Censorship

[John H20]

Join the Xenforo Cloud Beta (now with add-on support)
14 october 2021

First point: that is apparently your 6,666th post.

Second point:

That sounds interesting, but there's a very big "but" that would keep me from trying it. You would have no real control, ownership or authority over your own data and user rules. I used to participate in Xenforo's own forum, a long time ago. I stopped because they are EXTREMELY censorship oriented, and have a super hair trigger when it comes to censoring you. It is clearly part of their mental DNA, and there is no reasoning with them. This extends even to your private communications with an individual person there, not even just public comments. They are very authoritarian in that regard. I'm not a political partisan, conservative, right winger or Republican, but for American users, for example, a good analogy would be to describe them as being just as authoritarian and convinced of their own "righteousness" about censorship as the liberal Democratic establishment here in the US who practically live for censorship while denying they are doing it. In fact in some certain respects and in my experience at the XF "community" they are even a bit worse and less tolerant. My understanding is that the main people at XF come from a place where there is not even an actual recognized right of "free speech," and it shows, both at XF and where they come from. And come to think of it, isn't IPS based there too? But I digress. It's been a while, but I think there was also at least one American with the XF team, but apparently one who comes from the generation of people here in the US who also tend to love censorship and weren't raised to love free speech unfortunately.

So what kind of forum and community could you possibly have if you are always under the threat of you and your users being censored by the very service provider for things which are not illegal or unlawful in your own country, or deserving of censorship by any reasonable free speech oriented standard, and beyond your control?

 

[Tracy Perry]

That sounds interesting, but there's a very big "but" that would keep me from trying it. You would have no real control, ownership or authority over your own data and user rules. I used to participate in Xenforo's own forum, a long time ago. I stopped because they are EXTREMELY censorship oriented, and have a super hair trigger when it comes to censoring you. It is clearly part of their mental DNA, and there is no reasoning with them. This extends even to your private communications with an individual person there, not even just public comments.

So what kind of forum could you possibly have if you are always under the threat of you and your users being censored by the very service provider for things which are not illegal, unlawful, or deserving of censorship by any rational and reasonable standard whatsoever beyond your control?

Well, considering that you have the same control/ownership/authority over the data that you do with any other hosted platform (IPS and vB) I don't see what the issue is. You leave and want your DB you can get it. As for add-ons (which the other two platforms do not allow for) you can always download them either from the RM or from the developers site.

Now, as to censoring, I've been an active member over there for 9 years and over 8153 messages. Guess what, not once in that 8153 messages have I ever been censored. I'd love some examples for what you got "censored" for. I think we would find that it very likely would be censored on any company support forum, not just XenForo. I'm sure your account is still active over there, so feel free to provide it so your posting history can be researched.
You do realize that your behavior doesn't have to be illegal or unlawful to be against company forum policy, correct? Just because you think it might not be deserving of censorship others might disagree. Classic example... over in the UK you can apparently say the F-word on national TV, even on OTA broadcasts. In the US, you are not allowed to use F-word for OTA broadcasts (controlled by the FCC) but can on cable channels, which are not regulated.
Or to use another example... scat videos are perfectly legal. But I don't think it would be appropriate for show on a company support forum or even detailed discussions of them. I'd fully expect that to be "censored".
As for "being under threat", you do realize that even a self-hosted forum is still subject to rules that are in place by their hosting provider? What you might think was fine might go against their TOS and could result in your loss of the hosting also.

 

[John H20]

Well, considering that you have the same control/ownership/authority over the data that you do with any other hosted platform (IPS and vB) I don't see what the issue is. You leave and want your DB you can get it. As for add-ons (which the other two platforms do not allow for) you can always download them either from the RM or from the developers site.

Now, as to censoring, I've been an active member over there for 9 years and over 8153 messages. Guess what, not once in that 8153 messages have I ever been censored. I'd love some examples for what you got "censored" for. I think we would find that it very likely would be censored on any company support forum, not just XenForo. I'm sure your account is still active over there, so feel free to provide it so your posting history can be researched.
You do realize that your behavior doesn't have to be illegal or unlawful to be against company forum policy, correct? Just because you think it might not be deserving of censorship others might disagree. Classic example... over in the UK you can apparently say the F-word on national TV, even on OTA broadcasts. In the US, you are not allowed to use F-word for OTA broadcasts (controlled by the FCC) but can on cable channels, which are not regulated.
Or to use another example... scat videos are perfectly legal. But I don't think it would be appropriate for show on a company support forum or even detailed discussions of them. I'd fully expect that to be "censored".
As for "being under threat", you do realize that even a self-hosted forum is still subject to rules that are in place by their hosting provider? What you might think was fine might go against their TOS and could result in your loss of the hosting also.

