A Comparative Analysis of Freedom of Speech in the Game-Created Regions.
Written by Unibot for the 2014 NS World Fair.
"Before proceeding, let me say this also: that, though our subject be so great, and our intention that of treating it honestly, seriously, and philosophically, yet I mean to pass away from all those who are seniors among us. I claim the privilege of speaking to juveniles as a juvenile myself. I have done so on former occasions, and, if you please, I shall do so again." ~ Michael Faraday, The Chemical History of a Candle.
Near the start of the nineteenth century, Michael Faraday founded a series of sensational lectures at the Royal Institution in Britain. He endeavoured to impart some vital scientific knowledge, imagination and inspiration especially to the children who attended these so-called "Christmas Lectures", given the severe deficit of education in the sciences at the time. Faraday's lectures would often focus on the broad fundamentals of science, "Chemistry", "Electricity", "Magnetism", "Gravity" and of course, "Combustion" - probably his most well-known and widely circulated lecture would be his final series of lectures, titled "The Chemical History of a Candle". This beloved lecture has been romanticised about ever since and it serves as a broad survey of the physics behind flames and its relationship with oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide. When I set out to write a "Christmas Lecture" for NationStates, I was drawn to think of Faraday's series of lectures; while I am not a scientist, I asked myself what kind of fundamental of political society existed that I could discuss for you here today and it struck me that the freedom of speech is as quintessential an ingredient for democratic political societies and institutions as oxygen is for the creation of fire.
Ironically, however, I am the Delegate of The Rejected Realms speaking on freedom of speech in the Game-Created Regions. Curiously, The Rejected Realms is one of only two Game-Created Regions to have not legally enshrined a freedom of speech for its citizens. Unlike The Pacific, however, The Rejected Realms does very faithfully remain committed to the right to the freedom of speech, but in the past, our constitutional drafters felt because The Rejected Realms had limited means of coercing speech (without ejecting and banning members) and even more limited means of interpreting or applying a bill of rights (without a judiciary) that The Rejected Realms never developed a bill of rights. Despite this apparent vacuum of formal institutionalisation, The Rejected Realms has always remained a strong proponent of a libertarian, free society where our members can discuss and voice their opinions without coercion, obstruction or delay - part in parcel, an element of "reject" society - as rejects are, first and foremost, individuals who have often become a part of our community because they held minority views or unpopular opinions elsewhere.
The topic of freedom of speech in NationStates became historically quite important with the rise of Francos Spain and the New Pacific Order in The Pacific. Public accusations were laid against Francos Spain which depicted him as a tyrant and a dictator, who ruled The Pacific with an "iron fist" and denied his own citizens their freedom of speech. Prior to Francos Spain, few Game-Created Regions, even The Pacific had taken the institutional initiative to constitutionalise the rights of their citizens - but soon after the revolution, Game-Created Regions would develop constitutions that clearly distinguished themselves from Francos Spain's regime with a list of legally protected rights and freedoms. Unistrut, a leading member of the Alliance Defense Network writes "any voice of dissent within [The New Pacific Order] is discredited by dismissing them as an agent of foreign powers. Furthermore, any who ask questions that make the ruling junta uncomfortable will find themselves with that same distinction [...] these actions are indicative of a group which is unable to justify its actions on their own merits and needs to resort to chicanery to avoid inflaming public opinion against them." 0
Popular accusations, like this one, have engendered a negative reputation for The New Pacific Order over time; often it is assumed that The New Pacific Order regularly obstructs its citizen's right to freedom of speech and is quintessentially, an authoritarian dictatorship. While many nations are ejected and banned from The Pacific every month, a closer look at the Civil Code for Uniform Justice and Order in The Pacific reveals that the vast majority of these nations are ejected and banned because of a failure to adhere to Code 106 or 107 -- the former, The Pacific's obscenity law and the latter, The Pacific's law against advertisement spam. I will spare my readers a discussion on the "harm principle" by simply noting that the diligent prohibition of obscene national mottos is probably not what some have in mind when they criticise The New Pacific Order for its interference in the free expression of others. Indeed, Francoism appears to distance itself greatly from liberal democratic values; the works of Francoist scholars suggest that "free speech" is to be regarded as "speech without consequences" which they would deny in a rather "Spartan" manner as failing to take responsibility for one's speech. "It is not free speech they wish for, it is the ability to speak freely with absolutely no consequences for what they say," writes Z'ha'dum, "They wish to be able to troll, bluster, threaten, and attack while not allowing anyone else to do the same in return to them. Those who most loudly swear by free expression are those who invariably do the most to limit it." 1
