free_speech | Welcome to free

This community is to discuss free speech, free speech news, and free speech politics worldwide. There's only a few rules:

Respect the Dreamwidth Terms of Service.

Be aware that there are many definitions of free speech throughout the world. Argue about which is better if you must, but argue politely.

Stay on topic.

A few things that came up while we were hammering the community rules, posted here in the interest of openness:

Do you allow "hate speech"?

We do not allow anything that is prohibited by section XI, item 1 of Dreamwidth's Terms of Service. That means we do not allow "any content that is harmful, threatening, abusive, hateful, invasive to the privacy and publicity rights of any person, or that violates any applicable local, state, national, or international law, including any regulation having the force of law".

That said, we are not members of the Terms of Service team. If content is reported to us, and we are unsure of whether or not it falls into this category:
- If the content is a comment, we will as a measure of good faith screen the comment until we can make sure whether or not the comment is a violation of the Terms of Service. If it is not, and the content does not violate any other rules of the community, the comment will be restored.
- If the content is an entry, we have to leave the entry visible while we check whether there is a Terms of Service violation, as it is currently not possible to hide entries. If the entry is a Terms of Service violation, we will delete the entry (and the Terms of Service team may at their discretion pursue further action).
Do you allow defense of "hate speech"?

As long as people are not trying to abuse this rule to claim they avoid violating the Terms of Service themselves, we will allow defense of "hate speech" as this is, by definition, covered by the politics of free speech. This means that there may be views that you do not agree with, or feel offended by.

Please be respectful towards your fellow community members and others, and keep in mind that there is a thin line between discussion/defense of "hate speech", and actual hate speech. Remember, this community is for discussing free speech, and is not a platform for any topic other than free speech. If we feel that you are attempting to game the system by abusing this rule, you may be banned from the community and reported to the Terms of Service team. In particular, if anybody feels that someone is abusing this rule, please contact the admins privately, and please also consider contacting the Terms of Service team.