[Split - Discussion] Rule concerning offsite accusations

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

[Moderator Edit - Cogitation] This discussion was split from a report thread, found here. This post originally immediately followed a post of Moderator NERVUN, now quoted here for convenience. [/modedit]

Ok folks, we're sorry for the delay on this one. It went back and forth a few times and, to be honest, we got distracted by other things going on (Ooh! Shinies!) But, consensus was at last reached not only on the ruling but a small update to the rules. So without further ado...

Encouraging someone to commit suicide for real is a heinous thing to do. If any such activity takes place on NationStates.net, then it constitutes a clear and gross violation of the "malicious" clause; we will punish such actions once they are brought to our attention and we can verify (using our own tools) that such violations took place and who committed them. If it's a forum violation, then post about it on the Moderation board. If it's an in-game violation, then use the Getting Help page.

However, while we can police NationStates.net, we do not have the ability to verify any offsite evidence or the authority to police any activity outside of Nationstates.net itself. If someone has been encouraging suicide outside of NationStates venues, then that needs to be reported to the appropriate Abuse Department for that venue or the civil authority that has jurisdiction where the offsite server is physically located. There is nothing that The NationStates Moderation Team can officially do to assist in such matters.

Because suicide-encouragement is so serious, accusations of suicide-encouragement are also serious. We cannot know if this really happened, or if this is made up just to smear an opponent in the court of public opinion. In this case, it was apparently a mistake and we note that Unibot has since retracted the accusation of such, but we are left with the problem that it was still stated here on the forums and under our ruleset. While the apology was well done, it doesn't erase the fact that a rule violation was committed.

So, here's what's going to happen. Unibot, *** Three Day Ban for Defamation ***. This is based on history as well as other punishments handed out for off-site accusations that were aired here.

However, we are also now updating the One-Stop Rules Shop to add the following about "Jurisdiction":

NationStates moderators are responsible for problems and issue with the game and interactions on our Nationstates forum. We have no jurisdiction over any offsite forums, and make no guarantees about their content. While some Mods may also be channel ops on NationStates-related IRC channels, they are not operating in an official NationStates capacity in that role (with the exception of #themodcave on gamesurge.net). Please don't bring non-NationStates business to the NationStates forums, Getting Help page, or #themodcave. In particular, accusations of misconduct outside of NationStates do not belong in NationStates and will be punished as defamatory.

Hereafter, if any accusations of off-NationStates grossness get posted on NationStates, we're going to come down on that hard under the "defamation" clause because, for all we know, you're levying false accusations against someone. NationStates is not a court of law for other parts of the Internet. Nor will we allow one player to smear another player here on NationStates in a court of public opinion for offenses that we cannot verify. So, in the future, we will be punishing such unsubstantiable accusations much more harshly.

Thank you all again for waiting for this ruling.

---

Just to clarify - the way I'm reading this, at best, bans a wide range of things we see on a not unregular basis, yes? I'm talking things like the recent TSP coup thread, which obviously delved into causes, in this case being accusations of mismanagement of the admin role by Glen-Rhodes. That's an "accusation of off-NationStates grossness." Discussion of COPS violations? "Accusation of off-NationStates grossness." I could hack the NPO forums and take them down, and any thread they posted on the matter here, even as mere news, would be an "accusation of off-NationStates grossness." Looking at another previous case, Cora saying TBH banned him for no reason, and us saying it was for him verbally assaulting other players in out skype chat, that's "accusations of off-NationStates grossness." I want to be clear if all of these are now actionable cases, alongside more than a few similar aspects of talk and news (largely relevant to Gameplay), because if so this is an absolutely major change that really should be proactively pushed to all members of that community, before it's violated quite accidentally.