However, this line of thinking fails to consider whether "speech with consequences" can foster a respectful mutual dialogue and a healthy exchange of ideas, especially when one side fears punishment, potentially for speaking the truth - this paradoxical situation, of course, allows authorities to dominate the exchange of ideas with the threat of coercion. Bearing this in mind, I would argue "speech with consequences" can often directly lead to "silence with consequences", even if a citizen might be refraining from only speaking the truth. This is to say that the vast amount of censorship in The Pacific is not direct political intervention but self-censorship: citizens rationally avoid politically-sensitive remarks to remain in favourable standing with the New Pacific Order and The Emperor. I would argue that this phenomenon also extends to Lazarus and the People's Republic of Lazarus. I only extend this claim to Lazarus, however, because of the considerable clout and constitutional power afforded to the Chairman of Lazarus; the more authority centralised under one leader, I would argue, the more deterred you are from speaking out against this authority or contradicting their views or their views of the party. Nonetheless, Lazarus, unlike The Pacific, has taken steps to develop a freedom of speech within its constitutional framework; Section two of the Lazarene Articles of Constitution finds that citizens have a right to "protest" and "say as they desire" provided this expression is done within the constraints of the law and is not an attempt at foreign entryism2 - while this freedom of expression is, of course, limited only to written expression and any legal constraints attached thereof, the effort that Lazarus has taken to enshrine a right to free speech in its constitution distinguishes it from The Pacific and its Articles of Government.
In an exclusive interview with Kazmr, he notes that "to date [Lazarus has] not had a major controversy surrounding freedom of speech, with the only banning (aside from RMB spam or hate speech) since the establishment of the region being that of Ikania who forfeited citizenship by joining a region we were at war with and advocating the destruction of the PRL." Both "Ikania and Llamas have raised the issue of 'freedom of speech' in that they had been known advocates for specific reforms for some time," writes Kazmr, "but their actual removal from government posts came as a result of planning behind closed doors to force the issue; I would suspect most chief executives in NS regions would not tolerate that behavior from their own public officials, however much some may have chastised Lazarus at the time. In general, I think that there is certainly a fair bit of free speech in the region, as various issues like further democratic changes have been raised a number of times, but I would say that there is at least a bit of a closed culture if only because most people in the region tend to be fairly like-minded." I think this rightfully suggests that there is a problematic relationship between freedom of speech and the homogeneity of a community - in other communities that we will discuss, the more homogenous they perceive themselves to be, the more likely they are to consider the expression of opposition as antithetical to their "community" and its harmony. The freedom of speech, after all, is an individual's right to express one's opinion and thus is the product of a more individualist political society - compared to the collective society imagined in The Pacific's Articles of Government, which finds "NPO does not bow its head to the whims of those around it [...] a shelter for its people when the world around it is awash in apathy, self-absorption, denial, rage, and anguish."
What kind of individualist society could we imagine then? Let us first consider The South Pacific. The South Pacific stands as a strong liberal democratic republic, which since the Great Council of 2013 has featured a division of powers between its legislature, executive and its judiciary - the judiciary was separated from the executive with the creation of a Superior Court of The South Pacific. There is a common distinction made legally in The South Pacific between "citizens" and "residents"; the former have political enfranchisement in the Regional Assembly, while the latter includes any nation that resides in The South Pacific.
