If you're muting someone on behalf of an entire community of 1 million members, that's centralized censorship. Period.
Continues are a hard problem to solve.
But that's still blatant censorship.
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you're thinking about platforms. think in protocols. it's slightly different. the content still exists elsewhere on the network.
Sometimes "censorship" is a feature.
Some of the best Internet communities I have been part of were moderated forums, because they stayed on topic and didn't get filled with garbage posts and trolls.
People should have the freedom to make whatever kind of community they want, a 4chan free for all, or one that is moderated as they see fit.
Fully agree with sometimes. Therein lies the complexity.
If I brigade 500,000 bots to your community without some filter, it's fucked. Rendered useless. Some barrier is needed.
However that same barrier can be used to create an echo chamber (IE Reddit).
That's why I say communities are very hard to solve. I don't know the answer yet.
But I know mods are definitely not it.
Just maximize freedom. Anyone can make a community as they see fit.
You want one for you, your wife and your kids? Feel free.
One about how a particular religion pisses you off with no moderation at all? Feel free.
You disagree with how someone else runs their particular community and want to start your own with less (or more) restrictive moderation? Feel free.
Maximize freedom is the way. Otherwise you're just censoring people's ability to make communities as they see fit.
It's more nuanced than that. Especially in the current age of rampant propaganda.
An existing community could have size, and use that size to spread massive lies.
Then use moderation to stamp out any fact checking of their lies.
Sure, you can create a competing community, but using what reach? Your reach has been stamped out by moderation.
Reach matters. Allowing low follower accounts/viewpoints/communities access to the masses is critically important. It prevents the consolidated influence structure that exists today on TradSo.
Who gets to decide what kind of group I can make, and how I'm allowed to moderate it? Is that censorship?
We should all be able to be in charge of our attention and our feeds. Everyone should be able to have this control.