Administrative Bans: Andusre, Brototh, ICH, and Altys

[Quebecshire]

Administrative Bans: Andusre, Brototh, ICH, and Altys

Regrettably, due to a recent incident in another region involving several individuals who are also in our server, we are making the following announcement after completing our investigation on the matter. Please read this post in full.

• The League and Concord's off-site community administration team has made the decision to ban the users known as Andusre (Andy), Brototh (a.k.a. Cinema), and The Islamic Country of Honour (ICH) for their involvement in the sharing of an individual's personal information without their consent.
  
• The League and Concord's off-site community administration team has additionally decided to ban Altys for administrative negligence.
  

Several days ago in the Discord server of the region Thaecia (the primary region of those banned), a TikTok featuring a former member of the region was shared. Several users in the chat proceeded to discuss the TikTok's contents and the person it featured, connecting this person to their NS alias which some of them were aware from his usage of it during his time in Thaecia and NationStates which ended in 2019 and 2020 respectively. Over the last several days, we have evaluated all of the evidence surrounding the interaction and have come to the conclusion that the incident took place with intent to mock the user and that once it was shared, his real life and NS personas were extensively confirmed to be of the same person. While several people knew his information from when he was in the region, it is our belief that consent is not continuous/perpetual and is given on a case-by-case basis, and therefore, it was inappropriate to reveal and reiterate the information several years later when another person would not reasonably find it themselves today.

We engaged administrators from Thaecia in a discussion about this topic, at times including Syberis from the New Pacific Order (NPO) community. Their reaction on individual levels and as administrators was, overall, deeply unsatisfactory and at times contained levels of deflection, insinuation that our concerns were unreasonable and condescending, and was otherwise not productive to a necessary extent. Considering the closeness of our communities, we have approached this issue with due diligence and do not feel this has been addressed properly. We cannot in good conscience associate with a community that has allowed this incident to transpire and have banned the relevant individuals from out platform as mentioned above.

Our community has experienced issues with administrative understanding and negligence in the past. As a result of this, we take these matters very seriously, both on our own platforms and in the communities we associate with and play NationStates alongside. These decisions were not made lightly and were made to the best of our ability after reviewing all available evidence and its context. 

Questions and concerns can be posted in this thread, or in the case of sensitive subjects of this issue, can be directed privately to an administrator. For a list of rules and staff, please consult our Community Guidelines.

- The League & Concord's Community Administration and Moderation Teams

[Quebecshire]

Re: Administrative Bans: Andusre, Brototh, ICH, and Altys

The administrative team of The League & Concord has decided to rescind the bans of Andusre, Brototh, Altys, and ICH.

We believe in rehabilitative administrative practices when they do not endanger communities. With this principle in mind, we find it appropriate to explain this decision. We stand by the action taken at the time as an appropriate response given the discussions had with Thaecia's administrative team at the time.

After some personal contact between Quebecshire and Andusre about a year ago, discussion was had about having dialogue on the events that led to the bans. With Kuramia from Europeia's administrative team as a mediator, a discussion was opened with myself, Spode Humbled Minions, and Council of Feathers present for our team and Andusre, Brototh, and Altys present. ICH later asked to join in this process and our moderation team allowed it.

We posed simple criteria with respect to the events, shortened for conciseness here.

1. Acknowledgement that the real-life politics of the person whose information was disclosed do not undermine their right to privacy.
1a. That other allegations relating to that person do not undermine their right to privacy, and that addressing these by exposing their information is not a productive means of addressing said allegations.
1b. That the claim that the individual was a "public figure" was insufficient to justify discussion of their real-life person in the Thaecia Discord server.

2. Acknowledgement that consent is not perpetual in this regard, and that one's voluntary disclosure of personal information does not entitle others to disclose it, even in the same spaces, at later dates without their consent.

3. Acknowledgement that Thaecia's administrative team handled it undesirably in a manner that was dismissive and unproductive.

Primarily represented by Andusre but with the express consent of the Thaecians involved, they agreed to acknowledge the above as requested by our team. This, coupled with the lack of repeat or similar incident and assurance that Thaecia has properly updated its moderation standards, has led us to rescind the bans in question.

Questions or concerns can be directed to one of our Community Administrators.

Statement drafted by @Quebecshire, @Spode, and @ Council of Feathers.