All residents relatively enjoy the freedom of speech and the freedom of media in practice to engage in discussion, debate and participate in private media such as the time-honoured South Pacific Independent News Network (SPINN). The right to the freedom of the press is also explicitly upheld in The North Pacific, The West Pacific and Balder.3 However, Belschaft, editor of the Independent Herald Tribune in The South Pacific, criticised the current trends towards non-independent media4 in other Game-Created Regions, which he found acted as "state propaganda machines", and "pseudo-state propaganda machines", explicitly naming The Rejected Times, The Northern Lights and The Lazarene Gazette as news organisations under the editorial control of state governments and powerful elites who, Belschaft argues, would refrain from criticising their host regions or contradicting their own vested, private interests:
Given this background, it is safe to say The South Pacific has a particular, perhaps even distinct interest in ensuring that news media remains independent from government influence. Free speech, likewise, is protected under article two of The Charter, The South Pacific's constitutional document. Article two currently acts as a Bill of Rights. It stipulates that all residents shall possess "the freedom to voice their opinions on all matter of their interest, including the peaceful criticism of the Coalition and its government, on both the Forum and the Regional Message Board, subject to reasonable restrictions established by the Assembly that do not violate the spirit of the Charter."6 All government policy is thus strictly prohibited from contradicting this freedom of speech. This Bill of Rights was renewed at a particularly trying time in The South Pacific, it had just been under occupation under Milograd's regime where their government had been accused of being an "oligarchy" that did not respect the rights of individual residents and, since the occupation, the term, "oligarchy", often used to describe the adminship and community elites (e.g., Hileville, Belschaft, Southern Bellz), had become so divisive and controversial as a term that some sought a moratorium on the use of the word, which would have gagged members of the Assembly from using the word, "oligarchy" altogether. Awesomiasa called for "a moratorium on the use of the term to refer or describe the Coalition government." He writes, "free speech is free speech. Speech inciting disharmony is another thing altogether."7Belschaft wrote:"There must be genuine separation between the press and the state. Members of executive governments should not serve on the staff of newspapers, never mind control them. The focus of the press should be shifted to holding governments to account, rather than serving as their mouthpiece. News articles should be grounded in facts, and any data used not publicly available already should be made available for independent review and analysis. Most importantly, there must be a comprehensive process of editorial review to ensure objectivity and accuracy. Until this occurs, journalism in NationStates will be little more than a facsimile of the real thing." 5
This moratorium however failed to consider whether the importance of being able to criticism the government outweighed the perceived "harm" or "offense" to the community for calling its government an oligarchy, or even more importantly, whether citizens had the right to live in a community free from abrasive criticism of their own government in a liberal democracy or whether such a "right" served the government more than it did the people of The South Pacific who would be denied the right to refer to their own government as an "oligarchy".
This current rendering of the Bill of Rights was seen at the time, a great legislative victory and widely regarded as an improvement over the original Bill of Rights - which was a product of the Great Council of 2013. That amendment stipulated all citizens were entrusted with the following rights:
While the subsequent redraft of the Bill of Rights expanded rights from citizens to all residents and expanded the Bill of Rights to discuss political and legal rights, it potentially came at the unexpected curtailment of some aspects of the freedom of speech. It was not mentioned during the debate for the redraft, after all, that the replacement draft failed to consider what the freedom of speech actually entailed beyond the right to "voice" one's opinion; this usually includes, of course, the freedom of thought and belief, as well as the freedom of press and the freedom to associate within political parties. While the original Bill of Rights protected these enumerated rights, the new draft mistakenly overlooked the value in this system of rights within the bracket of "freedom of speech". The South Pacific was not the only region to have recognised the need for a freedom of association; such a freedom is protected under the Concordat of The East Pacific and Balder's Citizenship Act - Balder describes it as "the right of free association", while The East Pacific describes it "the power to make such alliances as it sees fit".9 The freedom of religion is also explicitly protected under The North Pacific's Bill of Rights and The West Pacific's Bill of Rights and Obligations, which became especially important for legislators when The North Pacific pursued the controversial "Religious Observance" amendment which adopted Flemingovianism as the official religion and church of The North Pacific.10Bill of Rights, circa 2013 wrote:" 1. All citizens are entitled to the freedom of thought, belief, and opinion.
2. All citizens are entitled to the freedom of expression, including the freedom of press,
notwithstanding expression be considered unjustifiable as per the Criminal Code.
