[QUERY] What is the policy towards forgery?

[Lagevus]

I'm surprised to have not found a thread about it already. I guess this will create a precedent. Forgive me for posting from a puppet but the reason is obvious, my foes musn't know.

As we all know, impersonation is illegal. So is malicious quote editing. But what about forged telegrams and the like?

NS is a political game, after all. Fake documents can be used to advance political goals by causing unrest in the target region. Would it be legal to post pictures of edited telegrams (or edited offsite chats and forums, which are a separate thing) for the purpose of politics?

Another thing to distinguish is whether names are censored or not. If you're not explicitly saying person X said Y but implying it through other means is it different?

[Lagevus]

I guess a bump is in order since it's been almost a week.

To add onto the above, Caelapes claims to have forged telegrams for political goals: viewtopic.php?p=27361032#p27361032
It doesn't seem like they've been punished for doing so, which leads me to believe that it is legal to do so. I only wish to confirm if that's truly the case.

[Reploid Productions]

NS is a political game. Faking communication is one thing, it only becomes a moderation matter when such falsified communications are used to make it look like someone has engaged in rulebreaking behavior. For instance "Delegate A is secretly in talks with Group B to backstab and coup Region C and here's the TG/Discord log/whatever that proves it!" is not a moderation issue, that's a political play, whereas "Delegate A is cybersexing with Player B and here's the TG/Discord log/whatever that proves it!" is a moderation matter, because if you have evidence that someone is engaging in rulebreaking behavior on-site, you should NOT be using it to score political points, you should be reporting it to Moderation to be investigated and addressed properly.

[Frisbeeteria]

Since no one else wants to respond, I guess I will.

We don't have a strict policy on it, since it's by-definition something that has to happen off-site. Quotes or screenshots from offsite forums, Discord channels, or even our own telegrams should be taken with a grain of salt. This applies even more to secondhand gossip ("I hear Examplestan said you were a steaming pile of poo!!!1")

This is, after all, a political simulation game. One of the universal commonalities about politics is "politicians LIE". It's up to players, nations, and regions to determine veracity of quotes and screenshots. The moderation team isn't in the verification business, and we'd like to keep it that way.

Finally, as a few players recently found out, it's a really bad idea to report someone to the mods using fake screenshots of our own telegrams or RMB posts. Unlike players, mods DO have the ability to verify accuracy.


Edit: Damn Ninja Mods.