Moderation guidelines

Status

This document is a working draft and incomplete.

Missing aspects:

• spam
• automated posts
• high-frequency posts
• …

Non‐normative summary

We wish to provide an environment in which queer and neurodivergent people can be their authentic selves. In addition to communication itself, we have various tools for restricting communication to help us achieve that goal.

We need however be mindful that every action we take may not only protect from harm, but can also be harmful by itself. We should therefore in general respect people’s autonomy in deciding with whom they wish to interact and what kind of content they like to see. We should only limit that autonomy to a degree that is necessary and effective to achieve our goals.

Distribution of content that is strictly illegal under the laws of the Federal Repulic of Germany, whether we agree with them or not, obviously undermines our goals because it may result in termination of this instance.

Communication may be harmful to others, both to users of this instance as well as on other instances. Harmfulness can be difficult to assess and quantify objectively and always requires consideration of the larger context. Communication content can be annoying or distressing to people, or it might cause them to take harmful action.

Our moderation actions should be proportional to the risk of harm resulting from the communication we moderate. We should attempt cooperative measures (discussing an issue with the originators of a communication or the moderators of another instance) before we forcefully restrict communication.

We should also note that we have the ability to apply restrictions selectively both in terms of the communication parties or content as well as the degree of restriction.

Restrictions can be applied based on local user identity, remote instance name, hash tag or content keywords. They may be applied to messages themselves or media attachments. And the degree of restriction can vary from a reduction in visibility to complete termination.

Local users

Local users are generally moderated through the administrative web interface of this instance and available moderation actions include

• unlisting (removal from federated timeline), mrf_tag:force-unlisted,
• sandboxing (removal from public timelines), mrf_tag:sandbox,
• marking media attachments as sensitive, mrf_tag:media-force-nsfw,
• stripping media attachments, mrf_tag:media-strip,
• account deactivation, and
• account deletion.

Instances

Instances are moderated through this Git repository using the following settings:

• activities:
  • unlist: Remove activities from federated timeline,
  • restrict: force activities to be visible to followers only, or
  • reject: reject all activities except deletes.
• media:
  • mark: Mark media attachments as sensitive, or
  • strip: strip all media attachments.

Hashtags

Hashtags can be matched by case‐insensitive exact match with the following flags:

• sensitive: Mark tagged activities as sensitive, and
• unlisted: remove tagged activities from federated timeline.

Key words

Key words are matched by regular expression with the following options for moderation:

• unlist: Remove matching activities from federated timelines, or
• reject: reject matching activities altogether.

Definitions

The key words shall, shall not, should, should not, may are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119.

• shall: strict adherence, no deviation
• should: recommendation, deviation with good reason
• may: suggestion, optional, but good manners

Representation

The term representation applies to both textual (something being described in text) and pictoral (something shown in a still image or video) representation. It applies whether or not the represented idea is real or imaginary.

Visibility guidelines

• unrestricted
  • Activities may be visible in public timelines.
  • Media attachments may not be marked as sensitive.
• restricted
  • Activities shall not be visible in public timelines if unlabeled.
  • Activities should be labelled with a content warning.
  • Activities may be visible in public timelines if labelled with a content warning.
  • Media attachments shall be marked as sensitive.
• prohibited
  • Activities shall be rejected.
  • Media attachments shall be stripped.

Personal integrity

Many individuals experience discomfort or distress when confronted with the compromise of a person’s integrity.

Personal integrity includes:

• Physical (bodily) integrity
• Mental (emotional) integrity

Representation of:

• compromise of personal integrity should be restricted.
  • invasive medical procedures
  • mental health
• non-consensual compromise of personal integrity shall be restricted.
  • physical violence
  • psychological abuse

Practical application:

• Media depicting physical violence shall be marked as sensitive and labelled with violence.
• Posts about mental health issues should be labelled with mh.

Nudity & sexuality

Nudity and sexuality are considered private to varying degrees in most cultures. Some individuals have experienced trauma related to sexuality and find confrontation with nudity or sexuality distressing. Some representations of sexuality are illegal.

Representation of:

• any penis, vulva or anus should be restricted.
  • body parts commonly used to experience sexual pleasure
• bare anthromorphic torso may be restricted.
  • unclothed breasts, abdomen or buttocks
• non‐sexual nudity may be unrestricted.
  • breast-feeding of children
  • non‐sexual nudity in medical settings
  • non‐sexual nudity in culturally accepted settings
• erotic or sexual nudity shall be restricted.
• erotic or sexual nudity involving humans or anthropomorphic characters below the age of 18 shall be prohibited.
• sexuality should be restricted.
• sexuality involving humans or anthropomorphic chararcters below the age of 16 shall be prohibited.
  • edge case: person describing their own experience of sexual abuse

Practical application:

• Pictures with nudity should generally be marked as sensitive and labelled with nudity.
• Sexually suggestive pictures without nudity should be marked as sensitive and labelled with lewd or suggestive.
• Explicit descriptions or depictions of sexual activity shall be marked as sensitive and labelled with lewd.