3. All citizens are entitled to the freedom of peaceful assembly.
4. All citizens are entitled to the freedom of association." 8
For example, Gruenberg would later find that The South Pacific's Bill of Rights in its rewritten version did not include a freedom of religion or freedom of belief;11 while the initial Bill of Rights protected a freedom of belief, there is no surviving constitutional protection of the divide between church and state - this issue would arise when Awesomiasa, Minister of Regional Affairs sent a region-wide message wishing all a "Merry Christmas", noting that "many people are celebrating Christmas all over the world, some for the birth of Jesus, others the turkey, the younger ones Santa [...]" while lamenting that the armed forces and national disasters were keeping some from celebrating Christmas together, and encouraging everyone to unite with family "in the true spirit of giving this Christmas."12 He would justify this message under the grounds that Christmas was widely celebrated in The South Pacific and regardless of the faith of region-goers, Christmas is "a time to gather around with family."13 Gruenberg's calls for an amendment to protect the freedom of religion and belief were wildly mocked by the Assembly, but I too would argue that the holiday message went beyond simply wishing people a "Merry Christmas" and in doing so was laden with neoconservative-christian dictums (i.e., "armed forces", "family", "jesus") and actively encouraged participation in a religious practice (i.e., "the spirit of Christmas"). In these cases, I think it is often important to note how government literature could be alternatively written - with some choice alterations, Awesomiasa's message could have more inclusively wished everyone a "Happy Holidays and a Merry Christmas" and delved into universal themes of safety, comfort, needs and amity without glorifying "the family" as a fundamental social structure or encouraging people to embrace the "spirit of Christmas" - the latter which is less inclusive than simply articulating that "spirit" in terms of secular and universal themes. Sadly, the constitutional right to the freedom of belief which may have been relevant to this issue was unwittingly amended without due consideration. Thus, Gruenberg was completely correct to note that this new Bill of Rights can no longer prevent The South Pacific from adopting or practicing an official religion without, at the very least, a considerably generous interpretation of section two.
Even more disconcertingly, the replacement Bill of Rights included a restrictive clause (i.e., "subject to reasonable restrictions established by the Assembly that do not violate the spirit of the Charter.") which the original did not - this restrictive clause was proposed as a legal catch-all to continue The South Pacific's suppression of advertisements. Sadly, the catch-all was found unnecessary because the suppression of advertisements on the Regional Message Board was already covered in The Charter, but this was overlooked and the Bill of Rights was amended with the disastrous restrictive clause included. What is wrong with "reasonable restrictions", you might ask? Well, that's that just the thing. Nothing is wrong with reasonable restrictions, assuming you agree they are reasonable restrictions. The trouble is that everyone disagrees with what "reasonable" entails and instead of developing perhaps a complicated legal test to determine reasonableness (such as the Canadian Supreme Court's Oakes Test), the Court has thus far just deferred to whatever the Assembly has passed as being a "reasonable" restriction. Osiris especially should be wary of falling into the same trap as The South Pacific has; although this particular part of the state code has yet to be used, it states that citizens in Osiris have a right to the freedom of speech and expression "subject to reasonable restrictions imposed by law which do not violate the spirit of this Code" which bears a striking resemblance to The South Pacific's Bill of Rights and could be susceptible to the same ill interpretations.14 The North Pacific, however, has had a far more curious legal history with "reasonableness" - The North Pacific's Bill of Rights never explicitly refers to a "reasonable restrictions" clause which could limit the purview of free speech. Nevertheless, Chief Justice Hileville ruled that it was "perfectly reasonable [emphasis added] for a government to restrict the use of official letterhead" in one famous reference case which upheld The North Pacific's prohibition of the use of the Coat of Arms in national flags; Chief Justice Hileville added that "while free expression is important [emphasis added], that free expression would undermine the very purpose and utility of the letterhead, and as such must be restrained." 15 Interestingly, this test of "reasonableness" seemingly vanished a month later, when Chief Justice Hileville and the Court of The North Pacific ruled that the crime of "sedition" violated the Bill of Rights, because all nations in The North Pacific, under this judicial interpretation, had a right to free speech even if this free speech deliberately sought to incite a revolution against the government. 16
These issues with "reasonable restrictions" became more prominent in The South Pacific when Belschaft drafted and subsequently passed article nine in the Code of laws; the controversial legislation empowered the Assembly to "designate regions and organizations deemed hostile to The South Pacific as Criminal Groups" and in doing so, any citizens involved in these criminal groups would automatically forfeit their citizenship. I and Geomania would approach the Supreme Court, requesting a wide review of the constitutionality of article nine - I argued, among a number of concerns, that article nine made no distinction between domestic and foreign organisations and regions. Thus, if the executives and the Assembly were to view a domestic political party as "hostile" to The South Pacific, they could use article nine to suspend the citizenships of all party members and disenfranchise them. I regarded this as an offense to the free speech and free expression of all citizens in The South Pacific. First, because oppositional political parties are often viewed by elites and executives as "hostile" to the region, especially when they are arrogant enough to make no distinction between their government and the state or the community, and second, because association is a form of expression - membership in a political party allows you to communicate your ideas even more pressingly. Thus, allowing the government to coerce people to choose between their citizenship and their political party and otherwise, obstructing a local political party, which denies citizens their freedom of association as an extension of their freedom of speech.
