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Why does CounterSocial block entire countries?
The nations blocked by our network are well known to be origin points of an overwhelming majority of bots and trolls that are used to engage in influence operations against not only the West but their own neighbors, as well as attempts to disenfranchise and divide social media users worldwide. Blocking these nations is the most effective way to keep our community safe and secure for our users. CounterSocial is constantly monitoring the internet ecosystem to mitigate threats to our community. Banned nations may be added or removed at our discretion. Currently banned countries include: Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan and Syria.
Isn't blocking entire nations 'racism' or 'xenophobic'?
No. The nations blocked contain individuals of all races. Nations are not races. We block hostile nations because it is the most effective way to stop the abuse coming from their IP space online. “Racism” has absolutely nothing to do with IP addresses or preserving a quality community within CounterSocial. Additionally, any nationals from any of the blocked countries are welcome to participate on the network so long as they are not currently inside a blocked nations borders.
Now seems like a good time to mention that CounterSocial has built in direct one-click translation into over 80 languages.
Surely that's 'nationalistic'?
No. Currently, at the time of writing there are 195 nations on planet earth. We block 7 of them. 'Nationalistic' is defined as "having strong patriotic feelings, especially a belief in ones own countrys superiority." Again, we block 7 of 195 countries. So ask yourself: which country of the remaining 188 countries free to access the site is CounterSocial 'nationalistic' about?
Well then it MUST be 'censorship'? Right???
No. Censorship is defined as the act of redacting or altering ‘unacceptable’ parts of an existing communication. Therefore, “censoring” can only occur to content that has already been written and submitted to our platform. Bad actors are prohibited from creating content on CounterSocial in the first place, therefore blocking hostile nations is not “censorship.
What about my 'free speech'?
Freedom of Speech is a First Amendment right defined in the UNITED STATES Constitution. It guarantees that the U.S. Federal Government cannot infringe on an individual’s right to say whatever they’d like. CounterSocial is not the federal government, therefore it is impossible, by definition, for CounterSocial to be in violation of an individual's 1st Amendment rights to ‘free speech’. Sidenote: the UNITED STATES Constitution is relevant in the United States and to United States citizens, where our servers are based. US 'free speech' law is inapplicable elsewhere.
Well dayumm, CounterSocial must be somehow violating the (A)GPL license then?
No. Under the terms of the (A)GPL license anyone is free to modify the original code in ANY way they choose, so long as they "make an opportunity to receive the corresponding source code available from a network server at no charge" - which CounterSocial complies with, as outlined in our licensing document, right here. The (A)GPL license has no authority, legal or implied, to determine how external but connected hardware or software, such as, but not limited to firewalls, WAFs, traffic filtering and worker processes at our infrastructure edge are implemented or configured.
Who defines these rules, anyways?
CounterSocial is a private entity. As a private entity, CounterSocial can configure security for its hardware/software assets and users as it see's fit, including firewalls, traffic filtering WAF's etc. CounterSocial is not required to grant protections aside from those stated in our Terms of Service and/or End User License Agreement, which can be changed at any time, for any reason.
What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?
Is that a European or African Swallow? There's a difference ya know!
This document was last updated March 5th 2021.