesn't sound like a bad username at all.
Kaiser definitely has at least some negative connotations in at least some English speaking countries.
Talking in all caps or using sarcasm on the forums means they can delete your email account.
Maybe try reading the post and understanding the argument instead of attacking a strawman argument nobody was making.
Maybe try reading the post and understanding the argument instead of attacking a strawman argument nobody was making.
Not sure how I feel with this. On one side, not many people have Vivaldi email accounts, so probably not a big deal at this point. And if you're going to have a code of conduct, at least it's a CoC with teeth.
On the other side, if someone doesn't like what you say on the forum for whatever reason (example reason given: Telling jokes or being sarcastic) and enough people report your posts, you may find yourself losing all access to your emails. That seems potentially disproportionate.
On the other side, if someone doesn't like what you say on the forum for whatever reason (example reason given: Telling jokes or being sarcastic) and enough people report your posts, you may find yourself losing all access to your emails. That seems potentially disproportionate.
> On the other side, if someone doesn't like what you say on the forum for whatever reason (example reason given: Telling jokes or being sarcastic) and enough people report your posts, you may find yourself losing all access to your emails. That seems potentially disproportionate.
To be clear, it's specific to the Vivaldi forum from what I read.
To be clear, it's specific to the Vivaldi forum from what I read.
CoCs seem to expand to people's behavior on their social media accounts even if stated otherwise.
Yep - sorry if I wasn't clear on that, I didn't suppose any other forum was affected by this. But since their forum is one of the best ways to get / give help on the Vivaldi browser, and since I imagine most people who use vivaldi will have at one point at least searched for an issue on their forums (it's excellent software, but there are a few gotchas) it would stand to reason that some people would be more active than others, without realising that their penchant for sarcasm might forfeit them their email account.
It's like people don't get that arbitrary and shifting rules with inconsistent enforcement are by design, so as to make the people subject to them police themselves, which is more effective at managing a community than real rules.
This can even be appropriate with limited scopes like single forums and services or monolithic communities. Until a kid can understand language it's how many children and most livestock are managed. However at scale, it's objectively insane.
Simple and evenly enforced rules provide a lot of freedom, where arbitrary discretion and making examples with disproportionate punishment incentivises submissiveness, and worse, toadyism. For adults the disproportionate policy approach is the definition of an abusive relationship anywhere else in reality. I realize this is just about a browser I had barely heard of, and there's zero danger of me ever becoming a user, but it's a general platform governance and culture question worth articulating as a dynamic for other issues.
This can even be appropriate with limited scopes like single forums and services or monolithic communities. Until a kid can understand language it's how many children and most livestock are managed. However at scale, it's objectively insane.
Simple and evenly enforced rules provide a lot of freedom, where arbitrary discretion and making examples with disproportionate punishment incentivises submissiveness, and worse, toadyism. For adults the disproportionate policy approach is the definition of an abusive relationship anywhere else in reality. I realize this is just about a browser I had barely heard of, and there's zero danger of me ever becoming a user, but it's a general platform governance and culture question worth articulating as a dynamic for other issues.
I fear you have constructed a tectonic collision from a small mammal's soil-based home.
If you are arguing against the phenomenon of CoCs in general, then I agree - they are a blight, rife with overreach and often easily misused to justify prejudice or condemn innocent misunderstandings. While I won't deny the emergent behaviour of self-policing based on fear, I suspect the origins of the CoC are actually less subtle and more an attempt to assign power to marginalised and persecuted groups, without recognition that actually causes a net increase in inequity, that power corrupts and in turn causes more persecution thanks to the bad taste left in people's mouths when being victimised unfairly due to prejudices mislabelling themselves as anti-prejudices.
But that's an aside. Power will always be, inequality will always be, prejudice will always be - and the point of the CoC was never to improve that, merely invert it. It has, in some ways (along with other cultural and corporate shifts) worked beautifully and now has dominance over the Open Source community landscape at least. I don't see us putting that particular genie back in the bottle any time soon.
But we can try to keep the potential harms in check. And raise the alarm when we see potentially dangerous overreaches.
In the current climate of escalating prejudice on both sides of the fence, I'm not sure there's much more we can do.
If you are arguing against the phenomenon of CoCs in general, then I agree - they are a blight, rife with overreach and often easily misused to justify prejudice or condemn innocent misunderstandings. While I won't deny the emergent behaviour of self-policing based on fear, I suspect the origins of the CoC are actually less subtle and more an attempt to assign power to marginalised and persecuted groups, without recognition that actually causes a net increase in inequity, that power corrupts and in turn causes more persecution thanks to the bad taste left in people's mouths when being victimised unfairly due to prejudices mislabelling themselves as anti-prejudices.
But that's an aside. Power will always be, inequality will always be, prejudice will always be - and the point of the CoC was never to improve that, merely invert it. It has, in some ways (along with other cultural and corporate shifts) worked beautifully and now has dominance over the Open Source community landscape at least. I don't see us putting that particular genie back in the bottle any time soon.
But we can try to keep the potential harms in check. And raise the alarm when we see potentially dangerous overreaches.
In the current climate of escalating prejudice on both sides of the fence, I'm not sure there's much more we can do.
> more an attempt to assign power to marginalised and persecuted groups
More likely to self-appointed and loud people claiming to advocate for said groups.
More likely to self-appointed and loud people claiming to advocate for said groups.
I mean, hypothetically, what if self-appointed and loud "advocates", maybe even members of persecuted groups, narcissisticly pushed a project like that, bullied socially inept project leaders struggling against rising prejudice within their communities, into adopting a useless and counterproductive legalism - while playing the victim against any who refused?
Sounds totally implausible, now that I think about it. It's a conspiracy theory, and I'm sure we're better than that. Let's move on.
Sounds totally implausible, now that I think about it. It's a conspiracy theory, and I'm sure we're better than that. Let's move on.
> I fear you have constructed a tectonic collision from a small mammal's soil-based home.
Brilliant! You have done your good deed for the day and made me smile!
Brilliant! You have done your good deed for the day and made me smile!
I was tempted to remove that line after I finished the whole post. Since it made someone happy, I'm very glad I left it in!
Please, never be tempted to remove humour. Too much of HN is humourless already!
> It's like people don't get that arbitrary and shifting rules with inconsistent enforcement are by design, so as to make the people subject to them police themselves, which is more effective at managing a community than real rules.
Or maybe just enforcing community standards is really hard and often you find cases that are obviously wrong and harmful but don't fall under the enumerated list of rules that are broken.
Making rules for punishment is really really hard. How hard? Look at the entire study of law. Arbitrary decisions fill in the gaps.
It is not reasonable to expect a small company running a small community for a free product to offer a professional arbitration equivalent to legal professionals.
Or maybe just enforcing community standards is really hard and often you find cases that are obviously wrong and harmful but don't fall under the enumerated list of rules that are broken.
Making rules for punishment is really really hard. How hard? Look at the entire study of law. Arbitrary decisions fill in the gaps.
It is not reasonable to expect a small company running a small community for a free product to offer a professional arbitration equivalent to legal professionals.
I'd conjecture that all systems necessarily grow from simple rules and die of complex ones. The inflection point where enforcement becomes inconsistent is the inflection point on growth.
The Vivaldi rules are in fact simple, with the exception of what seems like a wrongthink clause that crosses services, which is like a notwithstanding/wish-for-more-wishes rule. The BDFL model of open source worked for this at limited scales, where a person is making a decision and taking responsibility for it. Facebook almost succeeded in doing this well with their public board of censors, but really, once you make it a committee, it launders accountability and becomes arbitrary again.
Regarding the study of law, if you want corruption and inescapable suffering, create complex and inconsistent rules.
Twitter also could have done a good job when Dorsey had a kind of royal assent that legitimized decisions but he seemed to give that up. Agrawal has a brief opportunity to set good precedents as well. The objection I think most people have to censorship is when the censors don't take ownership of the decision, as then it's basically gaslighting.
Rules and punishment are simple, provided they roll up to a person enforcing them. When you move from that, you get a system that is easily gamed, a kind of star chamber, and then most of your effort as a platform owner goes into fighting the tiny minority of people who game the system at the expense of the rest. It's so dumb and obvious that it can only be on purpose.
The Vivaldi rules are in fact simple, with the exception of what seems like a wrongthink clause that crosses services, which is like a notwithstanding/wish-for-more-wishes rule. The BDFL model of open source worked for this at limited scales, where a person is making a decision and taking responsibility for it. Facebook almost succeeded in doing this well with their public board of censors, but really, once you make it a committee, it launders accountability and becomes arbitrary again.