Sadly, the Supreme Court did not agree - Chief Justice Farengeto writes that article nine had "no effect on the Freedom of Expression granted in Article 2.2 of the Charter". 17 "While article nine revokes citizenship on those deemed "hostile" by the assembly," writes Farengeto, "Article nine does not limit the affected individual's ability to post on The South Pacific forums, nor their freedom to reside in the region." 18 Farengeto would add later that he was operating from a literal interpretation of the Bill of Rights; since the Bill of Rights only strictly gave citizens the right to "voice their opinion", the disenfranchisement of citizens for any such expression did not physically bar them from voicing their opinion (even if it coerced them to not express themselves) and, furthermore, Farengeto writes that a "majority vote of the assembly more than satisfies" the "reasonable restrictions" proviso.19 Belschaft too would add that the freedom of association was "legal nonsense." 20 Sadly, Chief Justice Farengeto and Belschaft were probably correct in arguing that the Bill of Rights as it stands is only limited to protecting the freedom of speech among residents in general - but it is unconcerned with protecting citizens from being coerced from speaking their mind (e.g., using threats of disenfranchisement) and moreover, the Bill of Rights is only as extensive as the Assembly's wills it, given the "reasonable restrictions" phrase has been more broadly applied to identify anything approved by the Assembly as "reasonable" which severely restricts the protection of freedom of speech in The South Pacific against a tyranny of the majority. Furthermore, the phrase, "do not violate the spirit of the Charter" has been misinterpreted by some - while it in literal terms, limits the restrictions which can be imposed on free speech, others have interpreted it as suggesting the protection of free speech is only reasonable insofar as it does not violate the spirit of the Charter - these two interpretations are, of course, vastly different. The former restricts what the Assembly can "reasonably" curtail, while the latter colours some speech as unnecessary of protection based on the "spirit of the Charter".
Kringalia, the main author of the current Bill of Rights, was kind of enough to discuss the developments with me that erroneously led the creation of the "reasonable restrictions" phrase:
While freedom of speech is an ongoing constitutional project in The South Pacific, it should be noted however that in developed liberal democracies, what we often find is that as constitutional laws protecting freedom of speech develop and mature, citizenship laws and forum administration can fill the void for state control of "vexatious individuals" - people whose opinions threaten the political popularity of the government of the day; these individuals may be painted as "enemies of the region" or even more ambiguously "enemies of the community". Here, if a government can exercise political expediency and restrict such an individual's participation in a region through bureaucratic measures, the need to directly censor their opinions is ultimately unnecessary.Kringalia wrote:"When I first proposed the Bill of Rights, it was the aftermath of the Milograd Coup, and the Coalition was under intense scrutiny and pressure from its residents to prove that it was indeed the democratic and inclusive government that its officials claimed it was. We had a Charter and a Bill of Rights, but those afforded basic rights only to citizens, and even then the text was simple and lacking, so I suggested to Delegate Brutland and Norden a draft for something I called the 'Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Nations' and was then told to submit it to the Assembly. It soon became quite obvious that my proposal would not see passage, with the debate focusing on the technical difficulties of giving rights to non citizens, rather than discussing how to make it a reality.