Furthermore, and more of a strict interpretation of the wording of ruling than one of what I perceive is it's intent, the clause "Please don't bring non-NationStates business to the NationStates forums, Getting Help page, or #themodcave" could literally be applied to, say, news of offsite elections in Balder, or discussion of treaties/regional legislation, which are general written, argued, and voted on entirely in offsite bodies. To be clear, is reporting on these in GP now a rules violation as well? While I'd normally assume not, the clause as a whole - "Please don't bring non-NationStates business to the NationStates forums, Getting Help page, or #themodcave. In particular, accusations of misconduct outside of NationStates do not belong in NationStates and will be punished as defamatory" - notably, the fact that "accusations of misconduct" is distinctly separated from the initial general statement of "non-NationStates business" open up the possibility of this worrisome reading.

If the answer is along the lines of "that's Nationstates business," then the same can be argued for the cases mentioned in the first paragraph, presuming those (which seem to fit the intent of the ruling more) are now actionable.

In short, though I know the standard answer is along the lines of "individual cases are judged individually" and "we will not entertain scenarios or further define rules just so people can get around to them and point at our post when they do," I feel this ruling highly warrants some clarification, specifically regarding what exactly is "Nationstates Business" versus "Non-Nationstates Business," and whether currently commonplace Gameplay reports are now actionable under this ruling.

>>>As an aside, this being a report thread, I understand that this is perhaps now the best place to raise these questions. If you prefer, I will happily take them to a discussion thread.

[Mallorea and Riva]

Discussing elections and whatnot= totally fine.

Saying another player is a sexual predator, or that they were encouraging you to commit suicide= not fine.

You're reading far too much into this.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

Discussing elections and whatnot= totally fine.

Saying another player is a sexual predator, or that they were encouraging you to commit suicide= not fine.

You're reading far too much into this.

Maybe so, but as I'm sure you've seen, there's more than a bit of testiness around right now, and I'd rather ask these questions now than after someone gets in trouble.

That's also a well and dandy answer, but fails to address most of my first paragraph - it covers the second chunk, that of "by the wording, but I take it not by the intent," but fails to address what was mentioned prior: Allegations of mishandling of offsite admin positions for major regional forums (attn TSP Coup), allegations of spam or other smaller misconduct offsite (attn. smaller COPS violations), allegations of forum hacking (attn. cases like, say, Syl and Shadoke crashing AoI forums), allegations of basic nastiness (attn. Cora/TBH). None of that is on the level of " player is a sexual predator, or that they were encouraging you to commit suicide," but neither is it "Discussing elections," and all of those are fairly regular occurrences in GP. So, thanks for the answer, but you haven't really answered the meat of my question.

[Mallorea and Riva]

It's a matter of degree. Forum wrecking/mishandling adminship etc is nowhere near the same level as a declaration that another player is a sexual predator, in the same way that calling someone silly is not nearly as severe as calling them a fucking moron. Yes it is a judgment call each time, no not all mods will agree every time. That's why the appeals process exists.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

It's a matter of degree. Forum wrecking/mishandling adminship etc is nowhere near the same level as a declaration that another player is a sexual predator, in the same way that calling someone silly is not nearly as severe as calling them a fucking moron. Yes it is a judgment call each time, no not all mods will agree every time. That's why the appeals process exists.

I hope the staff realizes this is going to further the string of messy, contentious cases/disagreements for months on end, as someone else gets deposed as offsite admin for reasons x,y, and z, cries defamation about it, and so forth, and will drive more of the already increasingly alienated GP community away from the forums, from what I'm already hearing with each new post.

[Flanderlion]

I could hack the NPO forums and take them down, and any thread they posted on the matter here, even as mere news, would be an "accusation of off-NationStates grossness.

I'm fairly certain there would be consequences a little harsher than just a thread complaining in gameplay. I'm fairly sure the Chosen would be involved, and that isn't good for anyone.

On topic, so where is the line with it? So personal attacks etc. is a no no, but what about forum crashing etc. or mentioning IP farming etc? With this as a rule, I'm fairly certain someone is going to drift across it without knowing where the line was, if there even is one. I think the rule is necessary though.

