Wccftech Moderation Update March 2021

In our ongoing effort to ensure a healthy environment for technology, gaming, and pop culture discourse, we are announcing the move to a white-list-only system as of 1st March 2021. In the past, users have often bypassed our bans (usually within minutes) by creating alts (also called sock puppet accounts) and creating an unreasonable amount of comment volume for our moderation team to deal with.

To curb the advent of any toxic posts, we implemented a word filter that also had the downside of curbing free expression of people that were not a party to these horrendous statements. In other words, a few bad eggs made it incredibly hard for new members (or existing members) to conduct free discourse. There were also times when we had to take image and media posting privileges away to keep things in check. Fortunately for Wccftech-ians, we have come to a long-term solution to moderation that will be rolled out this week. Our aim is to make the Wccftech comment section more inclusive and attract newer members and we are going to be taking some major steps to ensure that in the coming days.

The finer points of the new system are as follows:

We pride ourselves on free speech but rights end when the freedom of someone else is being infringed upon. We have thrown a large amount of resources to combat this problem but easy availability of throw-away accounts makes fair moderation impossible for a team of our size.

To reiterate, and as stated many times before, any call to harm, call to violence, hate speech against any protected trait (religion, ethnicity, sexuality, orientation, racial group, etc), hate speech against political parties or affiliation, doxxing etc will not be tolerated. NSFW/18+ content is not allowed either. What is allowed (and will continue to be allowed) is heated technology debates, memes, trolling, pop culture arguments, meme wars, light political discourse etc as long as they do not violate on any of the above. There is a fine line between adult conversations/having fun and verbal abuse (for eg using the f-word/swearing in the context of a debate is allowed, but personally abusing someone is not). If you are in doubt - don't do it or contact a mod.

An appeals form will also be posted for users that may receive a permanent ban. There will only be one level of appeal available and the decision will be final.