New Rules (Member Review)

[Dystopia]

I have a question that's been bugging me a little - How far does AF go to avoid breaking the law of every country's specific laws? For example, there are German members on-board and Holocaust denial is illegal in Germany, in some cases just searching for Holocaust denial material can get the police to investigate your background - So how far does it go?

It really depends on the situation and whether we are legally required to do anything. If someone was sending death threats via the PM system, and police in Germany contacted us asking for copies, we would probably give them the data. On the other hand, if the German police wanted information about German members posting Holocaust denial material, I think we'd probably deny the request unless we were legally required to hand the data over, which in the case of the forum would require the United States to request the data, as the server is based in the US and so am I.

Generally speaking I'm opposed to handing data over to law enforcement for crimes which don't have an actual victim, and Holocaust denial is one of those.

I agree, but this isn't about what you and I think ideologically - I support abolishing Holocaust denial laws, but unfortunately those still exist and we got to deal with it. I believe in all of Europe Holocaust denial is illegal either implicitly or explicitly - In Germany or France it is explicit but in most hate speech laws, since anything fits there, Holocaust denial is always implicitly illegal. Of course I'm talking about legal matters, it's just a curiosity - But since there's a lot of international protocols and conventions I doubt that the staff could get away with it.

I post on a forum for discussion of politics and we've banned Holocaust denial material and, as a general rule, nazi ideologies - It's not because there isn't free speech, but the forum had trouble with nazis organizing military organizations and revolutions inside the forum itself and starting conversations on how to genocide Jews, etc etc - Additionally, some members got into trouble with the police because of Holocaust denial and generally appeals to genocide and violence, so the admins decided to simply forbid neo-nazism to avoid legal troubles.