Just saw Mall's post, but what is and isn't actionable, there is a lot of grey in between forum crashers and sexual predators.

[Mallorea and Riva]

It's a matter of degree. Forum wrecking/mishandling adminship etc is nowhere near the same level as a declaration that another player is a sexual predator, in the same way that calling someone silly is not nearly as severe as calling them a fucking moron. Yes it is a judgment call each time, no not all mods will agree every time. That's why the appeals process exists.

I hope the staff realizes this is going to further the string of messy, contentious cases/disagreements for months on end, as someone else gets deposed as offsite admin for reasons x,y, and z, cries defamation about it, and so forth, and will drive more of the already increasingly alienated GP community away from the forums, from what I'm already hearing with each new post.

And the alternative is that we let the players call each other sexual predators? I don't think so. It is a matter of degree, always has been, always will be. You don't get free reign to bait each other with accusations of what happens offsite that are of that level. We aren't going to jump down the throat of players saying that Player X was removed from Admin position for region Y because they abused their powers to rig an election or were unpleasant. But to expect us to codify every possible insult is simply absurd.

[Twilight Imperium]

Er, it's actually pretty vague what's okay here and what's not, not just "GP rules-lawyer" vague. Maybe add some examples to the rule, not inclusively, but descriptively?

(also if we want to keep going with this discussion, should we spin off a new thread?)

EDIT: Isn't accusing people of being a sexual predator and whatnot without proof already against the rules? If this doesn't cover other more minor offsite drama importation, what's against the rules now that wasn't before?

[Railana]

NationStates moderators are responsible for problems and issue with the game and interactions on our Nationstates forum. We have no jurisdiction over any offsite forums, and make no guarantees about their content. While some Mods may also be channel ops on NationStates-related IRC channels, they are not operating in an official NationStates capacity in that role (with the exception of #themodcave on gamesurge.net). Please don't bring non-NationStates business to the NationStates forums, Getting Help page, or #themodcave. In particular, accusations of misconduct outside of NationStates do not belong in NationStates and will be punished as defamatory.

The wording of this rule is concerning not only for the reasons previously mentioned by others but also because it uses the word "defamation" incorrectly. A true statement is, by definition, not defamation. Whether or not the moderators are able to verify a particular claim does not affect the truth or falsity of that claim. However, the way the rule is written, it seems that you're going to punish statements regarding offsite misconduct as defamatory even if they are true.

As such, what you're really prohibiting here is not defamation, but making any statement about offsite misconduct that cannot be proven by the moderators. The rule should be clarified to reflect this.

[CoraSpia]

If I can just jump here which I can because it's a discussion:

I'd actually take the rather unpopular view that we shouldn't have a defamation rule. Individuals calling each other sexual predators/murderers/whatever the hell they want, on a site like NS, will have extremely minimal impact outside the site (as in, none), and on the site the impact will be limited to when the accuser suddenly has to point out that they've got no proof of what they're saying. So, I think the potential grey areas are too much of a price to pay for a rule that really doesn't need to be around.

If you're worried about the legal consequences of hosting defamation, anyone seeking to bring a suit under that particular tort is going to struggle if they're doing it on this site. Very anonymous posting to somebodys nation name which bares little resemblance to them themselves will be notoriously difficult to get a judge to listen to.

[Enfaru]

If I can just jump here which I can because it's a discussion:

I'd actually take the rather unpopular view that we shouldn't have a defamation rule. Individuals calling each other sexual predators/murderers/whatever the hell they want, on a site like NS, will have extremely minimal impact outside the site (as in, none), and on the site the impact will be limited to when the accuser suddenly has to point out that they've got no proof of what they're saying. So, I think the potential grey areas are too much of a price to pay for a rule that really doesn't need to be around.

If you're worried about the legal consequences of hosting defamation, anyone seeking to bring a suit under that particular tort is going to struggle if they're doing it on this site. Very anonymous posting to somebodys nation name which bares little resemblance to them themselves will be notoriously difficult to get a judge to listen to.