Comes the delegacy of Southern Bellz, and with it a promise to open the debate on a Bill of Rights. I proposed once again the main part of my earlier draft, which interestingly enough was widely accepted by those participating in the debate. This new draft contained provisions on the right to petition, the right to due process, participation in regional laws, the right to citizenship and residence. However, the most important provision was probably the one regarding free speech, which I tried to phrase in such a way that it explicitly protected the right to "peaceful criticism of the Coalition and its government". This was because one of the points of contention in the post-coup environment was the idea that the government did not allow for criticism and reform, a notion that I tried to disprove with the free speech clause.
If we take a closer look at the free speech clause, we see that it closes with a curious part, which says that free speech will be "subject to reasonable restrictions established by the Assembly that do not violate the spirit of the Charter". During the debate there was an argument regarding the legality of banning adspam, due to the possibility that the proposed Bill of Rights might extend the definition of resident to recruiters. This led to the inclusion of the reasonable restrictions clause, which was actually unnecessary due to the fact that the Charter already allowed the Delegate to unilaterally establish policies regarding adspam, and I said as much during the later stages of the debate. Unfortunately, the draft that was finally motioned and seconded was the one still carrying the aforementioned clause, something that, while not a deal breaker in and of itself, was far from ideal for a document whose objective was to guarantee the rights of all residents.
Why do I say that the reasonable restrictions clause has no place in our Bill of Rights? Because it is a clause with no purpose whatsoever, since adspam is already regulated by the Delegate, and because the South Pacific is not the kind of democracy that has any need for restrictions over the right to free speech. I seriously doubt that this clause would ever be abused by our Assembly, since I know how strong our commitment to democracy and openness is. Still, do we want a clause that contemplates the restriction of free speech? I would argue that the South Pacific has proven that it has no need for such a clause, and it would benefit from making its laws reflect that reality."(Kringalia)
The South Pacific's forum administration responded to significant backlash after it banned me from The South Pacific's forum indefinitely; at the time, Hileville, the head administrator made the decision without the input of the other administrators - he justified the decision on the basis of "demeaning comments and blatant lies about admins and moderation", which probably referred to comments from me regarding the state of the forum administration which I considered to be oligarchical (i.e., serving its own political interests).21 Given that this ban, in effect, curtailed my ability to voice my opinion as a citizen, Kringalia wrote that he was "concerned about the effects of this on Unibot's rights under the Charter. Whether we like it or not [Unibot] is still a citizen, and his ban conflicts with his right to free speech."22 Delegate Escade and The United Solar Republic also voiced their concerns that this decision curtailed my right to free speech; but a planned meeting between the administration and the executive to decide whether or not moderation should respect the constitution's Bill of Rights was never realised.23 Controversially, Hileville refused to state the particular events which led to the ban and argued that the constitutional Bill of Rights (which he referred to as "RP laws") did not apply to the forum administration especially when the forum administration needed to take action for the "protection and betterment of the community."24 What we see here is a common political strategy shared by the earlier "moratorium" debate where citizens had considered banning the use of the word, "oligarchy"; restricting free speech on the basis of "harm" to the "community" - vague concepts which obscures the fact that these rules protect regional authorities from criticism under the mere pretense of serving the community, especially when the community's harmony is confused as one in the same with its authority's legitimacy and popularity. This phenomenon should be especially heeded by The East Pacific, whose Concordat under Article F.1, finds that freedom of speech shall only be restricted when its judiciary finds someone is acting deliberately as a "public nuisance" - like the case in The South Pacific, what counts as a public nuisance can have more to do with a vague sentiment of "community harmony" than it does the rights of citizens to petition against their government, depending on one's interpretation. 25
Moreover, the forum administration in The South Pacific was able to circumvent the constitutional Bill of Rights and, in effect, remove a critic of its administration without even stating what particular events had led to this indefinite ban. The relationship between the constitution and the forum administration is thus of the upmost importance to the study of freedom of speech in NationStates. In these regards, however, the experiences of The South Pacific differs very greatly from The North Pacific; although both share a similar division between their administration and the constitution, The Court of The North Pacific has in the past ruled against the administration and administrative policy - and in doing so, asserted the supremacy of the constitution over the administration. For example, the Court of The North Pacific under Chief Justice Hileville, ruled that the word filters on the forum which translated "dog" to "god" violated the Bill of Rights, namely, the freedom of expression, because, although "dog" was intended to be used an insult against a player, the manner in which the administration had approached this issue was not consistent with the rights of citizens. 26
Eventually, my ban would be appealed because it was found that Hileville's decision had not followed moderation policy - in fact, Hileville's administration had never particularly followed its own moderation policy consistently. In an exclusive interview, one of The South Pacific's current admins, Glen-Rhodes writes "there was certainly an inconsistency in the way the rules were applied. [Unibot's] banning was one of those inconsistencies, and it led to the practical dissolution of the administration team and the move to new forums."
