Hello, On Mon, Apr 13, 2020 at 10:33:25PM +0200, Mathias Behrle wrote: > * Neil McGovern: " Re: Testing Discourse for Debian - Moderation concepts" > (Mon, 13 Apr 2020 19:56:28 +0100): > > I just want to state, I won't debate any issues around freedom of > > speech. I believe that these do not apply in this context > > I think, freedom of speech *can be* an issue when you hand over moderation to > a system and random people that are not explicitely delegated to do those > tasks. > > > - especially with Debian being a private entity. > > I tried hard to understand this part of hte sentence, but failed. Could you > please elaborate?
Not to speak for Neil, but it's generally argued that private entities cannot censor, because a nation/state can tell you that you cannot express an opinion using your own resources. By contrast a private entity like Debian can only tell you that you cannot express that opinion using *Debian's* resources: Debian can't prevent you from publishing it independently, So Debian can't, under this line of argument, censor you. And if you look back at some of the most vocal critics of Debian recently, they certainly have not been wanting for ways to express their opinions. But on the other hand a lot of people have a much looser definition of censorship which includes "I wanted to say X on site Y, but site Y's admins said I couldn't." Cheers, Andy