Regarding the study of law, if you want corruption and inescapable suffering, create complex and inconsistent rules.
Twitter also could have done a good job when Dorsey had a kind of royal assent that legitimized decisions but he seemed to give that up. Agrawal has a brief opportunity to set good precedents as well. The objection I think most people have to censorship is when the censors don't take ownership of the decision, as then it's basically gaslighting.
Rules and punishment are simple, provided they roll up to a person enforcing them. When you move from that, you get a system that is easily gamed, a kind of star chamber, and then most of your effort as a platform owner goes into fighting the tiny minority of people who game the system at the expense of the rest. It's so dumb and obvious that it can only be on purpose.
General Advice: Stay away from people who think they can "fix" human behavior with rules and laws, Code of Conducts are no exception to this.
Edit: "Mediation by courts" is the secret ingredient. Without a fair court, law (and by implication, Code of Conducts) are just a methods of fortifying the ruling peoples power.
Edit: "Mediation by courts" is the secret ingredient. Without a fair court, law (and by implication, Code of Conducts) are just a methods of fortifying the ruling peoples power.
I'm responding to the general sentiment, not the Vivaldi case in particular:
This seems an extreme opinion, to think that penalties for criminal acts don't have some type of deterrence effect. And even if deterrence is minimal, a rule or law that simply make repeat offense impossible seems to be a reasonable approach to dealing with things (you can't rob a bank in prison)
This seems an extreme opinion, to think that penalties for criminal acts don't have some type of deterrence effect. And even if deterrence is minimal, a rule or law that simply make repeat offense impossible seems to be a reasonable approach to dealing with things (you can't rob a bank in prison)
"Mediation by courts" is the secret ingredient. Without a fair court, law (and by implication, Code of Conducts) are just a methods of fortifying the ruling peoples power.
It’s the Vivaldi forums, not a public space.
This statement is like if you went to someone’s house, and they decided you were being annoying and told you to leave, and you demanded due process before that.
This statement is like if you went to someone’s house, and they decided you were being annoying and told you to leave, and you demanded due process before that.
You know that courts are often involved in disputes between two private parties? Especially when it comes to the completely one sided termination of a service agreement by one party.
> This statement is like if you went to someone’s house
You mean like renting an apartment
> and you demanded due process before that.
In case they locked you out without ability to get your belongings or mail a court case may be sensible.
> This statement is like if you went to someone’s house
You mean like renting an apartment
> and you demanded due process before that.
In case they locked you out without ability to get your belongings or mail a court case may be sensible.
Renting an apartment? How much are the Vivaldi users paying for these email accounts?
If you were living in an apartment rent-free (with the landlord's permission of course) you would still have the same rights as any other tenant with respect to eviction notices etc.
So I'm not sure to what extent that payment for Vivaldi's email service changes things.
So I'm not sure to what extent that payment for Vivaldi's email service changes things.
Its important to ask "what was just going on", because very often, conflicts are a result of some trivial misunderstanding. Sometimes people are having a bad day, are intoxicated (booze) or lost control due to some external situation.
Given your approach, wouldn't you loose most of your friends this way?
Given your approach, wouldn't you loose most of your friends this way?
Jokes on you I barely have any friends to begin with.
My point is that you don’t have an obligation to maintain a relationship with someone. If they are being consistently annoying (even without breaking some consistent rule obviously!) it’s totally normal to just decide they don’t belong.
And you don’t have to listen to reasons. You don’t have to entertain the explanation if you don’t want to. You can of course! But there are enough sociopaths wanting to play the system that there’s a lot of pain in trying to be super open to certain kinds of behavior
My point is that you don’t have an obligation to maintain a relationship with someone. If they are being consistently annoying (even without breaking some consistent rule obviously!) it’s totally normal to just decide they don’t belong.
And you don’t have to listen to reasons. You don’t have to entertain the explanation if you don’t want to. You can of course! But there are enough sociopaths wanting to play the system that there’s a lot of pain in trying to be super open to certain kinds of behavior
An individual doesn't have an obligation. A government does have an obligation, according to western values.
Large corporations, operating at a scale much closer to that of governments than to that of individuals, have been shoehorning themselves into our allowances for individuals to avoid having any sort of public processes or accountability. As we've seen with the evolution of governments, ultimately this will not stand.
Large corporations, operating at a scale much closer to that of governments than to that of individuals, have been shoehorning themselves into our allowances for individuals to avoid having any sort of public processes or accountability. As we've seen with the evolution of governments, ultimately this will not stand.
Large corporations, operating at a scale much closer to that of governments
Excellent point-- as a company's market penetration (at least in some cases) approaches a significant part of the population, the difference between government (in the sense of a public service) and private company becomes less and less distinguishable for the power held over customers.
Not unlike the situation that occured with Bell Telephone where it became such an essential part of day to day life for most people that the control it had was on par with being a branch of the US government itself. It was a shame about Bell Labs though. They still did some good work after the breakup but that whole organization just seemed to fade away from its former glory. Though maybe they'll eventually flourish again under Nokia.
Excellent point-- as a company's market penetration (at least in some cases) approaches a significant part of the population, the difference between government (in the sense of a public service) and private company becomes less and less distinguishable for the power held over customers.
Not unlike the situation that occured with Bell Telephone where it became such an essential part of day to day life for most people that the control it had was on par with being a branch of the US government itself. It was a shame about Bell Labs though. They still did some good work after the breakup but that whole organization just seemed to fade away from its former glory. Though maybe they'll eventually flourish again under Nokia.
Sure; legally you probably can. And if you operate like that, I don't want to do business with you or touch your services.
Public vs Private is not relevant here: A persons house is their personal space. Vivaldi forums is a corporate space.
You need permission to run a business, and the state will dictate how you run it. The same is not so applicable to a personal household. No one will shut down your house for making poor food, or discriminating against guests.
You need permission to run a business, and the state will dictate how you run it. The same is not so applicable to a personal household. No one will shut down your house for making poor food, or discriminating against guests.
That ejection (for anything other than outright illegal content) makes the moderators “publishers” responsible for what does not get culled. Can’t offer the space as “public”, eject people for opinions, then claim “public space” protections when actual criminal content is found on site.
This is an interpretation that is not so black & white in reality and probably depends on jurisdiction to a great extent. In the US, the courts disagree with you. Your statement resembles how things worked prior to the CDA in 1996.
Now, even moderated outlets have safe harbor protections under the DMCA and similar protections under Section 230 and Section 509 of the CDA which determined that internet services were not (automatically) publishers. Courts have held that outlets are in the clear if they make a reasonable effort to identify illegal content and also take action when something is brought to their attention.
Now, even moderated outlets have safe harbor protections under the DMCA and similar protections under Section 230 and Section 509 of the CDA which determined that internet services were not (automatically) publishers. Courts have held that outlets are in the clear if they make a reasonable effort to identify illegal content and also take action when something is brought to their attention.
The safe harbor protections address clearly objectionable/illegal behavior, not objective facts and normal opinions. Stating standard political talking points, quoting pleasant poetry, and showing exonerating video of newsworthy events does not remotely resemble actionable “illegal content” (yes, I’m referring to many instances that innocent/reasonable, canceled for diverging from a sociopolitical narrative).
But it is public! At least in the sense of accessibility. It may not be owned by the government, but it's offered to the world at large. I feel like it's more of a train station than a private house.
> But it is public!
It's private. It's more like a nightclub, bar, or whatever. You have rules to enter and stay. Thousands go there (you may say it's "public"?) but it's private.
Are you wearing the wrong shoes? If so, you may not enter.
Do you belong to the wrong social class? You may not enter.
Do you like starting fights? If so, you'll be shown the door.
You don't like those rules... The solution? Don't go to those bars or forums.
It's private. It's more like a nightclub, bar, or whatever. You have rules to enter and stay. Thousands go there (you may say it's "public"?) but it's private.
Are you wearing the wrong shoes? If so, you may not enter.
Do you belong to the wrong social class? You may not enter.
Do you like starting fights? If so, you'll be shown the door.
You don't like those rules... The solution? Don't go to those bars or forums.
Mate, I think we all know that there's more than one meaning to the term "public" (resp. "private"). What I wanted to emphasise is that there's a meaningful sense in which an internet forum which can be viewed and interacted with by anybody (by default) can be described as "public". Hence I argue that it would be beneficial for society that it be treated as something more than just the absolute domain of the operator of that website.
Reasonable people will certainly differ on this, but we're not arguing semantics, or about violating the sanctity of someone's control over their personal sphere.