Bodily emissions

Emissions from a being’s body tend to be considered private in most cultures. Many individuals experience discomfort when confronted with them.

Representation of:

• bleeding or blood should be restricted.
• micturition or urine should be restricted.
• defecation or feces should be restricted.
• ejaculation or ejaculate shall be restricted.

Practical application:

• Descriptions or depictions of blood should be marked as sensitive and labelled with blood.
• Pictures of dog excrement should be marked as sensitive and labelled with scat.

Existential threats

Confrontation with existential threats may be important, but can be highly distressing.

Representation of:

• existential threats to any population should be restricted.

Practical application:

• Discussions of war or climate change should be labelled with appropriate content warnings.

Politics

Discussion of politics is very important, but can be exhausting. Some political ideologies are fundamentally incompatible with our values.

Practical application:

• Discussion of politics may be labelled with content warnings (pol, depol, uspol etc.).

Food

Food and its consumption are not considered private in most cultures, but some individuals have eating disorders and may experience distress when confronted with food.

Representation of:

• eating or food may be restricted.

Practical application:

• Pictures of meals may be marked as sensitive and labelled with food.

Eye contact

Eye contact may be experienced as uncomfortable by some people. May need some research.

Representation of:

• eyes focused on the viewer may be restricted.

Practical application:

• Selfies with eyes focused on the camera may be marked as sensitive and labelled with ec.

Escalation strategy

The moderation action should be proportional to the harm potential of the communication. Occasional mild infractions should be solved through cooperation while persistent or serious violations may require forceful action.

Failure to remedy an issue or repeated violation should be met with gradual escalation of measures.

(incomplete)

Prohibited content

Content that is obviously illegal or very harmful is prohibited.

• Any such content shall be deleted locally immediately.
• Local user accounts distributing any such content shall be restricted immediately by sandboxing or deactivation, they should however not be deleted without further investigation.
• Local user accounts primarily distributing such content shall be deleted immediately.
• Remote instances distributing any such content may be restricted immediately by restricting their activities and marking or stripping their attachments.
• Remote instances failing to contain the distribution of any such content within an adequate time period should at least be restricted by restricting their activities and stripping their attachments. They may also be defederated by rejecting their activities.
• Remote instances primarily distributing such content shall be defederated immediately by rejecting their activities and stripping their attachments.

Restricted content

• Any such content may be removed from the public and federated timelines if not adequately labelled.
• Any such content may be forcibly labelled with appropriate content warnings.
• Local user accounts distributing any such content without adequate labels should be contacted for cooperative resolution.
• Remote user accounts distributing any such content without adequate labels may be contacted for cooperative resolution.
• Local user accounts primarily distributing such content without adequate labels should be contacted for discussion.

(incomplete)

Cooperative communication

• Try to be friendly and respectful in your communication.
• Describe your role.
• Clearly describe the offending behaviour and explain the reason for it being considered offensive.
• Note whether improvement of the behaviour is a suggestion, a recommendation or mandatory.
• Mention the possible consequences if the behaviour is not improved.

Examples

“Hey, I am a moderator of this instance. My colleagues and I noticed that you have been posting a lot on current political events. While we have no strict rules about it, we feel that an excess of such content is very exhausting to our users. We therefore suggest that you consider labelling such posts as ??pol, so that users can skip over them if they are not interested, or publishing them as unlisted, so that they are not visible on the public timelines.

We trust in your ability to be considerate to others and don’t believe that any further action is required on our part.”

“Hey, I am part of the moderatorion team of this instance. We have received complaints from other users about sexually suggestive posts from your account. While not considered inappropriate per se, we recommend that such posts be labelled as suggestive or lewd and media marked as sensitive.

Please be reminded that if you continue to post such content without marking it appropriately, we may decide to remove your posts from the public timelines and mark all your media attachments as sensitive.”

“Hey, I am contacting you on behalf of this instances’s moderation team. You have been posting sexually explicit images without marking them as sensitive. This is however mandatory and if you violate this requirement again, we will restrict your posts to followers only and forcibly mark all your media attachments as sensitive.”

“Hi, I am writing to you on behalf of this instance’s moderation team. We have noticed that you have been mentioning … despite their clearly and repeatedly stated request not to be involved in the discussion any longer. We ask that you disengage and honour their wish. If you fail to do so, we will have to suspend your account.”