Post from jayclees | Squabblr - Social Discussions
squabblr.co
The terms of service have been updated. With the exception of racist content, the use of slurs (racial or otherwise), targeted harassment, and incitement of violence, Squabblr is now a free speech platform.

So I mean, most of us knew this beforehand and being on the fediverse we probably do not really care, but what was always on the horizon has no happened, the owner of Squabblr finally had enough having to be a decent person and has decided that his site is now “free speech purism”, so he gets to continue to insult LGBTQ people like he always does.

Seems from the comments that some other admins disagreed with the decision (so there were some decent people on that site!) and either left or were removed.

Not entirely surprising the whole thing, granted.

(edit)
Also, apologies as this isn’t truly reddit news but Squabblr was one of the sites frequently brought up in /r/redditalternatives so I figured this might still be relevant?

  • Pat@kbin.run
    0·
    2 years ago

    IMO if sites want to take a “free speech” approach without allowing bigots, maybe they should adopt the Canadian law. We don’t have free speech, we have what’s known as “freedom of expression”. Essentially, we can say whatever unless it’s hate speech or bigoted.

    Yeah, Canada has censorship, but it’s essentially just to censor racist idiots and homophobic fools.

    • Lvxferre@lemmy.ml
      0·
      2 years ago

      A way to improve it further is to see freedom of speech as quantitative, try to maximise it for all parties involved, and look at the consequences of banning a certain discourse or not.

      Using hate speech as an example:

      • if you forbid it, you’re lowering a bit the freedom of speech of those who’d otherwise voice it. It’s only a bit because they’re still allowed to voice non-hateful discourses there.
      • if you allow it, you’re lowering a lot the freedom of speech of those who’d be targeted by it. It’s a lot because they’ll disengage and leave.

      So by banning hate speech you’re actually increasing the overall freedom of speech, even if reducing it a bit for a certain audience.

      The same reasoning applies towards other situations. Like “that fucking user” doing the online equivalent of megaphoning so nobody else is heard; misplaced porn, gore, or other things that a lot of people would rather not see; harassment (it is performative speech, and yet you need to prevent it).

      I feel like this covers what you’ve linked about freedom of expression in Canada, but it’s a bit more practical and flexible to adapt into online communities.

      Also, it’s important to take into account that there’s a hierarchy between discourses, when trying to maximise freedom of speech: descriptive > prescriptive > performative.