The time my 'free speech' meme got axed from a private server and it made me question the whole debate

So back in March I was on this small Discord server for retro gaming, maybe like 50 people. I posted a meme making fun of a local politician who tried to ban a classic Nintendo game for being too violent, it was a joke about how the game had pixel blood. The mod deleted it within an hour and said it was 'political content' which wasn't allowed. I got into a whole back and forth with them about how it was just a joke, not a political statement, but they didn't budge. It made me think about the difference between a company or a platform deciding what's okay versus a government doing it. On one hand, it's their private chat so they make the rules, but on the other hand, if every little group bans anything remotely controversial, where do regular folks go to share stuff? Has anyone else run into this gray area where a server's rules killed a harmless meme and you weren't sure if it was justified or just overreach?

2 comments

2 Comments

reese861mo ago

Yeah I had almost the exact same thing happen on a gaming forum last year. What worked for me was just starting my own tiny server with zero rules about what you can post. Now it's like 30 people who all get the joke and nobody's deleting anything.

taylor821mo ago

Man that sucks, I've definitely been there with mods who take things way too seriously. It's frustrating when a simple joke gets nuked because someone in charge has a stick up their ass about the rules. You're right though, it's a weird spot where private servers can end up just as censored as any big platform.