Reasonable people will certainly differ on this, but we're not arguing semantics, or about violating the sanctity of someone's control over their personal sphere.
can be viewed and interacted with by anybody
How is this different than a large store like a supermarket where you buy food? The only difference I see is one of geographical barriers, and I don't see how that should fundamentally change the dynamics of how to appropriately deal with inappropriate or disruptive behavior.
How is this different than a large store like a supermarket where you buy food? The only difference I see is one of geographical barriers, and I don't see how that should fundamentally change the dynamics of how to appropriately deal with inappropriate or disruptive behavior.
> Do you belong to the wrong social class? You may not enter.
Which, much like many "ladies nights" is illegal. Why pick the worst type of establishment as a model for this behaviour?
Which, much like many "ladies nights" is illegal. Why pick the worst type of establishment as a model for this behaviour?
Why do you think public vs private spaces should get different treatment here?
Is the government a special, extraordinary group of people?
Is the government a special, extraordinary group of people?
>Is the government a special, extraordinary group of people?
The people that work there? No. As an organization? Absolutely: In any democracy it is essentially an organization that is owned by everyone. It cannot (well, should not) make laws that are exclusionary to anyone because everyone owns a piece of it, and everyone contributes in some small way to making the rules.
With private property/companies the group of owners is much smaller, but once again they make the rules. If owners of private property don't get to make their own rules (within the constraints of the law) then it's really now private property.
If I owned a large building and turned it into a conference center and invited people to come discuss things then it seems obvious that I should have the right to decide to kick someone out if they are making trouble, turning meetings into shouting matches, and generally making it harder for my building to fill the purpose I want it to fill.
This seems to map pretty cleanly onto internet forums owned, operated, and paid for by a private group. They're paying for things, they have their own goals for doing so, and people that disrupt those goals have no right to make the owners waste their resources on something being ruined by disruptions under the odd claim that anyone from the public has the privilege of doing whatever they want there.
Preventing a private organization from removing disruptions to its purpose is inimicable to the idea of private property itself.
The people that work there? No. As an organization? Absolutely: In any democracy it is essentially an organization that is owned by everyone. It cannot (well, should not) make laws that are exclusionary to anyone because everyone owns a piece of it, and everyone contributes in some small way to making the rules.
With private property/companies the group of owners is much smaller, but once again they make the rules. If owners of private property don't get to make their own rules (within the constraints of the law) then it's really now private property.
If I owned a large building and turned it into a conference center and invited people to come discuss things then it seems obvious that I should have the right to decide to kick someone out if they are making trouble, turning meetings into shouting matches, and generally making it harder for my building to fill the purpose I want it to fill.
This seems to map pretty cleanly onto internet forums owned, operated, and paid for by a private group. They're paying for things, they have their own goals for doing so, and people that disrupt those goals have no right to make the owners waste their resources on something being ruined by disruptions under the odd claim that anyone from the public has the privilege of doing whatever they want there.
Preventing a private organization from removing disruptions to its purpose is inimicable to the idea of private property itself.
If you do feel unjustly treated, no rule stops you from referring your complaint as a civil case before a public court of law as a private citizen.
That's exactly what has been happening over the past decades:
https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/27/21272066/social-media-bia...
That's exactly what has been happening over the past decades:
https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/27/21272066/social-media-bia...
Don't many services require you to waive your rights to sue, instead directing disputed to private mediation?
Waiving your rights to sue often comes down to an defining an exemption from liability. It means that you can start a civil lawsuit, but that the court will find the exemption enforcable.
Typically, you'll find such waivers on playgrounds, theme parks, public venues and such where the venue can be exempt from liability in case of injury through negligence. Just because you signed a waiver doesn't mean you don't have a case. The court might find that the waiver is trumped by violations in public policy, or it ends up being entered with the intention of effecting an illegal or amoral agreement.
In the U.S., such waivers aren't necessary since digital services are well protected by Section 230 providing immunity from liability for providers of an "interactive computer service" who publishes information provided by a third party. The majority of the cases in that Verge article was lost by the plaintiffs over Section 230.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230
A typical argument used by opponents of these services is "freedom of speech" and "censorship". Legally speaking, these only apply in the relationship between the state and members of the public. It means being prosecuted and getting convicted for something you said. A landmark case here is "New York Times Co. v. United States" in which SCOTUS allowed newspapers to publish the then-classified pentagon papers under First Amendment right without censorship or punishment by the government.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._United_S...
These do NOT apply when it comes to civil lawsuits between private citizens and private legal entities. When you get banned from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Vivaldi's e-mail service, none of your constitutional rights where violated. You weren't thrown in prison or convicted by a judge. All that happened was a private service cutting you off. It's the exact equivalent of a host of a private party having security escort you to the exit. Property laws and constitutional laws give the host legal backing to do exactly that. Banning people from digital services is merely an extension here.
Lawmakers in Florida and Texas, though, are currently trying passed laws which would which makes banning people from digital services "based on their viewpoints" illegal. The idea is to undermine the fundamental laws and rights you have.
https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/9/22661626/texas-social-medi...
In Florida, that law has already been blocked by a judge pointing out inherent inequalities through exemptions, and the fact that it directly challenges federal law - Section 230 - as well as the First Amendment.
https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/9/22661626/texas-social-medi...
Complex as all of this may sound, it's really simple though. You are a private individual engaging in the market place between competing e-mail providers. You are not forced by a governement or the state to use a particular service. If you disagree with the terms of service from a particular provider: don't use that provider. You are even entirely free to start your own e-mail service if you wish to do so.
That's what you have. So, what's the problem then?
Well, what about markets where consolidation has led to a monopoly of a handful of players? What about social media markets where you're compelled to use Facebook or Twitter because your entire social network exclusively communicates through the infrastructure of these private entities? Getting banned from those has a severe impact on a private citizens life, right?
Here things become hairy. There's a difference between your legal freedoms and rights you have, and the de facto affordances provided by the marketplace or the commons to actually enforce them as a private citizen e.g. consumer choice, fair pricing, etc. It's very hard to prove that the existence of a monopoly is violating your legal or constitutional rights as a private individual. (Again, all of this pertains to the relationship between private persons and private legal entities. Not a public government!)
Private monopolies tend to thrive where there are gaps in a legal framework which ensures that private citizens don't end up at a disadvantage in the marketplace. That's where the legislative branch of government ought to come in to assert that the marketplace isn't behaving in a way which benefits the citizen represented by that government, and take affirmative action through new legislation.
That's why Big Tech was brought before several Congressional hearings earlier this year.
Personally, I feel that the freedom to ban people from a community is a fundamental necessity to keep that community healthy. On a basic human level, there's no point in having people who can't go through the same door confront each other over and over again.
However, I do feel there's a major public issue when a ban ends up in de facto ostracizing of members of the public because the entirety of society - millions of people - have become secluded in digital walled gardens. Even though I fundamentally disagree with the views others may harbor, this level of centralization, well, that's not the kind of Internet I'm okay with.
Typically, you'll find such waivers on playgrounds, theme parks, public venues and such where the venue can be exempt from liability in case of injury through negligence. Just because you signed a waiver doesn't mean you don't have a case. The court might find that the waiver is trumped by violations in public policy, or it ends up being entered with the intention of effecting an illegal or amoral agreement.
In the U.S., such waivers aren't necessary since digital services are well protected by Section 230 providing immunity from liability for providers of an "interactive computer service" who publishes information provided by a third party. The majority of the cases in that Verge article was lost by the plaintiffs over Section 230.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230
A typical argument used by opponents of these services is "freedom of speech" and "censorship". Legally speaking, these only apply in the relationship between the state and members of the public. It means being prosecuted and getting convicted for something you said. A landmark case here is "New York Times Co. v. United States" in which SCOTUS allowed newspapers to publish the then-classified pentagon papers under First Amendment right without censorship or punishment by the government.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._United_S...
These do NOT apply when it comes to civil lawsuits between private citizens and private legal entities. When you get banned from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Vivaldi's e-mail service, none of your constitutional rights where violated. You weren't thrown in prison or convicted by a judge. All that happened was a private service cutting you off. It's the exact equivalent of a host of a private party having security escort you to the exit. Property laws and constitutional laws give the host legal backing to do exactly that. Banning people from digital services is merely an extension here.
Lawmakers in Florida and Texas, though, are currently trying passed laws which would which makes banning people from digital services "based on their viewpoints" illegal. The idea is to undermine the fundamental laws and rights you have.
https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/9/22661626/texas-social-medi...
In Florida, that law has already been blocked by a judge pointing out inherent inequalities through exemptions, and the fact that it directly challenges federal law - Section 230 - as well as the First Amendment.
https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/9/22661626/texas-social-medi...
