Hate speech / cyber-bullying. Avoiding bad PR

By the way, @Troy your godwin point is not a good argument here. We need something to block unwanted content. Post it with your real name or a nickname will not change anything about that.

Flaburgan: I don't really need to know your real name, but if flaburgan@some_random_pod starts posting about how the holocaust was the greatest thing ever and generally being abusive, how am I to tell if it's you, or if it's someone else?

It would be just as easy for a malicious poster to set up an account called troybenjegerdes@random_pod and started posting hate speech. Forcing people to use a screen name that resembles a 'real' name changes nothing in terms of one person impersonating another - unless you propose forcing people to upload a scan of their birth certificate when registering - but it does impact on the privacy of many other users in the process, as David McMullin points out.

We can't solve the issue of identifying people trying to imitate another user - let's not even try? :) All we can do is make sure pod security is tight and what is outside is outside. And a "report to podmin" link on content and person profiles would be nice of course.

I like the idea of adding a "report to podmin" feature for content and accounts. I'm unsure whether it's currently feasible, but perhaps we could also give podmins the ability to blacklist pods from federating content that may cause legal problems or is in violation of that specific pod's ToS? So if some nut out there starts up holocaustdeniaspora.com, other pods that want nothing to do with content of that nature have a way to distance themselves.

I would recommend instead of implementing a real-name search, the following:

Use contact APIs for different social services that a user has authenticated with their accounts. A user opts in to being able to be found through their connected social accounts, and they can only be found by people they're already friends with on these other social networks. Therefore, random people can't just look someone up through just their social account, but if you're already friends, you can find them on Diaspora easily.

What about telling the people with a message"Warning: maybe [email protected] is not the same person as [email protected]." when ignoring someone([email protected] in this example).

Of course, we have to take in mind that both Johns are reachable by the user or [email protected] has checked the searchable box.

But please, whatever you do do not create a general black list for users neither for contents this is illegal in some places and is totally unnecessary(he/she can create a new account!). I think you know it, but I want to make it very clear.

Remember: Banning is a different thing, banning is not general black list because is applied only on that pod.

I find this conversation moot as I would never use a pod that would censor in any way shape or form. I find the whole notion of censorship on Diaspora to be repugnant and against the spirit of the whole project. If a podmin is having issues then they should put up a disclaimer that new users would have to agree to that basically states that a user takes responsibility for their own data, content and views when they join. Essentially the podmin is not responsibly if the user posts something illegal or offensive. However I still find this whole conversation to be just the first step along the slippery slope of turning Diaspora into Facebook. Why was Diaspora founded? To promote privacy and freedom, and here we are talking about censorship? Free speech isn't just for the topics you want advertised. It's for the taboo topics too. It's for the "terrorists" (also consider that under the NDAA pretty much anyone that challenges the gov't is a "terrorist") and the pedophiles and holocaust apologists, and the nazi's and whoever else wants to express their views. What one could do is create personal filter lists to block terms they don't want to show up in their stream. Instead of having the podmin censor users have each user simply censor out posts they themselves don't like. You don't like harsh language? Then block posts that have bad words in them. You don't like pedophiles? then block pedophile content from your stream. You don't like nazies? Block them from your stream. This could have other benefits as well by thinning one's stream and eliminating excess posts. But ultimately this comes down to an important question of intention: Are we trying to make the user more comfortable by getting rid of offensive content for them or are we trying to go on an offensive moral cruisade for them?

@blindsite It's not that easy. As the text on top says: "Some countries have legal ramnifications for publishing certain material (be it copyright, cyber-bullying, hatespeech etc)". This is not about censorship. This is about satisfying the law of those countries where podmins hosted their servers.

@blindsite I totally disagree with you and removing pedo content for example (as has been done on some pods lately..) is well justified and totally right from the podmin - TOS or no TOS.

For anyone wanting to post pedo or other sick stuff? Get off D* please ...

IMHO it should be up to the podmin to decide what content he/she approves. And it is my right as a podmin to block with a firewall any pod who accepts pedo or other sick stuff.