The internet already works this way, if you don't like the moderation policies of a website you have the freedom to use a different website.
I am referring to platforms.
No, most platforms do not work this way.
What you have described here is exactly how all websites work. If you don't like the site moderation you are free to use a different site, just like on reddit.com except you change a few more characters in the URL bar.
Not within the platform, no.
It is easy to create another subreddit. And if you create another subreddit, you have full access to all the same Reddit infrastructure as every other redditor.
I am talking about access to the platform.
> Except you change a few more characters
No, you would not have access to all the Reddit infrastructure, and access to all the cross site stuff, using the same Reddit account.
It is pretty easy to move across Reddit, and within Reddit, and get all the advantages of it. You don't get all those advantages, if it is another website.
Other people can't use, for example, the same mobile Reddit app, to access your website, and would have to download a new app.
They can't log in using the same account. They can't keep track of their posting history, all through the same user link.
There are numerous examples like that. There are lots and lots of benefits to using the actual Reddit website, compared to using a different website.
So no, you cannot just create a new website, and get all of the very significant benefits that you would get, from having it all on Reddit, using the same infrastructure, and account, and mobile app, and posting history, and follower list, ect,ect ect, for example.
What does this sentence mean? No what? On what platform?
> It is easy to create another subreddit
It is easy to create another website.
> if you create another subreddit, you have full access to all the same Reddit infrastructure as every other redditor
So what? There is no distinction from a moderation perspective. If you don't like how the mods run a subreddit you can use a different subreddit, same as any other forum on the internet.
> So no, you cannot just create a new website, and get all of the very significant benefits that you would get, from having it all on Reddit, using the same infrastructure, and account, and mobile app, and posting history, and follower list, ect,ect ect, for example.
Yes you can just create a new website or use a different. You don't "own" the users of reddit.com, there is no reason why one should be entitled to the infrastructure or the users.
You can't get all the same benefits of having it all on reddit. Things like being on the same mobile app, and having the same user account.
> Yes you can just create a new website or use a different. You don't "own" the users of reddit.com, there is no reason why one should be entitled to the infrastructure or the users.
This is called a barrier to entry. regardless of who "owns" all of these benefits, it is still something that a person does not get, if they simply create a different website.
The missing benefits, would make "creating another website", significantly less useful, and are the ones that I mentioned before. You would not be on the same mobile app, would not have the same follower list, would not have the same user account, ect.
These are huge benefits that one would not get if they simply created a different website. Who "owns" it, does not change the true fact that these benefits are large, and you would not get them if you merely created a new website.
> There is no distinction from a moderation perspective
Yes there is. The difference is that if you create a new website, you don't get all those significant benefits that I talked about. That is the distinction that I am talking about.
It's hard enough to get community moderators to sign up to do unpleasant work for no money, how do you expect to get anyone to do it after you impose liability for getting it wrong?
Actually, maybe there's something to this: Impose no liability on anybody for moderating as long as they're not moderating more than ten million users. If you are, the only way to avoid liability is to be a common carrier. Then you can actually have community moderation, but you can't have Zuckerberg deciding what a billion people don't get to see.
I am suggesting that there would no platform wide moderation, but would instead be things like public block lists that users could voluntarily subscribe to.
IE, on Twitter, anyone could publish a "spam account list" or whatever, and people could choose whatever their preferred block list is.
Or they could choose not to follow any block lists, if they so desire.
Some blocklists might only block spammers, another might block Donald Trump, and another might block anyone who posts any swear words at all, and individual people would choose how they would like to view their content.
Self moderation only works up to a certain extend.
In the old days on Usenet we had “killfiles”. It worked pretty well.
There is a reasonable solution to this. Give people the tools to self moderate.
Things like reddit, for example, work pretty great, in that if you don't like a community, then you can go to a different one, which moderation rules that you prefer.