Nationstates does not have the luxury of not having one. Nationstates can easily be interpreted as being a large and public community with the ability and or effect of manipulating or informing the views of an individual. The last I checked this site was based not in the USA but in Vancouver, Canada while being under the jurisdiction of an Australian state. Freedom of speech is not guaranteed and even in U.S law, Freedom of Speech does not get you out of defamation cases. To not manage your community means that you could be considered to be "complicit" in the defamation. This is how it works for Copyright law (I'm comparing the Civil side just to be clear) as well, if you can't get to the criminals, challenge and sue the site owners.

Therefore, where reported, Nationstates has to meet certain obligations... what these obligations are I am not certain (I know that facebook has a lot more obligations than a small community intranet for example and I'm not sure what legal counsel has informed max of). I am aware that Max was threatened with being sued on a few occasions early on and legal advice was that he needed to have some terms and conditions for site usage, both making clear Max's obligations to the site and also what users are expected to do and not do. Simply having terms and conditions and not adhering to them anyway, in the eyes of most courts, is as good as not having any. Hence we have mods reviewing and getting rid of defaming users.

Forums == Mods.

Better yet used to it.

I'd like to add that minimal impact is... well... subjective. 5,000 people around the world is still 5,000 people and if 5,000 people each tell one other person... suddenly its 10,000 people. Usually defamation is tied to cases where there is a loss of earnings somehow or somewhere... for example if I accused Max of being a lying cheating scumbag, there's a very small chance that he could lose income because someone could decide not to buy a book based on my action. That's where defamation comes into play.

This site was created as a propaganda platform in order to sell Max's books. If these forums are riddled with defamation, that would give an extremely poor impression of the community. This in turn means that less people spend a larger amount of time on nationstates and this in turn means that less people are inclined to buy max's books...and that's just bad for beer money business.

Now... Max could have a mental breakdown and get rid of the defamation thing entirely... but that would be absurd. I'm pretty sure we're stuck with the defamation clause and hey, it makes the site a nicer place to be.

P.S. The problem with defamation is that the defamer doesn't have to have any proof. In fact, that's kind of the point. However by the time the plaintiff gets to the court, the damage has usually already been done and what compensation there is, is usually far too late.

P.P.S Judges in the US and the EU have been known to issue orders for information to deleted though usually Press Regulation normally sorts out these matters. The most high profile of these is the "Right to be Forgotten" principle in German law, that means Google has to strip things out of its search engine... and this is stuff that actually *has* evidence. So long as the plaintiff can show "damage" or "harm" either through reputation, finance or otherwise, a Judge will happily consider it.

[Twilight Imperium]

Nationstates does not have the luxury of not having one. Nationstates can easily be interpreted as being a large and public community with the ability and or effect of manipulating or informing the views of an individual. The last I checked this site was based not in the USA but in Vancouver, Canada while being under the jurisdiction of an Australian state. Freedom of speech is not guaranteed and even in U.S law, Freedom of Speech does not get you out of defamation cases. To not manage your community means that you could be considered to be "complicit" in the defamation. This is how it works for Copyright law (I'm comparing the Civil side just to be clear) as well, if you can't get to the criminals, challenge and sue the site owners.

Sure.

But.

We've managed for almost 20 years without an explicit anti-defamation rule. What's changed?

Not to mention the aforementioned issues with the new one as written, i.e. unclear, possibly redundant, etc etc. I don't take issue with the intent of the rule (derived from context, experience with similar rules and suchlike) but as is.. not so much.

[The Blaatschapen]

We've managed for almost 20 years without an explicit anti-defamation rule. What's changed?

The internet and how society revolves around it.

Yes, there was internet in 2002, but it wasn't as prevalent as it is now. Smart phones, privacy concerns, government regulations, the list goes on. But going into detail would be quite off topic.