Complex as all of this may sound, it's really simple though. You are a private individual engaging in the market place between competing e-mail providers. You are not forced by a governement or the state to use a particular service. If you disagree with the terms of service from a particular provider: don't use that provider. You are even entirely free to start your own e-mail service if you wish to do so.
That's what you have. So, what's the problem then?
Well, what about markets where consolidation has led to a monopoly of a handful of players? What about social media markets where you're compelled to use Facebook or Twitter because your entire social network exclusively communicates through the infrastructure of these private entities? Getting banned from those has a severe impact on a private citizens life, right?
Here things become hairy. There's a difference between your legal freedoms and rights you have, and the de facto affordances provided by the marketplace or the commons to actually enforce them as a private citizen e.g. consumer choice, fair pricing, etc. It's very hard to prove that the existence of a monopoly is violating your legal or constitutional rights as a private individual. (Again, all of this pertains to the relationship between private persons and private legal entities. Not a public government!)
Private monopolies tend to thrive where there are gaps in a legal framework which ensures that private citizens don't end up at a disadvantage in the marketplace. That's where the legislative branch of government ought to come in to assert that the marketplace isn't behaving in a way which benefits the citizen represented by that government, and take affirmative action through new legislation.
That's why Big Tech was brought before several Congressional hearings earlier this year.
Personally, I feel that the freedom to ban people from a community is a fundamental necessity to keep that community healthy. On a basic human level, there's no point in having people who can't go through the same door confront each other over and over again.
However, I do feel there's a major public issue when a ban ends up in de facto ostracizing of members of the public because the entirety of society - millions of people - have become secluded in digital walled gardens. Even though I fundamentally disagree with the views others may harbor, this level of centralization, well, that's not the kind of Internet I'm okay with.
It sounds like you are saying there should be no rules or laws. And that at least part of the reason for that opinions is that they cannot be perfectly applied and enforced.
Is this an accurate restatement?
Is this an accurate restatement?
Problem is these CoC enforcers are increasingly conflating criminal behavior with differing opinions, banning access to multiple popular forums/tech, just for expressing views considered reasonable by substantial fractions of polite society.
I was once going to give a talk on learning a specific programming language and framework at an event. My sample app was a "calorie counter / dieting app".
I was told at the last minute I needed to redo my example because it violates the code of conduct about discriminating against "people of size" and may be upsetting to people with "eating disorders"
I didn't even respond. I just stopped responding to their requests and didn't show up.
Codes of Conduct are used as blunt instruments now, and aren't useful.
I was told at the last minute I needed to redo my example because it violates the code of conduct about discriminating against "people of size" and may be upsetting to people with "eating disorders"
I didn't even respond. I just stopped responding to their requests and didn't show up.
Codes of Conduct are used as blunt instruments now, and aren't useful.
You could have just shown up with a kilo-joule counter.
You aren't woke enough, thats a problem.
What if instead of fixing people you just kick them out of your community? I think this is the point of CoCs.
Obviously doing this has pros and cons.
Obviously doing this has pros and cons.
The point of CoCs is to have a ruling class, often parasitical, that enforces double standards. Occasionally they try to kick out someone to cement their power. If you want to see how vicious they are, here is an account:
https://www.fast.ai/2020/10/28/code-of-conduct/
Do realize that most victims do not dare to go public but accept the humiliation.
https://www.fast.ai/2020/10/28/code-of-conduct/
Do realize that most victims do not dare to go public but accept the humiliation.
> Code of Conducts can be a useful tool, when thoughtfully created and thoughtfully enforced, to address sexism, racism, and harassment, all of which have been problems at tech conferences.
This guy is a part of the problem.
This guy is a part of the problem.
[deleted]
CoC are what you make of them. Just like you can use bitcoin for good and for evil, so you can do with CoC.
8kun demonstrates the endgame of libertarian theories about social media. Conspiracy theories, racism, and calls to violence run rampant, ultimately leading to a dangerous political cult and violent attacks.
Yeah, we tried unregulated free speech on social media. Didn't work.
Yeah, we tried unregulated free speech on social media. Didn't work.
8kun only exists in that form because of the arbitrary enforcement of "Community Guidelines" elsewhere. 8kun isn't an example of 'unregulated free speech' not working; it's an example of the externalities of trying to regulate free speech on social media.
Trying to 'fact check' your uncle who thinks the 2020 election was rigged forced him off that platform and onto another without those constraints. In that process, he's being exposed to even worse points of view.
Trying to 'fact check' your uncle who thinks the 2020 election was rigged forced him off that platform and onto another without those constraints. In that process, he's being exposed to even worse points of view.
I mentioned 8kun (and, implicitly, Q) because it's an English language example that should be familiar to the hackernews audience.
Outside of the English-speaking world, the mainstream social media platforms are far less moderated. So we have a place where we can test your theory, it's not hypothetical!
Result: Race-riots in Sri Lanka, anti-refugee violence in Germany, Rohingyan genocide in Myanmar, all fueled by disinformation on Facebook and organized on Facebook.
Uncontrolled social media creates a fact-free environment where the worst conspiracy theories and ethnic hatred spread like wildfire.
Truth matters.
Outside of the English-speaking world, the mainstream social media platforms are far less moderated. So we have a place where we can test your theory, it's not hypothetical!
Result: Race-riots in Sri Lanka, anti-refugee violence in Germany, Rohingyan genocide in Myanmar, all fueled by disinformation on Facebook and organized on Facebook.
Uncontrolled social media creates a fact-free environment where the worst conspiracy theories and ethnic hatred spread like wildfire.
Truth matters.
Don't attribute causation to what just could easily be the null effect. Genocide existed before facebook, and it will exist after facebook.
Saying "truth matters" is just an empty slogan without defining what truth means, and in itself is not a solution to what the real problem is which is the alienation people feel as a result of capitalism.
Saying "truth matters" is just an empty slogan without defining what truth means, and in itself is not a solution to what the real problem is which is the alienation people feel as a result of capitalism.
> alienation people feel as a result of capitalism.
> Don't attribute causation to what just could easily be the null effect.
Alienation existed before capitalism.
Also, "empty slogan" is kind of ironic in the same breath blaming capitalism for all our ills.
> Don't attribute causation to what just could easily be the null effect.
Alienation existed before capitalism.
Also, "empty slogan" is kind of ironic in the same breath blaming capitalism for all our ills.
No, blaming capitalism for alienation is not an empty slogan. This critique comes directly from Marx who accurately described the phenomenon.
Capitalism is the predominant driving force behind alienation when every aspect of their lives becomes commoditizated. Facebook isn't the driving force behind genocides, in spite of what influence Facebook would like advertisers would like them to believe. (If you have a service that can sell genocide and allow people to 'steal elections', imagine what it can do for sugar water!)
Capitalism is the predominant driving force behind alienation when every aspect of their lives becomes commoditizated. Facebook isn't the driving force behind genocides, in spite of what influence Facebook would like advertisers would like them to believe. (If you have a service that can sell genocide and allow people to 'steal elections', imagine what it can do for sugar water!)
Conspiracy theories, racism, and calls to violence happened already long before computers even existed. We have whole wars which were fueled by this.
That's one particular social group that has free speech. It isn't the only one.
Thanks for illustrating the problem: a largely unknown & uninvolved person paints half the population in a viciously negative light, decries normal discourse of diverse views as “unregulated”, and by implication seeks to censor those holding views not shared by the self-appointed “fact checker”.
Careful, you are dangerously close to logic there.
I don't really agree with the statement that they are trying to fix human behaviour. There's nothing wrong with Vivaldi stating "this is my house, these are my rules", they are not the government.
Yeah there is. A world where everything is someone's house and they get to make the rules is not a world of freedom.
Nobody owes you the right to use their megaphone. Demanding that the government enforce your right to use their platform as a vessel for your opinion seems every bit as bad as the government silencing you. Forced speech is no better than forced silence.
>Nobody owes you the right to use their megaphone.
Please, let's not switch metaphors. It's not a megaphone, it's a house.
> Demanding that the government enforce your right
The government is the one who makes the "house" into private property in the first place.
Democracy and freedom of speech doesn't mean anything if there's nowhere to speak. If you don't have an actual power to speak _including_ all material prerequisites of communication, then how are you a citizen? Why should you accept liberal democracy?
Please, let's not switch metaphors. It's not a megaphone, it's a house.
> Demanding that the government enforce your right
The government is the one who makes the "house" into private property in the first place.
