What is Hackers' Pub?

To paraphrase a post I just read

I have learned that (a named member of a community safety team) is saying that evidence against me exists, but they cannot share it without endangering others

This means (said team) is effectively judging me based upon secret evidence against without opportunity for due process or defence

This isn’t how a community safety team should act

Actually, no, this is exactly how a community safety team must conduct its’ business.

As a relatively extreme example: let’s say I’m a member of such a team, and I become aware that a project member has nonconsentually distributed nude photos of their former partner. The evidence there is the offence; clearly I cannot just publically republish those photos.

Lets say you approach me with logs of a 1:1 conversation you had with a person. If I redistribute those, either to the accused or to the public, I am fundamentally revealing to the accused that you provided those logs; this fundamentally exposes you to harm and abuse from the accused person.

Depending upon jurisdiction, publication of such accusations can also be a legal violation of the accused’s right to privacy under data protection law, or considered libelious or slanderous, or at least sufficient grounds for one to attempt such a lawsuit. This is not a risk that you can generally take or that most people would be willing to take. This is why, in general, safety and moderation teams will not comment on expulsions or bans except in the most general terms unless forced otherwise

Yes, you have to trust the safety team’s assesment as to whether the provided information and/or evidence is fake, misleadingly quoted or genuine. Yes, you have to trust their decision. Yes, they might get it wrong. Yes, this is imperfect.

A community safety team is not a court. They do not have the evidentiary standards of a court. They also do not have the powers of a court to compel release of evidence, nor to restrain from redistributing confidential evidence or to reasonably punish them for such mishandling. The court process is not the be all and end all of conflict resolution; there is a large gap between “proven to a court’s satisfaction to convict” and “disproven”, and there is also a large gap between “unreasonable behaviour within a community” and “unreasonable behaviour punishable by law”

Now, I would say that in general a community safety team should not comment at all on their actions, but when you repeatedly publically name members of said safety team to your thousands of followers, with the inevitable consequential result being discreditation at best and in all likely circumstances harassment, you have to wonder whether you are actually a safe and responsible person to have as a part of a community.

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Counterfactual present:

I'd like to see Couchfucker's face if the EU would (end its own abuses, unite and) slap sanctions on #ICE goons.