[Enfaru]

Max got threatened with being sued? While I *know* that Max has been subject to legal threats (said so himself) I do not know with what threats in particular.

I'm also not sure *when* the terms of use were instated but I do know they were first changed October 2014... (/page=legal). So we've had the defamation thing for a while.

[Gregoryisgodistan]

Calling someone a liar when they make a truthful accusation is defamation. The original accusation is not, because it's true. Falsely accusing someone of defamation, as the mods would if they banned someone for something that wasn't legally defamation, is itself defamation. And unlike some random user, the mods are agents of the site and are held to a higher legal standard if Max were to be sued.

[CoraSpia]

The fact remains that if, for example I was accusing Examplenationistan of killing his parents (which I'm guessing would be false), It's not a case of James accusing John of killing his parents, but a case of Coraspia accusing Examplenationistan of it. Who Coraspia is is pretty hard to tell for the site (especially with the level of encryption he uses, but that's not relevant), and so at least in the UK I'm sure the site wouldn't be found to have any role in it, so it's pretty much clear.

[Gregoryisgodistan]

The fact remains that if, for example I was accusing Examplenationistan of killing his parents (which I'm guessing would be false), It's not a case of James accusing John of killing his parents, but a case of Coraspia accusing Examplenationistan of it. Who Coraspia is is pretty hard to tell for the site (especially with the level of encryption he uses, but that's not relevant), and so at least in the UK I'm sure the site wouldn't be found to have any role in it, so it's pretty much clear.

Correct. On the other hand, if a mod acting as an agent of the site falsely accuses someone of defamation, the site absolutely can be held responsible.

[USS Monitor]

Calling someone a liar when they make a truthful accusation is defamation. The original accusation is not, because it's true. Falsely accusing someone of defamation, as the mods would if they banned someone for something that wasn't legally defamation, is itself defamation. And unlike some random user, the mods are agents of the site and are held to a higher legal standard if Max were to be sued.

Pretty sure just using the word "defamation" in a warning/ban isn't going to get the mods in any legal trouble. In context, it seems pretty obvious that it's referring to the TOS, not making a criminal accusation against the player.

[CoraSpia]

The fact remains that if, for example I was accusing Examplenationistan of killing his parents (which I'm guessing would be false), It's not a case of James accusing John of killing his parents, but a case of Coraspia accusing Examplenationistan of it. Who Coraspia is is pretty hard to tell for the site (especially with the level of encryption he uses, but that's not relevant), and so at least in the UK I'm sure the site wouldn't be found to have any role in it, so it's pretty much clear.

Correct. On the other hand, if a mod acting as an agent of the site falsely accuses someone of defamation, the site absolutely can be held responsible.

That depends a lot on if the mod signed a contract on becoming a mod, since the original terms of service were something they signed up to on becoming a player. Thus, they are a contract that has been signed without proper consideration for extra responsibilities, thus anything mentioning mods in the original FAQ is invalid.

[Enfaru]

The fact remains that if, for example I was accusing Examplenationistan of killing his parents (which I'm guessing would be false), It's not a case of James accusing John of killing his parents, but a case of Coraspia accusing Examplenationistan of it. Who Coraspia is is pretty hard to tell for the site (especially with the level of encryption he uses, but that's not relevant), and so at least in the UK I'm sure the site wouldn't be found to have any role in it, so it's pretty much clear.

Correct. On the other hand, if a mod acting as an agent of the site falsely accuses someone of defamation, the site absolutely can be held responsible.

Even more so, if the site doesn't delete something that can be considered defamatory in a reasonable time frame after being reported... the site too can be held responsible...that includes in the UK...of which Freedom of Speech is not enshrined in any law and Article 10 of the ECHR makes a specific exception for defamation.

Edit.

We're not saying that mods themselves would be held legally responsible. The site itself...max...would. You don't sue the person who actually made the mistake, you sue the person/company responsible for them in order to extract maximum financial compensation. Civil Law 101.