Democracy and freedom of speech doesn't mean anything if there's nowhere to speak. If you don't have an actual power to speak _including_ all material prerequisites of communication, then how are you a citizen? Why should you accept liberal democracy?
That analogy falls over because IRL we have public, government-owned property where there is no private owner. The sidewalk in front of your house is only owned by the government, it is nobody's "house".
The internet lacks this because we have no government infrastructure that directly hosts messages. There is no internet equivalent to standing on a street-corner with a sign, using only the tools of communication that you own, in a public space.
If I run an offensive protest inside of a mall, I will be asked to leave and ultimately thrown out. In this sense, Facebook is the digital equivalent to the mall - they own the space.
The difference is that there is no street in front of the mall I could use instead. Even if I set up my own server, I will have to connect it to my privately-owned ISP, install it at a privately-owned datacentre.
That, to me, is the only real difference. The internet has no spaces that aren't somebody's house, unlike meatspace.
But imho, the solution is to create public spaces on the internet, not to demand that private spaces become public ones against their will.
The internet lacks this because we have no government infrastructure that directly hosts messages. There is no internet equivalent to standing on a street-corner with a sign, using only the tools of communication that you own, in a public space.
If I run an offensive protest inside of a mall, I will be asked to leave and ultimately thrown out. In this sense, Facebook is the digital equivalent to the mall - they own the space.
The difference is that there is no street in front of the mall I could use instead. Even if I set up my own server, I will have to connect it to my privately-owned ISP, install it at a privately-owned datacentre.
That, to me, is the only real difference. The internet has no spaces that aren't somebody's house, unlike meatspace.
But imho, the solution is to create public spaces on the internet, not to demand that private spaces become public ones against their will.
What you're referring to is called the "public forum."
In the USA, it's not only government-owned property that is considered a public forum.
E.g. Occupy Wall St was on private property (Zuccotti Park), but they couldn't be evicted for that -- because a park open to the public in that way is a public forum. (They were eventually evicted supposedly for health/sanitation reasons.)
> If I run an offensive protest inside of a mall, I will be asked to leave and ultimately thrown out. In this sense, Facebook is the digital equivalent to the mall - they own the space.
In fact, the public walkways in a privately-owned mall are considered a public forum.
https://www.freedomforuminstitute.org/first-amendment-center...
In the USA, it's not only government-owned property that is considered a public forum.
E.g. Occupy Wall St was on private property (Zuccotti Park), but they couldn't be evicted for that -- because a park open to the public in that way is a public forum. (They were eventually evicted supposedly for health/sanitation reasons.)
> If I run an offensive protest inside of a mall, I will be asked to leave and ultimately thrown out. In this sense, Facebook is the digital equivalent to the mall - they own the space.
In fact, the public walkways in a privately-owned mall are considered a public forum.
https://www.freedomforuminstitute.org/first-amendment-center...
No, he is not. This is literally just one statement, without any justification or deduction. If anything, this is the opposite of logic. The fact that said statement is utter nonsense is not ever than important any more in this context, because it failed way before that comes into play.
Its called experience. If you don't share that experience, that's something common and normal.
This is no different than how Google operates. It's once of the disadvantages of having one account for all services from a company.
That's why I see Google as a big jerk. Now I see Vivaldi as a small jerk, and I just put a note on my personal notebook to not use their browser.
If you want Gmail but don't want the risk, you should really use a Google Workspaces account.
You don't want gmail, you just think you do. Get an account where they care about you. I've been on fastmail for years, they don't make money from other ads and so their incentives are aligned with mine. There are other email companies that you can use as well. (Or at least get a paid google account if you really think you need google mail)
Thanks for completely ignoring the "if" and recommending my own email provider to me, followed by verbatim repeating what I said in parenthesis. 10/10 mansplain.
(I might be slightly salty about the repeated use of "he" further down this chain when "they" is a perfectly fine unassuming default)
(I might be slightly salty about the repeated use of "he" further down this chain when "they" is a perfectly fine unassuming default)
Can you explain further? I've never heard this as a benefit of Google Workspaces.
What he really meant is having email on your own domain.
If you have your own domain and Google bans you, you can just go elsewhere. If your @gmail address gets banned, it’s the end of it.
If you have your own domain and Google bans you, you can just go elsewhere. If your @gmail address gets banned, it’s the end of it.
What he implied is that you should own the domain for your email that way you can change email hosting providers without having to tell everyone and every service your new email.
Exactly. I use Microsoft's email service. For $69/year I can point several domains (I think the limit is 99) to my inbox. If I get sick of Microsoft, or they block me, it's my domain and I can move it to another provider.
$69/yr for service you could run yourself on a couple $5/yr VPSs just by configuring Postfix one time.
For that price you also get access to the entire Office App suite, both online and desktop app, and 1 TB of OneDrive cloud storage.
>just by configuring Postfix one time.
If only hosting your own email was this simple.
If only hosting your own email was this simple.
i just use improvmx to forward all my email to my gmail
Doesn't make it right.
Vivaldi is not at fault. It is the users who should review their usage.
As long as you are still part of an organization, or keep your own little piece of internet alive, there is no reason to prevent delivery of messages to your address.
Just like with mail in the real world, if you can be found at a public location, mail can be delivered to you there. There is only jail and army to filter your mail.
The free-of-charge nature of these services is just a reward for your membership in an organization, there is nothing permanent or guarantee here.
To the people who want a free-of-charge address, find a public service or a respectable association that at least guarantees reception. If not, keep a low profile, you are under voluntary surveillance.
Services like Vivaldi or Gmail and consort have the worst level of freedom, out of 6 levels :
1. My domain / My server / My IP
As long as you are still part of an organization, or keep your own little piece of internet alive, there is no reason to prevent delivery of messages to your address.
Just like with mail in the real world, if you can be found at a public location, mail can be delivered to you there. There is only jail and army to filter your mail.
The free-of-charge nature of these services is just a reward for your membership in an organization, there is nothing permanent or guarantee here.
To the people who want a free-of-charge address, find a public service or a respectable association that at least guarantees reception. If not, keep a low profile, you are under voluntary surveillance.
Services like Vivaldi or Gmail and consort have the worst level of freedom, out of 6 levels :
1. My domain / My server / My IP
- Freedom. They can just list you on antispam service if you manage badly.
- Freedom but nomadic. Your ISP can cut off the relevant ports or break your contract. But you just have to change ISP.
- Potentially Freedom but nomadic. Unfortunately very rare, public or community organizations offer their own domains instead.
- No Freedom, but they sometimes guarantee a minimum service and a perenniality.
- Freedom but nomadic and if you get kicked out of such an organization, it is likely that you will be kicked out of another one too.
- No Freedom at all. They do what they want with you.It's odd (and clearly problematic) that they link forum access so closely to email access. There's no reason they shouldn't be able to ban abusive trolls from a their forum without shutting down their email as well.
I feel like this is one of those rules that was made to target problematic individuals, but after awhile will be misused and then all hell breaks loose.
I do not have an e-mail account with them, but if I really needed it, because stuff like this can happen I would most definitely avoid using their forum, or I would use it under another name. The CoC can get rid of anyone they wish. While I do not think that they would want to get rid of me, because I am a no one, I would probably avoid their forum if I had an e-mail account. If I really, really wanted to post something, then I would do it under a different account, so if my account that uses the forum gets banned, they will not close my e-mail account.
Losing your email for spamming is how it worked in the original old internet.
Yep - losing your email account for misusing your email account makes sense.
Losing your email account for being too sarcastic on a forum about your browser software seems weird, to say the least.
Losing your email account for being too sarcastic on a forum about your browser software seems weird, to say the least.
Your email was not the center of your digital identity either, because you simply didn't have one. Now you need an email for interacting with the government and basically anything that isn't a low-importance smartphone app.
Killing someone's email access causes a lot of grief, and requires a lot of work to undo. It's a disproportionate punishment for acting mean (or even racist - racists are still human beings and still should have the right to keep using their email for personal comms unless they seriously and repeatedly cross the line).
Killing someone's email access causes a lot of grief, and requires a lot of work to undo. It's a disproportionate punishment for acting mean (or even racist - racists are still human beings and still should have the right to keep using their email for personal comms unless they seriously and repeatedly cross the line).
> Don’t use sarcasm and jokes that can be misinterpreted.
Yes, I too greatly enjoy sterile feel-ok communication only.
Yes, I too greatly enjoy sterile feel-ok communication only.
Somebody clearly disagrees with you, but you certainly aren't alone!
[When I wrote this, you had been downvoted. Though it only occurs to me now that the sarcasm might have been completely lost on some people!]
