the thing youre missing about the fediverse.. if a community does not approve of a mod they can literally pick up and move their community to a new community or even a different instance altogether.
this has happened at least a few times.
moderation is a necessary management tool, and yes, it is certainly abused.. but the fediverse gives us the ability to tell mods to go fuck themselves.
The fact that unmoderated places attract pedophiles sharing pictures, Spambots, and trolls.
Go take a look at a random board on 8kun if you don't believe me.
It's largely unmoderated, you'll love it!!!
I mean... "To fear"? No. But There are plenty legitimate to remove comments and posts that have nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, to do with mod overreach or censorship.
removing derailing threads from heated discussions
removing the annoying "just asking questions" people from LGBTQ+ safe spaces
removing posts accidentally posted into the wrong community
removing troll posts
banning repeat troublemakers not willing to follow the rules
removing aggressive, sexist, racist,... posts
On the other hand, anti-moderation people only ever seem to come up with "but I want to be able to post whatever I want!"
"Free speech" in this context means: you can go create your own instance or community, with blackjack and hookers! And mods can use the tools at their disposal to enable the rest of us to not have to deal with bullshit.
The instance admin is legally responsible for everything posted on their instance.
Giving all the control to the users would literally carry the risk of going to prison.
Review instance and community rules prior to participating
Review the moderator logs to confirm that moderation activities have been in line with the rules
If you notice a discrepancy, e.g., over-moderation, you can hold the mods accountable and draw attention to it or simply choose not to engage in that instance or community
Host your own instance
Create communities in an existing instance or your own instance
If you host your own instance and communities within that instance, then at that point, you have full control, right? Other instances can de-federate from yours.
its the same function in all forums that have mods. the problem is some doing it based on personal bias which is the wrong, and reddit allows too much leeway in what mods will ban or remove.
Yes, I know, trolls etc. But such action turns any conversation into a bad joke. And anybody who trusts a moderator is a fool.
Not just trolls - there’s much worse content out there, some of which can get you sent to jail in most (all?) jurisdictions.
And even ignoring that, many users like their communities to remain focused on a given topic. Moderation allows this to happen without requiring a vetting process prior to posting. Maybe you don’t want that, but most users do.
Find a better way.
Here’s an option: you can code a fork or client that automatically parses the modlog, finds comments and posts that have been removed, and makes them visible in your feed. You could even implement the ability to reply by hosting replies on a different instance or community.
For you and anyone who uses your fork, it’ll be as though they were never removed.
You said, and I quote "Find a better way." I don't agree with your premise - this is the better way - but I gave you a straightforward, reasonable way to achieve something important to you... and now you're saying that "This is a discussion of principle."
You've just proven that it doesn't take a moderator to turn a conversation into a bad joke - you can do it on your own.
It's weird. The simple fact of being watched and told what you can say. And the possibility that what you're saying is being edited and what you're hearing is edited too.
This strikes me as abhorrent. But most of the people here call it necessary, preferable and even desirable.
I certainly don't know everything but I'm very sure I can't edit other people's posts.
If a post is questionable, then I try to message people and talk it out. We are all human.
Some people wish we moderated more aggressively to keep the post quality higher, others, like yourself wish there was less moderation. I try to leave things up unless there is an obvious violation, I try to apply the rules fairly, I am human.