I'm not going to give any details that would enable them to know who I was over there, or who I am in case I ever do become a customer, but I don't say this lightly.

I'm certainly aware of all the nuances regarding illegal, unlawful, and "other." In fact I just edited my comment slightly regarding the first two to mention "your own country," because in some countries that are supposed to be enlightened even certain forms of speech are actually illegal for which it would be considered outrageous, ridiculous and extreme even among the authoritarian liberal censorship-loving Democrat establishment here.

"Just because you think it might not be deserving of censorship others might disagree." If you don't see the fundamental problem and threat to free society with that and with censorship in general, then that's a problem. Other than things like falsely yelling "fire" in a crowded theater or calling for people to engage in acts of violence and crime, anyone who supports censorship - including and especially censorship by some supposed consensus of people who believe it is deserved - is making a huge error, one that often comes back to bite them too. We have already been seeing this destroy America for a long time now and that is what is occurring right this moment.

 

[Chris D]

First point: that is apparently your 6,666th post.

Second point:

That sounds interesting, but there's a very big "but" that would keep me from trying it. You would have no real control, ownership or authority over your own data and user rules. I used to participate in Xenforo's own forum, a long time ago. I stopped because they are EXTREMELY censorship oriented, and have a super hair trigger when it comes to censoring you. It is clearly part of their mental DNA, and there is no reasoning with them. This extends even to your private communications with an individual person there, not even just public comments. They are very authoritarian in that regard. I'm not a political partisan, conservative, right winger or Republican, but for American users, for example, a good analogy would be to describe them as being just as authoritarian and convinced of their own "righteousness" about censorship as the liberal Democratic establishment here in the US who practically live for censorship while denying they are doing it. In fact in some certain respects and in my experience at the XF "community" they are even a bit worse and less tolerant. My understanding is that the main people at XF come from a place where there is not even an actual recognized right of "free speech," and it shows, both at XF and where they come from. And come to think of it, isn't IPS based there too? But I digress. It's been a while, but I think there was also at least one American with the XF team, but apparently one who comes from the generation of people here in the US who also tend to love censorship and weren't raised to love free speech unfortunately.

So what kind of forum and community could you possibly have if you are always under the threat of you and your users being censored by the very service provider for things which are not illegal or unlawful in your own country, or deserving of censorship by any reasonable free speech oriented standard, and beyond your control?

I’ve never read such nonsense and the fact that you don’t want to reveal yourself speaks volumes to the legitimacy of your claims.

But, suffice it to say, any XF Cloud customer is more than welcome to leave the service at any time, their files and user data in hand without question and we have no direct editorial control over the content you publish so we wouldn’t be able to moderate or censor your content.

If your usage of the site were to break our terms of service / license agreement we would reserve the right to no longer do business with you but this is no different to any other company offering similar services. But, regardless, the data is still yours and you may then take it wherever you want in that case.

Naturally you’re more than welcome to not do business with us based on whatever bad experience you feel you have had with us but please substantiate your claims or withdraw them.

 

[Paul M]

While it would be great if they backed up their claims, they are not obligated to.
Equally, if they choose not to back them up, they are not obligated to withdraw them.
However, if they dont, I suggest everyone treat them as they would any other unsubstantiated claim.

 

[Tracy Perry]

We have already been seeing this destroy America for a long time now and that is what is occurring right this moment.

Sorry, censorship is part and parcel of life. What you desire is actually anarchy, where nobody is responsible and all can do whatever they wish.
The fact remains that on corporate support sites certain behaviors and topics are unacceptable. Those behaviors may be fine on other sites, but most businesses are rather conservative on what they allow as they tend to not want to offend others. You have a choice to comport yourself to their behavioral requirements or you have the option to haul your happy ass elsewhere. The choice of which to do remains entirely with you. If you choose to not comport yourself to their requirements and continue violating the AUP/TOS of the site, fully expect yourself to be censored/banned.

