If you think a VPN keeps the FBI from monitoring your activity, I've got an incognito tab and a 'Do Not Track' checkbox I can sell you too.

Fair question, and have sat thinking about answering it changed my mind about the wording I am using.

What I actually built is due process, not a speech policy — no shadowbans, you're told which rule you broke, warnings before bans, public appeals. That came from getting shadowbanned off Reddit for advertising my own business with no notice and no recourse.

"Free speech" was the wrong description for that and I've pulled it from the description. The line I'm drawing: you can argue an unpopular position here without being removed for it, but you can't dehumanize people for who they are. Bigotry isn't dissent — it drives out the people who make a place worth being in. I personally want OpenMic to be welcoming to others, with out the disenfranchising hate, or destructive speech. It'll be there, it'll happen and I'll do my best to clean it up. I can promise one thing I learned a long time ago is we can all find something to disagree about, and we can easily come up with reasons to hate one another. Thats not very interesting and makes life not fun.

So while I appreciate your question (part of me thinks it had ulterior motives and was more of a trap, this thread is full of it) I think my use of free speech may have been misguided. I also teach my kids regularly that while you have freedom of speech, you don't have freedom of consequences because of that speech.

I am human, I am learning as I go, I am definitely not perfect. I am however willing to learn and improve.

Interesting concept. I haven't seen lowtechmagazine before, going to have to definitely check it out.

I spin down our development environments when they have sit idle for a period of time, not at all the same but makes me think deeper about the entire concept.

Update: This is a really cool website. I see some fun projects here too that I could have my kids work on!

I officially as of this week can proudly say I have completely quit using Reddit altogether! No business advertising dollars, no personal account anymore.

Don’t disagree with any of this, I also think there is a great deal of misunderstanding on what a VPN can and cannot do. My favorite ones are the large brands like nordvpn

Thanks! This is by far the most constructive comment I have gotten and truly appreciate it. I’m learning and always will adjust as needed. I’m open to constructive criticism and more importantly any insight others who have done this can provide. The immediate assumptions about me and my goals were at best amusing and not at all constructive however, somewhat unsurprising to be honest.

Man those were the days. When I only had to travel a few hours from Florida to get good ethnic food!

I sometimes consider taking an ad out of video platform just to break up the monotony of the ads playing over and over again.

There isn’t, that’s sort of the point.

I would say that it wouldn’t be hard to add that capability though as a developer.

I also took these comments to heart and made some updates to our sidebar. I appreciate anyone who wants to participate in good faith, I started this because Reddit shadow banned me simply for trying to advertise my business. They didn't even give me an opportunity to make things right, and it was a honest mistake. I think thats a really crappy thing to do to people. I don't want to participate in that.

Also, in full transparency. You won't find me in debates or discourse about much of the "hot topics" or the "footgun topics" Politics, Religion, etc. They frankly rarely produce any meaningful output or outcome and often devolve into circular arguments and hate on both sides of an issue. I personally am far more interested in technical discussions, engineering discussions, and business discussions.

I’ll have to take a look and see if I can figure out why that is and resolve it.

Possibly. We will see.

I am sure someone would buy it

There are development plans

Haha careful on the “marketplacr of ideas” that moniker was claimed by Gettr. Ask me how I know.

Thanks. I’m working on it. I don’t really have tolerance for hate and I’ll be honest I think many of the people here are just as bad ad the ones they are commenting against. I also realize we’ve all lived a different experience and I have to allow room for that, at the end of the day I have zero tolerance for hate.

Curious what your goal is?

What makes this content any better? What value have you added here?

Nobody us forcing you to comment or participate. I’m going to ask you to time it down and be civil or you will become my first moderation!