[When I wrote this, you had been downvoted. Though it only occurs to me now that the sarcasm might have been completely lost on some people!]
There is some back and forth going on. Apparently it's quite a divisive opinion.
That is ok!
You can disagree and just downvote.
You can disagree and explain why.
You can disagree and explain why and downvote.
You can leave a nasty, offensive, insulting message at your own peril -and I can take it.
That is ok!
You can disagree and just downvote.
You can disagree and explain why.
You can disagree and explain why and downvote.
You can leave a nasty, offensive, insulting message at your own peril -and I can take it.
> Don’t use sarcasm and jokes that can be misinterpreted.
I mean I see the point of having a CoC but how can you be absolutely, positively and definitely sure that a joke cannot be misinterpreted?
I mean I see the point of having a CoC but how can you be absolutely, positively and definitely sure that a joke cannot be misinterpreted?
Yeah, I presumed the only sensible reading of that sentence was "don't use sarcasm and jokes, as sarcasm and jokes are things that can be misinterpreted".
Don't get me wrong - I understand that with an international community, sarcasm can be problematic. For example, the ruby community had lots of "fun" just over a month ago with a joke on a mailing list intended to be poking fun at traditional chivalry, that many mistook to be sexist. Then further jokers submitted pull requests changing the CoC wording in humorous ways that looked fine to non-native eyes, claiming those changes would fix the problem, and so the maintainers accepted those changes, until the sarcasm was pointed out clearly. It was pretty embarrassing for all involved.
Is the only solution to ban all jokes and all sarcasm? I don't think so. But as a sarcastic pr*k at heart, I may well be biased. I certainly don't think you should lose access to all your email over it though.
Don't get me wrong - I understand that with an international community, sarcasm can be problematic. For example, the ruby community had lots of "fun" just over a month ago with a joke on a mailing list intended to be poking fun at traditional chivalry, that many mistook to be sexist. Then further jokers submitted pull requests changing the CoC wording in humorous ways that looked fine to non-native eyes, claiming those changes would fix the problem, and so the maintainers accepted those changes, until the sarcasm was pointed out clearly. It was pretty embarrassing for all involved.
Is the only solution to ban all jokes and all sarcasm? I don't think so. But as a sarcastic pr*k at heart, I may well be biased. I certainly don't think you should lose access to all your email over it though.
The joke was maybe a date bug was written for women who calculated their age. The joker said they thought all girls would appreciate it. They said they didn't insult blondes. They said no one was hurt if the list was 100% male. I didn't see anywhere they said it was supposed to be about traditional chivalry. Even people who defended the joke linked it to a current stereotype. What made you think it was about traditional chivalry?
Yep, let's be specific, the comment in question was:
Reading it charitably however (which nobody ever seems to want to do) it may well be saying that someone else is calculating a woman's age. This would lead me to suppose it is a common chivalrous humour (at least round these parts) linked to the idea that you should never ask a lady how old she is, which is to send birthday cards with exaggeratedly low numbers. e.g. you might send a 60-year-old lady a birthday card saying "Happy 21st birthday (again)" - but you would never do that for a man (often the opposite, in fact).
Now then, you could argue - and some have - that this is still a form of sexism. Indeed, orthodox feminism* dictates that all forms of chivalry are antiquated and cause more harm than good, and there are some good arguments to support that, while many staunch feminists point out that it is a real shame to have to legislate against kindnesses towards women (especially when even if true social equality is ever achieved, often the biological encumbrances bias life against women anyway.)
So yes, you may well be absolutely correct. And even when "people who defended the joke linked it to a current stereotype" they might be doing so with full understanding of the charitable reading. I should also point out, I have never spoken to this chap, I have no idea what kind of person he is. Is he a raving misogynist? No idea. Does he spit on the cake at women's birthdays? Maybe. Is he a cat pretending to be a human? Probably.
All of these are completely and entirely beside the point though. The reaction was to legislate away from attempting compassionate dialogue. I don't know what would have happened if someone off-thread had said "Hi, just to let you know, some people might be reading this as X and I'm sure you didn't mean that - can I recommend you get ahead of it and say Y before someone gets offended?". Maybe it would have been exactly the same.
Instead, a bunch of people invoked their right to offence, and insisted that the CoC be changed to codify that right.
* [Just to clarify, I meant orthodox feminism in the sense of feminism that follows the arguments to their logical conclusions and adheres to them strictly, rather than what Google seems to think I mean]
# Maybe this has been written for women, having calculated their age ;)
Reading it charitably however (which nobody ever seems to want to do) it may well be saying that someone else is calculating a woman's age. This would lead me to suppose it is a common chivalrous humour (at least round these parts) linked to the idea that you should never ask a lady how old she is, which is to send birthday cards with exaggeratedly low numbers. e.g. you might send a 60-year-old lady a birthday card saying "Happy 21st birthday (again)" - but you would never do that for a man (often the opposite, in fact).
Now then, you could argue - and some have - that this is still a form of sexism. Indeed, orthodox feminism* dictates that all forms of chivalry are antiquated and cause more harm than good, and there are some good arguments to support that, while many staunch feminists point out that it is a real shame to have to legislate against kindnesses towards women (especially when even if true social equality is ever achieved, often the biological encumbrances bias life against women anyway.)
So yes, you may well be absolutely correct. And even when "people who defended the joke linked it to a current stereotype" they might be doing so with full understanding of the charitable reading. I should also point out, I have never spoken to this chap, I have no idea what kind of person he is. Is he a raving misogynist? No idea. Does he spit on the cake at women's birthdays? Maybe. Is he a cat pretending to be a human? Probably.
All of these are completely and entirely beside the point though. The reaction was to legislate away from attempting compassionate dialogue. I don't know what would have happened if someone off-thread had said "Hi, just to let you know, some people might be reading this as X and I'm sure you didn't mean that - can I recommend you get ahead of it and say Y before someone gets offended?". Maybe it would have been exactly the same.
Instead, a bunch of people invoked their right to offence, and insisted that the CoC be changed to codify that right.
* [Just to clarify, I meant orthodox feminism in the sense of feminism that follows the arguments to their logical conclusions and adheres to them strictly, rather than what Google seems to think I mean]
The point was you said it was intended to poke fun at traditional chivalry like it was a fact. But it was just your speculation.
We define chivalrous differently apparently. And I never heard of someone trying to flatter a 21 year old man by wishing him a happy 60th birthday.
What they said and what kind of person they are are 2 different discussions.[1]
Well meaning people accept constructive criticism. I know people who would like what you wrote better. I know people who would think telling them you're sure they didn't mean something was insincere and condescending. The 1st reply that mentioned the attempted joke just said please don't make sexist comments.[2] It was appropriate for an aside on a technical mailing list. The joker could have replied off list if they didn't understand. They doubled down instead like you said.
Someone else called it cancel culture and called other people hypocrites. Someone else compared it to witch burning. Someone else implied assuming good intentions meant ignoring anything unintentionally objectionable. The reaction to that was someone proposed a different standard. The reaction to that was trolling.
[1] https://youtu.be/b0Ti-gkJiXc
[2] https://rubytalk.org/t/simple-operations/75577/4
We define chivalrous differently apparently. And I never heard of someone trying to flatter a 21 year old man by wishing him a happy 60th birthday.
What they said and what kind of person they are are 2 different discussions.[1]
Well meaning people accept constructive criticism. I know people who would like what you wrote better. I know people who would think telling them you're sure they didn't mean something was insincere and condescending. The 1st reply that mentioned the attempted joke just said please don't make sexist comments.[2] It was appropriate for an aside on a technical mailing list. The joker could have replied off list if they didn't understand. They doubled down instead like you said.
Someone else called it cancel culture and called other people hypocrites. Someone else compared it to witch burning. Someone else implied assuming good intentions meant ignoring anything unintentionally objectionable. The reaction to that was someone proposed a different standard. The reaction to that was trolling.
[1] https://youtu.be/b0Ti-gkJiXc
[2] https://rubytalk.org/t/simple-operations/75577/4
> The point was you said it was intended to poke fun at traditional chivalry like it was a fact. But it was just your speculation.
In a situation where the only thing anyone has is speculation, and speculation on top of speculation. This gaslighting is disgusting and needs to stop.
But yes, in retrospect I should have added an IMHO. On every HN comment anyone's ever written, probably.
> What they said and what kind of person they are are 2 different discussions.[1]
That's an interesting and potentially useful youtube video, so thanks for that. However it presupposes a couple of things that I don't think hold true here.