I'm pretty sure I can sense which part of the political spectrum you trend towards just from some of your comments, and the fact that Trump was banned from FB and Twitter probably still sticks in your craw. But guess what, he agreed to abide by certain requirements and behaviors (even if those may have changed his continued use implied consent to abide by them). He violated those and ended up getting banned, in the words of a certain comb-over golden haired orange man he was being censored. In reality he wasn't.. his behavior was simply in violation of agreed to terms and he paid the price. The same theory applies on any company support site.

 

[Tracy Perry]

While it would be great if they backed up their claims, they are not obligated to.
Equally, if they choose not to back them up, they are not obligated to withdraw them.
However, if they dont, I suggest everyone treat them as they would any other unsubstantiated claim.

yeah, they aren't... but one then should consider them for what they are worth... the equivalent of male bovine excrement.

I was raised if you were going to make accusations, have the balls to back those accusations up with facts or STFU, you don't have a place at the table.
You know, the same theory that taught some to have the balls to say something to someones face that they say behind that persons back.
Of course you only have to look at my user tag to see what my opinions trend toward.

 

[zappaDPJ]

My understanding is that the main people at XF come from a place where there is not even an actual recognized right of "free speech," and it shows, both at XF and where they come from.

I can assure you that every individual here in the UK has the right to speak freely and make a complete ass of themselves just like they do in the US. At this very moment they're even gluing themselves to the motorway/freeway in order to do so.

 

[Pete]

I’d actually be surprised if the level of comment “being censored” would be tolerated on any of the cloud forums, not just the freedom-hating UK services. s230 isn’t a magic bullet and no, not all types of speech are free. I suspect if someone tried to post about how wonderful sharia law is, it would get short shrift from “free speech” advocates who, generally, want the right to say what they want and nothing else.

Anyway. Sadly for me I have no reason to run a regular forum service at this time otherwise I’d help with trying out XF Cloud.

 

[Chris D]

I'm honestly at a loss as to what incident was being referred to. Nothing springs to mind (and I've asked all the staff). In case it doesn't go without saying, whatever incident it is is not something that is inline with our policies in the slightest. Our rules are well documented and consistently enforced. Warnings we give are tied to specific rules so there's little scope for disagreement.

Of course everyone is entitled to free speech but, unfortunately, freedom of speech does not mean freedom of consequences.

 

[Pete]

I suspect it’s a “but mah freedumbs” issue from years and years ago that would simply cause a “no, not here” moment since XF.com has always been pretty apolitical (as do all the forum platform home communities) and it would have probably not raised an eyebrow. The fact that complainant is unwilling to cite source is probably because they would find out that their views would be equally unwelcome now as then - because no one needs politics on a site that has no business being political.

 

[zappaDPJ]

This thread prompted me to think if I've ever encountered or heard of a service provider stepping in to censor content. Ironically I have and every single one of them is based in the US e.g. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Amazon Web Services, Reddit etc. That says a lot about the recognized right of free speech.

 

[mysiteguy]

First point: that is apparently your 6,666th post.

Second point:

That sounds interesting, but there's a very big "but" that would keep me from trying it. You would have no real control, ownership or authority over your own data and user rules. I used to participate in Xenforo's own forum, a long time ago. I stopped because they are EXTREMELY censorship oriented, and have a super hair trigger when it comes to censoring you. It is clearly part of their mental DNA, and there is no reasoning with them. This extends even to your private communications with an individual person there, not even just public comments. They are very authoritarian in that regard. I'm not a political partisan, conservative, right winger or Republican, but for American users, for example, a good analogy would be to describe them as being just as authoritarian and convinced of their own "righteousness" about censorship as the liberal Democratic establishment here in the US who practically live for censorship while denying they are doing it. In fact in some certain respects and in my experience at the XF "community" they are even a bit worse and less tolerant. My understanding is that the main people at XF come from a place where there is not even an actual recognized right of "free speech," and it shows, both at XF and where they come from. And come to think of it, isn't IPS based there too? But I digress. It's been a while, but I think there was also at least one American with the XF team, but apparently one who comes from the generation of people here in the US who also tend to love censorship and weren't raised to love free speech unfortunately.

