2. It's strange how the simple things, efforts and connections mean so much these days
3. It is joyous and comforting how many interesting, loving, quirky, emotional, sincere messages I've found, and how few trolls I've stumbled upon. Hope it stays that way (understanding that it may be unlikely if it keeps getting more visibility).
4. I have no idea if by deleting reported spam you become more culpable/liable for any offensive messages you don't remove, or any freedom of speech issues - check the laws in your region I guess, and yes it's sad that one has to think about these things :-/
Honestly, regarding 3, I've been really impressed by how positive people have been. When this was near the top of Reddit about a month ago, I really spend about 48 hours frantically coding and moderating. Those 48 hours taught me a lot about content moderation though.
On the whole, it's been an _incredibly_ positive community of people writing letters. We've received over 115,000 letters, and they've been read over 15 million times. Many of the first 75,000 letters were spam and highly moderated content. But I've been able to read most of the past 35,000 or so, and an astonishing number are kind, thoughtful, or heartbreaking.
We've also had a lot of positivity coming from non-english countries, which I've encouraged and enjoyed seeing on social media. It's been a bit of an excuse to brush up on my French. I'd eventually love to have a better native experience for non-english speakers, but there are only so many hours in the day.
I think it's something about the earnestness of your website. The welcome message is friendly and it sets the tone. It didn't even occur to me to write something nasty, and this was before I even checked what others had written.
Regarding 4, it's a private website. I don't think freedom of speech applies. If you have some sources that say otherwise I'd be interested to read them.
Right, should edit/correct (but can not in original message), I don't think it is a freedom of speech issue; rather, a defamation/libel issue which is complex internationally and very different in otherwise similar jurisdictions.
My understanding that (recent news notwithstanding), generally publisher vs utility law in USA regarding ISPs, social networks, forums, etc, does take into account whether you are simply a platform (you don't moderate, just host) or publisher (you do write and moderate content), and protection against libel etc is different.
I am EXTREMELY not a lawyer but I do understand private websites have been bitten over their content once they started moderating / taking responsibility for it, i.e. unwittingly changed their status under that statute.
My suggestion to the author is merely to ensure they are taking the course that's wise and protective for themselves, in their particular jurisdiction, for their specific use case.
The recent Section 230 executive order[1] would be relevant here. Normally social networks have immunity from prosecution if they publish a defamatory or libelous statement (this is the so-called "magazine stand" model). But if the executive order is legal then selectively censoring (or "moderating") what your users post means that immunity no longer applies and you can be sued for any statement that you allowed a user to publish on your network.
This isn't directly related to First Amendment freedom of speech rights, the issue is one of liability (but the purpose of the liability is -- allegedly -- to force platforms to uphold the principle of freedom of speech).
Democrats in Congress specifically grilled social network execs in the wake of the perceived “fake news” crisis in 2016 and pushed the social networks to adopt these fact-checking measures. Now the White House wants to strip their immunity for it. So, which is it? Rock and hard place?
2. It's strange how the simple things, efforts and connections mean so much these days
3. It is joyous and comforting how many interesting, loving, quirky, emotional, sincere messages I've found, and how few trolls I've stumbled upon. Hope it stays that way (understanding that it may be unlikely if it keeps getting more visibility).
4. I have no idea if by deleting reported spam you become more culpable/liable for any offensive messages you don't remove, or any freedom of speech issues - check the laws in your region I guess, and yes it's sad that one has to think about these things :-/
5. Best of luck! :)