One of the most important is that you cannot know intent. The person spouting racist crap could be misinformed or miseducated or just didn't realise that what they said is commonly used to cause hurt - but just as equally, they might be a fundamentally hateful person spouting hatred. In that case, it is sensible to treat the comments based on the likely harms achieved, and not the intent, up to a point. (Even then, it's helpful to have people who will choose respectful education rather than abrasive condemnation)
In this case, pretty sure everyone agreed that the intent wasn't malicious, but that it wasn't appropriate or helpful or necessary in that forum, and the confused delivery didn't help either. (I would also accept arguments that his "at least it wasn't a blond joke" comments indicated a level of culturally normalized misogyny, but that's a far cry from malice)
But there's another issue, which brings us back to the origin of this thread: What kind of discourse do we want in our communities? It seems we have a choice - to either assume benign intent, or to assume malice.
In the first quote of this comment, I assumed malice - that you're trying to be dismissive and gaslight me. I'm pretty sure you're not. Not that your statement wasn't dismissive, but I don't think that's your intention - you were simply explaining how you read my comment. And hopefully, when you read that, it seemed out of place - because I try to be respectful and balanced, and I highly value a well-reasoned discussion.
But discourse where we treat people with respect and assume best intentions leads to better outcomes. If, in the absence of any certainty, we assume good intent and push people - with kindness - towards behaviours that are helpful instead of problematic, then we make the world a better place and make each other better people.
The only other option* is to choose the worst possible interpretation of a person's words. More so, this form of discourse almost guarantees that you will be alienating people based on language and culture, and is more painful for people on the autism spectrum and other neurodivergences.
* (you could argue there's a middle ground, but in terms of how you legislate community values, humans usually spin off towards any available edges, especially when in pain)
And actually, in this case I don't find fault in the way most of the mailing list started by calling out the behaviour. The person making the problematic comment doubled down, tried to explain themselves, failed to do so and made the problem worse. Again, maybe if it had been off-list, a better approach could have been found, and the situation was not helped by people feigning injury on someone else's behalf.
The problem that I was addressing was the after-effects - trying to change the CoC to flip the discourse from being explicitly expecting good intentions to expecting everyone to assume malice.
And that's not to say there aren't some hard questions in this. In trying to be quick and brief (and in some cases angry), nobody managed to articulate to the poster in a way they understood what their statement could be misconstrued as saying. Whose job is that? In the case where people are genuinely hurt, there is an absolutely valid principle that it's not the hurting party's job to educate their abuser. There is a widely accepted principle that being an Ally is a good thing because it fortifies the hurting party's morale. There was a vaguely understandable principle mentioned that a person does not have to be the target of a hurt to feel the hurt of a target that may or may not exist.
But that should not encompass the whole community. We need people who recognise that the person who causes hurt unintentionally will themselves be hurt in the backlash and the mob justice. And this is where the concept of "Ally" becomes wholly problematic. Those people should not defend the problematic behaviour, or dismiss the reaction as baseless, or invoke cancel culture or witch burning or hypocrisy etc, but instead work towards reconciliation. It's hard to say "These ally behaviours are fine, those ally behaviours are evil" because in each case, both parties are just being who they are.
"assuming good intentions [means] ignoring anything unintentionally objectionable" is a false dichotomy, a lazy one at that, and needs to be called out as such. I agree we should propose a different standard, and I agree that trolling is a poor substitute for reasoned advocacy.
It seems society increasingly favours "trauma-response ping-pong", and it seems the tech sphere is one of the few places on the internet where you can advocate against that without getting your head bitten off. It makes me sad, but maybe I should just shut my emotionally-stunted mouth and get with the times.
In a situation where the only thing anyone has is speculation, and speculation on top of speculation. This gaslighting is disgusting and needs to stop.
But yes, in retrospect I should have added an IMHO. On every HN comment anyone's ever written, probably.
> What they said and what kind of person they are are 2 different discussions.[1]
That's an interesting and potentially useful youtube video, so thanks for that. However it presupposes a couple of things that I don't think hold true here.
One of the most important is that you cannot know intent. The person spouting racist crap could be misinformed or miseducated or just didn't realise that what they said is commonly used to cause hurt - but just as equally, they might be a fundamentally hateful person spouting hatred. In that case, it is sensible to treat the comments based on the likely harms achieved, and not the intent, up to a point. (Even then, it's helpful to have people who will choose respectful education rather than abrasive condemnation)
In this case, pretty sure everyone agreed that the intent wasn't malicious, but that it wasn't appropriate or helpful or necessary in that forum, and the confused delivery didn't help either. (I would also accept arguments that his "at least it wasn't a blond joke" comments indicated a level of culturally normalized misogyny, but that's a far cry from malice)
But there's another issue, which brings us back to the origin of this thread: What kind of discourse do we want in our communities? It seems we have a choice - to either assume benign intent, or to assume malice.
In the first quote of this comment, I assumed malice - that you're trying to be dismissive and gaslight me. I'm pretty sure you're not. Not that your statement wasn't dismissive, but I don't think that's your intention - you were simply explaining how you read my comment. And hopefully, when you read that, it seemed out of place - because I try to be respectful and balanced, and I highly value a well-reasoned discussion.
But discourse where we treat people with respect and assume best intentions leads to better outcomes. If, in the absence of any certainty, we assume good intent and push people - with kindness - towards behaviours that are helpful instead of problematic, then we make the world a better place and make each other better people.
The only other option* is to choose the worst possible interpretation of a person's words. More so, this form of discourse almost guarantees that you will be alienating people based on language and culture, and is more painful for people on the autism spectrum and other neurodivergences.
* (you could argue there's a middle ground, but in terms of how you legislate community values, humans usually spin off towards any available edges, especially when in pain)
And actually, in this case I don't find fault in the way most of the mailing list started by calling out the behaviour. The person making the problematic comment doubled down, tried to explain themselves, failed to do so and made the problem worse. Again, maybe if it had been off-list, a better approach could have been found, and the situation was not helped by people feigning injury on someone else's behalf.
The problem that I was addressing was the after-effects - trying to change the CoC to flip the discourse from being explicitly expecting good intentions to expecting everyone to assume malice.
And that's not to say there aren't some hard questions in this. In trying to be quick and brief (and in some cases angry), nobody managed to articulate to the poster in a way they understood what their statement could be misconstrued as saying. Whose job is that? In the case where people are genuinely hurt, there is an absolutely valid principle that it's not the hurting party's job to educate their abuser. There is a widely accepted principle that being an Ally is a good thing because it fortifies the hurting party's morale. There was a vaguely understandable principle mentioned that a person does not have to be the target of a hurt to feel the hurt of a target that may or may not exist.
But that should not encompass the whole community. We need people who recognise that the person who causes hurt unintentionally will themselves be hurt in the backlash and the mob justice. And this is where the concept of "Ally" becomes wholly problematic. Those people should not defend the problematic behaviour, or dismiss the reaction as baseless, or invoke cancel culture or witch burning or hypocrisy etc, but instead work towards reconciliation. It's hard to say "These ally behaviours are fine, those ally behaviours are evil" because in each case, both parties are just being who they are.
"assuming good intentions [means] ignoring anything unintentionally objectionable" is a false dichotomy, a lazy one at that, and needs to be called out as such. I agree we should propose a different standard, and I agree that trolling is a poor substitute for reasoned advocacy.
It seems society increasingly favours "trauma-response ping-pong", and it seems the tech sphere is one of the few places on the internet where you can advocate against that without getting your head bitten off. It makes me sad, but maybe I should just shut my emotionally-stunted mouth and get with the times.
I suppose it's the same as using your Google account and leaving a bannable comment (or just one that automation considers like such) in YouTube, Google Maps or the old Google+ - you'll lose access to your email account as well. It just highlights how important it is to have essential stuff like email separated from bundles like Google, Vivaldi or any other company that can finish your virtual existence all of the sudden.
Good CoC:
"If at anytime you choose to do something that a rational person of average intelligence could reasonably consider your actions as "Being a dick", you are in violation of this code of conduct." [1]
Horrible CoC: "Don’t use sarcasm and jokes that can be misinterpreted."
[1] https://github.com/karlgroves/dontbeadick
Horrible CoC: "Don’t use sarcasm and jokes that can be misinterpreted."
[1] https://github.com/karlgroves/dontbeadick
Sounds like they are a browser company that doesn't want to run reddit in their forums. That's their choice.
You get a warning, then can lose your account.
You get a warning, then can lose your account.
Yeah, I just worry about the way they've lumped them together. I know some people who are sarcastic with every sentence they write. And I worry that unless the moderator's messages are very clearly worded, they may not realise that their activity on the forum could delete their email account.