"Not that that was a one-to-one thing," remarks Glen-Rhodes. "The direct antecedent was the removal of admins. But the removal of admins occurred in large part, I think, because of disagreements of the inconsistency of how the rules were applied." The transition from Hileville's forum to The South Pacific's forum has been cognisant of the issues with the freedom of speech that the previous forum administration had enabled. "The current forum administration doesn't want to be too hands-on when it comes to moderation, and that leads to freer speech by default," explains Glen-Rhodes. "Our current guidelines encourage community-based moderation, along with patience and relative objectivity. I think we're the only region to have an actual guide to successful moderating. In the past, administrators were involved in moderation, and that is reflected in the large size of the team. Now, we really want Cabinet members (who are accountable via elections) to do their own moderating. We don't want to rely on a points system and start handing out bans here and there, although we do have one because we were pressured into making one (though we've only used it once ever)." According to Glen-Rhodes, the new moderation policy reflects his "preferred hands-off approach".
One thing, however, that The South Pacific and The North Pacific do share is that constitutionally, the Vice Delegate leads applications to the Regional Assembly. Under The North Pacific's constitution, the Vice Delegate can reject any applicant to its Regional Assembly if it finds that the applicant is a "security threat" to The North Pacific; whereas under The South Pacific's charter, the Vice Delegate can reject any citizenship application for any reason it publicly states. While any such rejection of applications automatically begins a vote in The North Pacific's Regional Assembly to consider the merits of the rejection, rejected applicants in The South Pacific are simply expected to appeal to the Assembly in their own time - while only a simple majority is required to overturn a Vice Delegate's decision in The North Pacific, a supermajority (75%) is expected in The South Pacific. Bearing all of this in mind, if we consider enfranchisement and the ability to vocalise one's opinion in a legislative capacity as central to the freedom of speech and expression, than the Vice Delegates in both The South Pacific and The North Pacific possess an enormous ability to undercut one's representation in the regional legislature.
This have given rise to the practice of "persona non grata" - it is an executive policy in both, The South Pacific and The North Pacific, which has no explicit basis in their constitutions or their code of laws (i.e., you will not find "persona non grata" on the books). Essentially, "persona non grata" makes use of the Vice Delegate's constitutional privileges - it is a legal entanglement, better described as "spooky action at a distance," or if you prefer, a promise, nay an open recommendation to the Vice Delegate to continue to deny an applicant. Eluvatar writes that in The North Pacific he had originally recommended this practice to Delegate Jamie Anumia to respond to Milograd and his actions as the lead couper of The South Pacific; however, Eluvatar also notes that he never intended for the practice of "persona non grata" to apply to statements too. However, The North Pacific would eventually implement the charge of "persona non grata" against me on June 16 2014 on the grounds that I had "attacked" The North Pacific's "political orientation, diplomatic and military policy, regional culture, government at large and its elected officials individually" in my capacity as editor-in-chief of The Rejected Times - this formalism, of course, obscures that issues at play as one of "security", when really, my opinions did not threaten or attack The North Pacific, but instead, criticised government policy and the performance of public officials.27 Bearing in mind, The North Pacific had already threatened diplomatic action if it did not receive favourable coverage in The Rejected Times , this behavior demonstrates just how powerful the "persona non grata" mechanism can be when a government values political expediency over the freedom of expression or the freedom of the press.28
Conclusion
The institutionalisation of the freedom of speech in NationStates suggests a particularly curious pattern: the more individualist, a society, the freer every citizen is to speak their mind and express themselves as individuals, while more disconcertingly, the ambiguous "protection" of a "community" can come at the expense of the individual's freedom of speech, largely as an advantage for a community's political authorities who, in effect, paint opposition as antithetical to the "community" itself.
