PERROLIJO: I prefer a place in which I can talk freely than a place that can remove my comments and threads. If that happens some day, I will have to search another forum.

MYRSAN: So do I. But well, e.g. I also don't need to insult people personally. But personal insults are forbidden by law and at least in some countries administrators are even held responsible to remove them from their website.

I'm not cg, but I suppose he wouldn't have any problem to remove conflictive content if he is forced by law, and in the case of major offenses, sharing as much information as it is in his hand with the forces of law to get the offender a punishment (or at least I think that is what he should do).

We have to differenciate between censorship and illegal content here. Yes, insults are illegal, but still a minor offense, and we know this is internet, nobody has name and surnames (Facebook and similars are different). Still, insulting people carries a suspension from SG.

7 years ago

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Luckz

It gets funny when you have to follow the laws of 900 different countries :>

7 years ago

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perrolijo

Oh I found this in the Privacy Policy:

Do We Disclose Any Information to Outside Parties?
We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to outside parties your personally identifiable information. This does not include trusted third parties who assist us in operating our website, conducting our business, or providing information to you, so long as those parties agree to keep this information confidential. We may also release your information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with the law, enforce our site policies, or protect ours or others rights, property, or safety.

Now I wonder how that works under some very particular scenarios, like when a user from X country posts a thread/comment ranting about the dictator of X, making cg receive a mail from X's goverment asking him to disclosure all the info about said user.

7 years ago

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Luckz

My latest IANAL musings were that Steamgifts offering country-specific features (i.e. offering giveaways limited to people from that specific countries -- definitely the case for China or Germany; more debatable for Costa Rica as they're lumped with all other South American countries) might mean having to comply with the laws of those countries, and the laws of those countries might require you to disclose personal information about somebody who criticised the local dictator, or to comply with local speech laws.

For example, there are Erdoğan-critical posts, and SG has Turkey as a GA region.
There are users with Nazi-glorifying swastika-laden avatars, and many countries outlaw that, like Germany. The last time I reported one (within a reroll request) I was told the best I could do was not send the won game to that account.

I don't know how this legally works when a site merely profits from its users without them paying anything, though. WIth a store like Steam, the moment they introduced country-specific currencies and restrictions they had to abide by the local laws too (and yet they didn't for years because it is/was a poorly monitored market). SteamGifts has ads and the BundleStars reflinks and thus is a commercial venture, but whether SteamGifts thus has to abide by the laws of all countries it specifically targets is something I cannot answer.

7 years ago

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Myrsan

He closed it? Meh.

I agree on illegal content.

Regarding the term censorship (sorry for repeating partially): websites are privately owned and therefore the site owner or the administrators can remove/edit postings like they want. It's their "house right". Of course, you as user can also request the website owner to remove your account and / or all postings you've ever made, if you decide to not use the website anymore.
A reasonable community website owner of course tries to find a balance between rules and sanctions and the user's interests.There are always people who want total freedom for all or only for themselves including spamming, trolling etc. And then there are others who want the owner to execute several disciplinary measures to keep the community atmosphere positive.

Censorship on the other hand is the removal of texts and other media as well as disabling citizens to use their right on free speech by the goverment or its institutions. Usually this is prohibited in democratic states by their constitution.

I was a moderator/administrator for a few years and I just hate people throwing the term "censorship" directed to the usual voluntary people working on the community (and that includes harmless things like managing stickies or critical things like banning or deleting postings / threads).

7 years ago

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perrolijo

The problem is defining what spamming/trolling/etc is, and where is the borderline. it would be too subjetive and no consistent between different support members. I prefer trolls, that I can just ignore, than removed comments.
And don't fall in the falacy of dictionary definitions, each one gives a different definition of words:

Censorship: the act or practice of censoring.
Censor (verb): to delete (a word or passage of text) in one's capacity as a censor.
Censor (noun): any person who supervises the manners or morality of others.

7 years ago

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Myrsan

That's why I didn't look up a dictionary for that, but described it myself. :P
When you're visiting someone and somehow you get into a really bad dispute, is it censorship if that person requests you to leave their home? You can't enforce your freedom of speech on a private owned website.

7 years ago

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perrolijo

Freedom of speech is not present in all websites, I know. Some places don't let you mention competitors for example, or mention different shops than their sponsors. And of course any site is in their legitimate right of remove whatever random content they want. But it is still censorship. And I like liberty. Liberty and respect. (SG practices censorship with respect to referral links, for example)

With respect to the house, I know what you mean (my house my rules), but just pointing out that you are not deleting anything but forcing people to do/not do something. I would call it mmm suppresion, or something like that (well, if that wasn't your house xd). I'm sure it is a more suitable word for it.

To summarize, I think removing spam/troll comments has more negative effects than ignoring them (as long as they don't break any rule). But it is just my personal opinion. Of course there are rules against spammers, and they get suspended.

7 years ago*

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Luckz

In the human morality that I can sympathise with, bigger websites with more market-share are more heavily expected not to randomly censor their users -- on Rock Paper Shotgun, Breitbart Tech, or Kotaku, you'd expect the clear political leanings of the owners to reflect in the moderation. That's fine, there's always alternative sites to use. Users go there expecting to be censored or abused for dissenting opinions. On the other hand, if Steam itself suddenly bans every poster who describes themselves as a "Communist" on their profile (political), or disables negative reviews entirely ('freedom of expression'? consumer rights.), you can imagine the pitchforks being sharpened.

7 years ago

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perrolijo

Thinking a bit more about censorship... because that wasnt your house, and that wasnt your site... mmm give me some time >_<

7 years ago

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perrolijo

I think the difference can be that your house is a private place, you live there and you can invite your friends, tell them to go out if they want to smoke, forbidding them to return to your house because of kissing your spouse... But a forum is more like a club, a gathering point... A guy called Fred hires an establishment(?) and organize roleplaying games daily for all people that want to join. Fred has his rules, some basic rules of cohabitation, for example you can't smoke inside the place. Some time passed, a community is formed around that place, you have your group of people you get along, a group of people you don't talk with, etc. A day Fred decided to forbid people to wear shorts, because he doesn't like to see male legs full of hair. Fred is on his right to do it, but still somehow I don't see it fair. An extreme case would be Fred forbidding acccess to the place to homosexuals/afroamericans. I would say that is discrimination, even if he is paying the place.

7 years ago

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Myrsan

Yes, that's a good example. if a community grows (and Steamgifts has become a really big community), people get used to it. They spent many hours in it, were maybe very helpful, wrote guides etc., and therefore it wouldn't be fair to shut the community down or to ban an often helpful user due to a "small" rule-breaking.
Therefore this won't happen. cg probably won't ever say "postings about Origin will be deleted and multiple attempts to write them will lead to a user ban". But he could. And some users sometimes should re-think about this and be a little thankful for this opportunity and show respect. But instead "Censorship" is often used as a killer argument, after users have been suspended or sth. alike.

7 years ago

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