So, since we’re starting to get some actual traction, even being posted about on the hard R. I figured we should probably have a little post explaining the instance and it’s goals.
What Burggit aims to be
Burggit aims to be a platform for Free Thought and Expression. Our goal is to have a place where people can freely and respectfully express their ideas/opinions without fear of being censored because they decided to use the wrong terms/wordings.
We will also not immediately suspend a user for their first infraction, though we will definitely warn them and won’t be afraid to take action of it continues.
What Burggit is not
We are not another Kiwifarms, Gab or Voat!
While we’re fine with people posting offensive speech and imagery, we won’t allow them to use their right to “Free Speech” as a weapon against the overall health of the platform. Threatening, Berating, Dogpiling, Doxxing and otherwise being complete and total assholes to other users will not be tolerated.
Having a different, unpopular opinion on a sensitive topic is fine, but there’s absolutely no reason why anyone would not be able to express those opinions respectfully. And if you can’t express those opinions without being shitty to other users directly, that’s not something we’re going to be putting up with.
If we believe that a user of ours is causing problems for our instance or other instances, we will not hesitate to deal with them.
But what does it mean to be shitty?
For clarification I’ll add some examples of behavior which would be deemed not okay.
Please note, this is not an exhaustive list.
- Calling out death to a group or individual
- Targeting another individual/user regardless of reason (Discussing something in a way which could be percieved as rude doesn’t count, some people argue passionately and that’s okay.)
- Going out of your way to cause trouble with other friendly instances
- Attacking someone’s character, motive, or some other attribute of the person making an argument rather than addressing the substance of the argument itself. Also known as Ad hominem’s
Can we have some clarification on what’s allowed in regards to “hate speech”?
On one hand:
“Burggit aims to be a platform for Free Thought and Expression. Our goal is to have a place where people can freely and respectfully express their ideas/opinions without fear of being censored because they decided to use the wrong terms/wordings.”
“While we’re fine with people posting offensive speech and imagery, we won’t allow them to use their right to “Free Speech” as a weapon against the overall health of the platform. Threatening, Berating, Dogpiling, Doxxing and otherwise being complete and total assholes to other users will not be tolerated.”
And in the rules:
“Minimal Restrictions on Content/Speech.”
“Do not out right harass other users. Opposing opinions and potentially offensive speech is fine, but don’t go out of your way to endlessly berate someone. This includes users of other instances.”
But on the other hand:
“Anything is allowed here as long as it’s not anything illegal in The Netherlands”
“No illegal content under Netherlands law”
Looking it up, the hate speech laws are:
"The Dutch penal code prohibits both insulting a group (article 137c) and inciting hatred, discrimination or violence (article 137d). The definition of the offences as outlined in the penal code is as follows:
Article 137c: “He who publicly, orally, in writing or graphically, intentionally expresses himself insultingly regarding a group of people because of their race, their religion or their life philosophy, their heterosexual or homosexual orientation or their physical, psychological or mental disability, shall be punished by imprisonment of no more than a year or a monetary penalty of the third category.”
Article 137d: “He who publicly, orally, in writing or graphically, incites hatred against, discrimination of or violent action against person or belongings of people because of their race, their religion or their life philosophy, their gender, their heterosexual or homosexual orientation or their physical, psychological or mental disability, shall be punished by imprisonment of no more than a year or a monetary penalty of the third category.”"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_by_country#Netherlands
Sorry I don’t mean to rock the boat by getting all technical. My personal belief is that no speech should be restricted or regulated Except calls to harm someone physically, and/or calls to prevent someone from doing what they need to survive. (I.e. Telling a crowd to surround someone’s home, preventing them from working and buying food, etc.)
What’s your consensus for terms like t–p, n----r, f----t etc?
I don’t use these terms (except t–p because come on.) But I’m wondering what’s allowed here.
The “Anything is allowed here as long as it’s not anything illegal in The Netherlands” is honestly just to cover us for things such as IRL bestiality porn and other content without explicitly having a like 10-page ruleset of what is and isn’t allowed. We do not have to comply with the speech restrictions of The Netherlands, so “Hate Speech” is not enforced here. Individual communities might make their own rules about it and can enforce them as they wish, but it’s not enforced site-wide.
Words such as “Trap, Nigger, Faggot” etc… would all be fine. The primary thing we do not tolerate is specifically harassing groups/individuals. For example, you could say “what a faggot” in response to a post and in a general context. But actively throwing slurs at another user with the malicious intent to bully, harass, dogpile or otherwise be an asshole. That might cause some problems. Especially if you continued to do it after the user expressed discomfort, or tapped out of the conversation.
It’s fine to express a controversial or widely disliked opinion or say controversial things. However, all opinions should be able to be expressed respectfully, if you can’t express an opinion without being a complete asshole and actively causing problems for other users, that’s where we draw the line. And to be even more clear, when I say “actively causing problems for other users”, I don’t mean saying a word which is seen as offensive and someone acting like you literally just shot their dog. I mean actively going out of your way to target and berate people.
For users who see this as a problem, Lemmy has a block feature and if you object to the speech of certain users, we encourage you to block them on your end.
In the end, this is a very complex issue, so I can’t cover every situation that might come up, and I’d also like to leave some leeway for interpretation.
This ofcourse all goes out the window when interacting with communities on other instances. When interacting with communities of other instances we ask you follow the rules of those instances and communities, we’d rather avoid making any more enemies than we have to.
I hope this could answer most of your questions, though. In the end, just try to stay respectful and kind to other users.
That answers everything. Thank you for the detailed answer.
I’m happy I could help!