[ajacksified]

Because sometimes one doesn't want to host a platform for, say, Holocaust denial. Platforms can, and should, moderate speech pursuant to the values of the company, which _can_ mean anything from heavy moderation to none at all.

People who want to take part in "fringe" discussions, whether it goes agains the culture, or assholes (white supremacists) will end up on whatever platform they feel the most free and secure. But what happens when a group of antisemites discovers a Jewish community, and decides to comment on their posts, and harass them over PMs? The burden is placed on them to add filters for all of the users, or the content posted, which harms the growth of the group; a new member may visit the Jewish community, see it full of hate, and decide never to join. Through inaction, your platform has traded the safety and security of one group for another, and in my opinion, it's those who seek to harm others that should be removed, not the other way around.

I worked at Reddit for three years (left two years ago), and it's taken me a long time to realize this.

[GhostVII]

I suppose it depends what kind of platform you are hosting. With something like Vitriol, where you are mostly posting content independent of other people, it doesn't seem like there is much possibility for abuse. But with something like Reddit I can see how moderation is more important, since you can direct message people.

[vitriolum]

Exactly. It's not a community, it's more a tool for publishing content that other people consciously decide to follow. The point being that this content can't be shut down by a central organization, but will disappear if nobody cares about it.

[shkkmo]

> The burden is placed on them to add filters for all of the users, or the content posted, which harms the growth of the group; a new member may visit the Jewish community, see it full of hate, and decide never to join

This is how it should be. Communities (not their platforms) should be responsible for policing themselves. They should not be dependent on the platform to decides what types of speech are not appropriate in their community.

A community of historians should be the ones deciding if a post in their community questioning facts about holocaust is a holocaust denial misinformation or actual scholarly research. This is not a responsibility we should be asking our platforms to take off our shoulders.

> Through inaction, your platform has traded the safety and security of one group for another, and in my opinion, it's those who seek to harm others that should be removed, not the other way around.

Nobody should be removed by the platform, instead the platform should provide people with the tools to protect themselves from all kinds of harassment on that platform, whether it is harassment of people based on their religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation or political beliefs.

Platforms choose to censor to protect their PR image, not to protect you. Why would you trust them?