Edit: When I say any law... I exempt the 1998 Human Rights act, because that's just an implementation of the ECHR.

[CoraSpia]

Correct. On the other hand, if a mod acting as an agent of the site falsely accuses someone of defamation, the site absolutely can be held responsible.

Even more so, if the site doesn't delete something that can be considered defamatory in a reasonable time frame after being reported... the site too can be held responsible...that includes in the UK...of which Freedom of Speech is not enshrined in any law and Article 10 of the ECHR makes a specific exception for defamation.

Edit.

We're not saying that mods themselves would be held legally responsible. The site itself...max...would. You don't sue the person who actually made the mistake, you sue the person/company responsible for them in order to extract maximum financial compensation. Civil Law 101.

[Enfaru]

Quote but no content?

Okay...

QED: Max bans defamation and punishes offenders to prevent from getting sued.

[Twilight Imperium]

The internet and how society revolves around it.

Yes, there was internet in 2002, but it wasn't as prevalent as it is now. Smart phones, privacy concerns, government regulations, the list goes on. But going into detail would be quite off topic.

I meant what's changed here. Unless the above is actually part of the reason and this \/

QED: Max bans defamation and punishes offenders to prevent from getting sued.

Is the intended course of action? Because the whole "defamation in law" thing seems like sort of a tangent, since the only time the word is mentioned in the "Jurisdiction" rule is when it says

In particular, accusations of misconduct outside of NationStates do not belong in NationStates and will be punished as defamatory.

Does "punished as defamatory" mean we'll be notifying the authorities? Applying similar punishments to those found in law? Or punished because we can't verify their accuracy without involving outside sources, which the rest of the rule explicitly states? The latter to me seems like the common sense reading of it, which is kind of not at all related to the actual laws regarding defamation.

Again, if I'm way off base here, please let me know, but I'm sorta baffled by this whole thing.

[Enfaru]

Defamation relates to offsite accusations, in the sense of what happens if someone lies about something offsite.

Punished as Defamatory... Defamation is a Civil not a Criminal offence (in Australia). There should be no need to inform the authorities. That's the person who feels they have been defamed to do...typically to their local court.

Jurisdiction from Page=Legal
"Any claim relating to this web site shall be governed by the laws of the State of Victoria, Australia without regard to its conflict of law provisions. "

Defamation from Page=Legal
"You may submit content to NationStates.net so long as it is not obscene, illegal, threatening, malicious, or defamatory, does not invade the privacy or infringe the intellectual property of a third party, and does not constitute "spam." "

Of course, even if *that* fails, the claimant would then be able to challenge the host particularly if it is in a different country and report the matter to them. In which case, Max faces the possibility of losing his current hosting provider...and further more to ICANN, meaning the potential loss of the http://www.nationstates.net domain. (This is hypothetical in the extreme and exceedingly unlikely to happen... heck someone suing max is unlikely in the extreme).

The site would not be punished, unless it fails to comply with the solicitors letter/court order. It may well be charged a sum in order to compensate the plaintiff for damage they have incurred. Okay, these are complex legal terms but basically, if Max doesn't enforce defamation, then it becomes his responsibility as the owner of the site. This means that subsequent damage to the reputation of the individual or the company (yes companies can sue) can be assumed to be the fault of Max. After all, if he had removed the offending material, there were would have been no further damage.

Obviously, employing a volunteer mod to get rid and punish defamation where required is a lot cheaper. i.e move the defamation to evidence locker and warn/ban the user...

Max would then have to pay "compensation" in order to make right the wrong and this can be hefty. In some places those compensation orders are unlimited and particularly in the case of some companies can run into billions quickly.

[Twilight Imperium]

-words-

Yeah, I got all of that. I really did. But what does it have to do with the new rule?

The new rule about jurisdiction, which is still weirdly defined and bordered. Is it just a "no excessive offsite drama" rule? Is it an anti-defamation rule? It is just a further extension of the "don't be a jerk" rule? All? None?