Except they should be locking just the forum account, and not nuking your entire online presence connected to that email account.
> That's their choice.
This is a hacker news post, not a lawsuit.
Nobody is arguing that they don't have a choice or the legal right to do this, calm down man.
We are arguing they are a fucking asshole for doing so.
You can have a legal right to do something, and still be a fucking asshole for doing it.
This is a hacker news post, not a lawsuit.
Nobody is arguing that they don't have a choice or the legal right to do this, calm down man.
We are arguing they are a fucking asshole for doing so.
You can have a legal right to do something, and still be a fucking asshole for doing it.
There's two issues I see here:
1. The forum and webmail are separate services, linked by a single account. You can lose access to your email by being banned from the forum; this is problematic, but not unique to Vivaldi (you can lose access to your Gmail by being banned from Youtube). I do think this is something that all services with a CoC should work on making granular though.
2. The CoC is incredibly vague. I am broadly in favour of the recent trend of introducing CoCs across projects, they're incredibly important when written well, and they are mostly written well in my experience. This one is not. It seems like it was thrown together very quickly to provide moderators with far too much power and scope, and overreaches to the extreme.
1. The forum and webmail are separate services, linked by a single account. You can lose access to your email by being banned from the forum; this is problematic, but not unique to Vivaldi (you can lose access to your Gmail by being banned from Youtube). I do think this is something that all services with a CoC should work on making granular though.
2. The CoC is incredibly vague. I am broadly in favour of the recent trend of introducing CoCs across projects, they're incredibly important when written well, and they are mostly written well in my experience. This one is not. It seems like it was thrown together very quickly to provide moderators with far too much power and scope, and overreaches to the extreme.
I've had my own domain / email since like forever. I've no idea why would anyone entrust such a vital things to any single private company.
I'm in the same camp, but registrar / registry are still singular private companies. They're seemingly less further along the path of degradation, but not immune.
(although I do remember when Godaddy pulled a domain hosting security vulnerabilities at the behest of Myspace, like two decades ago)
(although I do remember when Godaddy pulled a domain hosting security vulnerabilities at the behest of Myspace, like two decades ago)
Because none of my email would get delivered if I didn't.
Owning your own domain and email account doesn't mean you have to host it yourself, most email hosting providers will handle that.
BUT if you get kicked off of one of those you can take your owned domain to another email hosting provider and be up and running again with the same address. That's a pretty important differentiator IMO.
BUT if you get kicked off of one of those you can take your owned domain to another email hosting provider and be up and running again with the same address. That's a pretty important differentiator IMO.
This is hyperbole, but I can agree with this partially. Deliverability on a self-hosted email server is not for the faint of heart.
The internet has done away with the concept of rehabilitation in favour of the capital punishment. The difference is you can have multiple lives
Thanks for reminding me why I don't use Vivaldi.
You see, I see this as a mis-step, and I think it's important to discuss such missteps. But I don't know enough about the internals of Vivaldi the company to know whether the company has bad attitudes and this is yet another manifestation of a draconion culture, or whether someone just tried doing The Right Thing (modern edition) and ended up legislating unintended consequences.
In other words, I'd like to assume the best intentions, and they might yet choose to rectify it.
In other words, I'd like to assume the best intentions, and they might yet choose to rectify it.
Looks like a standard vendor lock-in tactic to me. It makes it harder to switch browsers.
But they all do this. Passwords and bookmarks that can't be exported or transferred easily are the usual suspects
Vivaldi seemed big, bloated and slow the last time I used it.
But they all do this. Passwords and bookmarks that can't be exported or transferred easily are the usual suspects
Vivaldi seemed big, bloated and slow the last time I used it.
There's no lock-in here on the desktop version of the browser, even if they were big enough for that strategy to work.
Passwords and bookmarks are freely exportable, and even if they aren't in the future, they can be transferred to another computer or extracted from the profile data without issues.
Passwords and bookmarks are freely exportable, and even if they aren't in the future, they can be transferred to another computer or extracted from the profile data without issues.
Using Vivaldi hardly ties you to the mothership. At most, you'll lose sync access via their service, not brick your browser.
Correct me if I misunderstand but they're not threatening to brick your browser, they are threatening to brick your email.
Yes, but even if they brick your email, your local browser profile or its data export so you can move elsewhere won't be affected.
Losing access to email and contacts can have a big effect on some people.
It feels more and more like "Eternal September" is actually coming to an end.
Everytime a company makes a decision like this, I keep wondering whether they always pull it out of their ass or do they really make the effort to research or engaged on the community first.
Well, that makes a third browser that I am aggressively discouraging people from using. I used to think that Chrome and Edge were the only bad guys in town...
I don't think they are evil, merely misguided.
It feels like the "right thing" to have a CoC, and it only makes sense if you make it enforceable, and that only makes sense if you make it comprehensive.
So I understand how we get to this point with totally good intentions - whatever misgivings I might have about CoCs in general.
I use Vivaldi (not their email service, but their browser) and I like it a lot. I wish it were based on FF and not Chrome, but unfortunately it makes a lot of sense from an operational perspective. I've seen nothing malicious in anything they have done to date.
So I'd rather they saw this and fixed it. And I'll still happily recommend people give it a go. But if they insist on keeping this wording in their CoC, I'll certainly advise people to steer well clear of the webmail service.
It feels like the "right thing" to have a CoC, and it only makes sense if you make it enforceable, and that only makes sense if you make it comprehensive.
So I understand how we get to this point with totally good intentions - whatever misgivings I might have about CoCs in general.
I use Vivaldi (not their email service, but their browser) and I like it a lot. I wish it were based on FF and not Chrome, but unfortunately it makes a lot of sense from an operational perspective. I've seen nothing malicious in anything they have done to date.
So I'd rather they saw this and fixed it. And I'll still happily recommend people give it a go. But if they insist on keeping this wording in their CoC, I'll certainly advise people to steer well clear of the webmail service.
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This sounds absolutely fine to me. Have you tried not breaking their CoC?
This is sarcasm. You have just broken their CoC... be thankful it wasn't on their forum!
Yes, I'm ever so grateful. But less sarcastically, I didn't broke their CoC because, as you pointed out, I wasn't writing on their forum.
Absolutely. There has been some beautiful, deadpan sarcasm on this thread and I'm here for it...
> Don’t use content likely to offend people based on race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or political views.
Stating that I voted for Trump (I didn’t) is likely to offend many people.
The breadth and vagueness of these CoCs is astonishing!
The then-go-somewhere-else argument also does not apply, since de-facto monopolists are also starting to apply similarly silly CoCs…
Stating that I voted for Trump (I didn’t) is likely to offend many people.
The breadth and vagueness of these CoCs is astonishing!
The then-go-somewhere-else argument also does not apply, since de-facto monopolists are also starting to apply similarly silly CoCs…
...at least you can get a copy of your data through a GDPR request...
I did wonder that. While technically that's true, in reality I believe:
- They are under no obligation to keep your data if they delete your account
- They are under no obligation to give you your data in a human-readable format
- If they are unable to securely validate your identity, they would have a stronger obligation to refuse
- There are caveats for when extracting your data would be disproportionately difficult.
For example, if they encrypt emails individually at rest and then throw away the decryption key attached to your account login record, I don't know what legal recourse you would have.
That's not to say categorically you're wrong. I suspect you might be right, and I imagine that Vivaldi themselves might be extremely helpful. It's quite a new service though, and I haven't seen any evidence one way or another.
- They are under no obligation to keep your data if they delete your account
- They are under no obligation to give you your data in a human-readable format
- If they are unable to securely validate your identity, they would have a stronger obligation to refuse
- There are caveats for when extracting your data would be disproportionately difficult.
For example, if they encrypt emails individually at rest and then throw away the decryption key attached to your account login record, I don't know what legal recourse you would have.
That's not to say categorically you're wrong. I suspect you might be right, and I imagine that Vivaldi themselves might be extremely helpful. It's quite a new service though, and I haven't seen any evidence one way or another.
WTF is Vivaldi.com ?
It's a continuation of the Opera browser / service.
Literally go to their website.
(For reference, we banned ~10 users out of ~20,000. Not exactly ban-happy. I also believe that overzealous enforcement has a chilling effect.)
However, deleting somebody's email account for non-email offenses is a poor choice. The "offender" may be relying on that email address as a point of contact for family, to pay bills, etc. And community standards, while necessary, are unfortunately always going to be subjective to some degree.
Considering the large number of services that depend on an email address to determine one's identity... we need something else. I don't know the answer there. I should not lose access to my ability to pay my bills just because a forum moderator doesn't like what I say.