The freedom of speech is best regarded and encapsulated as a system of various rights and freedoms: the right to the freedom of belief, media and association which extend from this overall right to express one's self. We should, however, wary of the development of "reasonable" limitations to the freedom of speech - these legal provisos can, after all, give justices too much latitude to favour the majoritarian view over the protection of a minority's right to free speech and expression.
What we find, after a comprehensive examination of the freedom of speech in game-created regions is that freedom of speech is rarely obstructed as a direct interference between a political institution and its citizens - instead, advocates of free speech in NationStates need to be concerned not only with the "negative" law of free speech (the prohibition of censorship) but also the "positive" law of free speech, namely, how states come to facilitate free speech and expression. The vast majority of censorship, after all, is self-censorship - eliminating these structures of rational coercion will greatly allow authoritarian societies to transition to democratic societies, meanwhile, even those living in liberal democratic societies need to pay particular attention to how, and in what ways, their governments can marginalise alternative opinions through the politicialisation of forum moderation and the citizenship application process.
Footnotes
0. Unistrut, "The Great Pacifican Lie," Alliance Defense Network News Service, September 10 2005.
1. Z'ha'dum, "On Free Speech," November 12 2008.
2. The Constitution of Lazarus (Article 2.3), August 24 2014.
3. The Bill of Rights for all Nations of The North Pacific (Article 2), November 20 2007; Bill of Rights and Obligations (Article 2), May 16 2013; The Citizenship Act (Article 5), October 2014.
4. "Non-independent" as in news media under the direct influence of government, corporate or elite interests.
5. Belschaft, "An Incestuous Relationship," Independent Herald Tribune, July 10 2014.
6. The Charter (Article 2.2), September 04 2013.
7. Awesomiasa, "Moratorium On The Use Of Term 'Oligarchy'," June 16 2013.
8. The Charter (Article 2.1-4), April 18 2013.
9. The Concordat of the East Pacific (Article F.2), July 31 2009; The Citizenship Act (Article 5), October 2014.
10. The Bill of Rights for all Nations of The North Pacific (Article 2), November 20 2007; Bill of Rights and Obligations (Article 2), May 16 2013.
11. Gruenberg, "Amendment to Article 2 of the Charter: Freedom of Religion," December 27 2013.
12. Awesomiasa, "Merry Christmas," December 25, 2013.
13. Awesomiasa, "Amendment to Article 2 of the Charter: Freedom of Religion," December 27 2013.
14. State Code of Osiris (Section 5.2.c), March 16 2014.
15. Reference Case: "In regards to the Judicial Inquiry filed by Unibot on Potential Confliction [sic] of the Bill of Rights and Legal Code in regards to National Flags," Court of The North Pacific, January 13 2013.
16. Reference Case: "In regards to the Judicial Inquiry filed by Gaspo on the Constitutionality of the Sedition Law," Court of The North Pacific, February 14 2013.
17. Reference Case: "Criminal Regions and Organizations vs Right to Appeal and Freedom of Expression," Supreme Court of The South Pacific, February 21 2014.
18. Reference Case: "Criminal Regions and Organizations vs Right to Appeal and Freedom of Expression", Supreme Court of The South Pacific, February 21 2014.
19. Farengeto, "Problematic interpretation of the Freedom of Expression," February 25, 2014.
20. Belschaft, "Problematic interpretation of the Freedom of Expression," February 23, 2014.
21. Hileville, "A Message regarding Unibot and the Future," February 16, 2014.
22. Kringalia, "A Message regarding Unibot and the Future," February 16, 2014.
23. Escade, United Solar Republic and Hileville, "A Message regarding Unibot and the Future," February 16, 2014.
24. Hileville, "A Message regarding Unibot and the Future," February 16, 2014.
25. The Concordat of the East Pacific (Article F.1), July 31 2009.
26. Reference Case: "In regards to the Judicial Inquiry filed by Blue Wolf II on use of work filters," Court of The North Pacific, July 11 2012.
27. McMasterdonia, "Declaration of Unibot as persona non grata," June 16 2014.
28. Guy, "Declaration of Unibot as persona non grata," June 16 2014.