So what kind of forum and community could you possibly have if you are always under the threat of you and your users being censored by the very service provider for things which are not illegal or unlawful in your own country, or deserving of censorship by any reasonable free speech oriented standard, and beyond your control?

You say you're not right wing and/or partisan, but fill your posts with right wing partisanship. Everything after "but" in that was entirely one sided/partisan.

 

[mysiteguy]

The thing is, people who complain about their rights then point to non-government entity censorship as examples, clearly know little about "rights". These chest-thumpers conflate government and the private sector, because no such right exists in the private sector, with a few limited exceptions. You'd think that about nearly two decades of this being discussed here, the people making the false claims would stop it.

Community: Freedom of Speech Online?

Freedom of Speech in Your Community Online? While I've been online as a forum owner and administrator, I've had the occassion, as all forum administrators have, to be accused of not allowing the members of my community their rights of "freedom...

www.theadminzone.com

 

[Pete]

the people making the false claims would stop it.

Of course not, because 1) they don't get it and 2) actually getting it would invalidate their position anyway which cannot be allowed in their point of view.

 

[mysiteguy]

A Facebook friend of mine in the UK told me there is no actual right of free speech there as there (supposedly) is in the US. What often goes on in Europe, Australia and the UK regarding censorship and speech makes that sadly all too clear for those regions. Being better than locations like Saudi Arabia or North Korea regarding censorship and speech is not always saying much.

A Facebook friend told you so it must be true!

 

[John H20]

A Facebook friend told you so it must be true!

A Facebook friend that I've known for years now, is a married parent who seems to be a good parent to boot, operates a big and fairly successful website and business based in the UK, and who seems pretty smart and principled. So yes, I'd say a lot more credible so far than zappaDPJ's snarky post #9, but not true merely because of being a Facebook friend.

 

[GLucas]

I thought they invented + quoting in XF to avoid making a lot of continuous replies, I guess I missed it.

 

[John H20]

I thought they invented + quoting in XF to avoid making a lot of continuous replies, I guess I missed it.

You mean clicking +Quote could have kept it all in one reply? I was almost going to do copy and paste but it was too much to do. I've been out of practice. Ironic. Not been a forum user much lately. Let's see if I can do that over...

Okay, check out #25 now.

 

[John H20]

I’ve never read such nonsense and the fact that you don’t want to reveal yourself speaks volumes to the legitimacy of your claims.

But, suffice it to say, any XF Cloud customer is more than welcome to leave the service at any time, their files and user data in hand without question and we have no direct editorial control over the content you publish so we wouldn’t be able to moderate or censor your content.

If your usage of the site were to break our terms of service / license agreement we would reserve the right to no longer do business with you but this is no different to any other company offering similar services. But, regardless, the data is still yours and you may then take it wherever you want in that case.

Naturally you’re more than welcome to not do business with us based on whatever bad experience you feel you have had with us but please substantiate your claims or withdraw them.

You can take it for what it is - an unsubstantiated opinion. But when you say "the fact that you don’t want to reveal yourself speaks volumes to the legitimacy of your claims," are you not talking nonsense and disingenuousness with that? Does anyone even need to be taught the facts of life or have they never experienced those facts of life themselves about that if I want to eventually use the software and services regardless of what I wrote here? Does anyone even need it to be explained to them why Wikileaks, for example, enables people to provide their leaks anonymously? Or what all the implications are of the evil underway in the arrest and detention of Julian Assange himself? So while I may actually want to use your software and some services eventually despite what I wrote here, any 12 year old can explain why the last thing on earth I would want to do is provide any means of identifying me here, and no one needs any explaining of that or how that in no way "speaks volumes to the legitimacy of my claims."

While it would be great if they backed up their claims, they are not obligated to.
Equally, if they choose not to back them up, they are not obligated to withdraw them.
However, if they dont, I suggest everyone treat them as they would any other unsubstantiated claim.

Exactly, a sober minded voice of reason.

Sorry, censorship is part and parcel of life. What you desire is actually anarchy, where nobody is responsible and all can do whatever they wish.
The fact remains that on corporate support sites certain behaviors and topics are unacceptable. Those behaviors may be fine on other sites, but most businesses are rather conservative on what they allow as they tend to not want to offend others. You have a choice to comport yourself to their behavioral requirements or you have the option to haul your happy ass elsewhere. The choice of which to do remains entirely with you. If you choose to not comport yourself to their requirements and continue violating the AUP/TOS of the site, fully expect yourself to be censored/banned.

