Also, in full transparency. You won’t find me in debates or discourse about much of the “hot topics” or the “footgun topics” Politics, Religion, etc. They frankly rarely produce any meaningful output or outcome and often devolve into circular arguments and hate on both sides of an issue. I personally am far more interested in technical discussions, engineering discussions, and business discussions.
Fair question, and have sat thinking about answering it changed my mind about the wording I am using.
What I actually built is due process, not a speech policy — no shadowbans, you’re told which rule you broke, warnings before bans, public appeals. That came from getting shadowbanned off Reddit for advertising my own business with no notice and no recourse.
“Free speech” was the wrong description for that and I’ve pulled it from the description. The line I’m drawing: you can argue an unpopular position here without being removed for it, but you can’t dehumanize people for who they are. Bigotry isn’t dissent — it drives out the people who make a place worth being in. I personally want OpenMic to be welcoming to others, with out the disenfranchising hate, or destructive speech. It’ll be there, it’ll happen and I’ll do my best to clean it up. I can promise one thing I learned a long time ago is we can all find something to disagree about, and we can easily come up with reasons to hate one another. Thats not very interesting and makes life not fun.
So while I appreciate your question (part of me thinks it had ulterior motives and was more of a trap, this thread is full of it) I think my use of free speech may have been misguided. I also teach my kids regularly that while you have freedom of speech, you don’t have freedom of consequences because of that speech.
I am human, I am learning as I go, I am definitely not perfect. I am however willing to learn and improve.
I also took these comments to heart and made some updates to our sidebar. I appreciate anyone who wants to participate in good faith, I started this because Reddit shadow banned me simply for trying to advertise my business. They didn’t even give me an opportunity to make things right, and it was a honest mistake. I think thats a really crappy thing to do to people. I don’t want to participate in that.
Fair questions — you deserve a direct answer: No. A pro-Nazi community wouldn’t be allowed here, and neither is racism, transphobia, or misogyny — “aimed broadly” or not. I in no way support hate.
“Free speech” here means something specific: we don’t shadowban, we tell you exactly which rule you broke and give you a path to fix it, and we won’t remove you for an unpopular opinion or a hard argument made in good faith. It does not mean a license to dehumanize people for who they are. Bigotry isn’t brave dissent — it’s harassment with a wider target, and it drives out the very people who make a place worth being in.
If drawing that line costs us the crowd who think “free speech” means “slurs welcome” — good. They were never the point. The mic’s open to everyone; it’s not a megaphone for hate. Be a good human. It isn’t hard. You can debate your point with out dehumanizing others, when you can’t, you’ve already lost the argument.
Possibly. We will see.
On the reverse of that, if you want to promote the opposite you are more than welcome to, free speech is a two way street. I don’t really tolerate hate though. Maybe I’ll update our description.
No definitely not trying to allow bigotry. You are definitely entitled to feel that way though.
If you say so…