I'm pretty sure I can sense which part of the political spectrum you trend towards just from some of your comments, and the fact that Trump was banned from FB and Twitter probably still sticks in your craw. But guess what, he agreed to abide by certain requirements and behaviors (even if those may have changed his continued use implied consent to abide by them). He violated those and ended up getting banned, in the words of a certain comb-over golden haired orange man he was being censored. In reality he wasn't.. his behavior was simply in violation of agreed to terms and he paid the price. The same theory applies on any company support site.

"Sorry, censorship is part and parcel of life. What you desire is actually anarchy, where nobody is responsible and all can do whatever they wish."

No, I already made it clear there are legitimate limitations.

You're also wrong about your political guess at the end, and also showing your own bias. Censoring Trump was certainly an abomination, but I am no Trump supporter, Republican, right winger, conservative, or any other term one might wish to use for that.

Your attitude about censorship there is also exactly the kind of horror show destroying America.

I can assure you that every individual here in the UK has the right to speak freely and make a complete ass of themselves just like they do in the US. At this very moment they're even gluing themselves to the motorway/freeway in order to do so.

View attachment 55446

A Facebook friend of mine in the UK told me there is no actual right of free speech there as there (supposedly) is in the US. What often goes on in Europe, Australia and the UK regarding censorship and speech makes that sadly all too clear for those regions. Being better than locations like Saudi Arabia or North Korea regarding censorship and speech is not always saying much.

I suspect it’s a “but mah freedumbs” issue from years and years ago that would simply cause a “no, not here” moment since XF.com has always been pretty apolitical (as do all the forum platform home communities) and it would have probably not raised an eyebrow. The fact that complainant is unwilling to cite source is probably because they would find out that their views would be equally unwelcome now as then - because no one needs politics on a site that has no business being political.

None of what I've alluded to at XF's forum had anything to do with politics. It is simply useful and usually inescapably so to mention politics and political realities when discussing free speech issues at all, such as here.

You say you're not right wing and/or partisan, but fill your posts with right wing partisanship. Everything after "but" in that was entirely one sided/partisan.

No, you are wrong, and you are only illustrating why censorship is so harmful and dangerous because of how people can be so biased and off in their thinking and view of reality.

Without actually saying it yourself, you are committing one of the most blatant fallacies when it come to such matters - thinking that what I've said here must indicate I have a right wing bias. People do that a lot, so it's nothing new here with you.

Nope - think again. The Republicans, right wingers, conservatives, and whatever else you want to call them are evil in their own way and practice their own flavor of evil. But censorship and suppression of free speech is one of the particularly signature preferences and abominations of the liberal Democrat side of the two winged bird. The right wing red team only likes a little of that, but nothing like the blue team.

The thing is, people who complain about their rights then point to non-government entity censorship as examples, clearly know little about "rights". These chest-thumpers conflate government and the private sector, because no such right exists in the private sector, with a few limited exceptions. You'd think that about nearly two decades of this being discussed here, the people making the false claims would stop it.

Community: Freedom of Speech Online?

Freedom of Speech in Your Community Online? While I've been online as a forum owner and administrator, I've had the occassion, as all forum administrators have, to be accused of not allowing the members of my community their rights of "freedom...

www.theadminzone.com

You don't know what you are talking about. The corporate censorship is being done in cooperation with, partnership with, and at the request of and sometimes even under the threat of government. It is effectively as much state censorship as it is private censorship, and a way for government to circumvent the Bill of Rights in that way.

This thread prompted me to think if I've ever encountered or heard of a service provider stepping in to censor content. Ironically I have and every single one of them is based in the US e.g. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Amazon Web Services, Reddit etc. That says a lot about the recognized right of free speech.

Right, exactly. Like I said, America itself is being destroyed by such censorship, despite our supposed recognized right of free speech.

And in case you are not aware, what you have pointed out is political in nature. Naturally the pretext of righteousness is added, since we can't have anyone admitting to the obvious. So naturally all the censorship is holy and pure - because they say so, those who are doing it and demanding that they do it. And the scary part is when some actually believe the lies, including their own lies.

And naturally you can therefore understand why someone might be concerned about it happening with any cloud service such as the one under discussion here.