SENATE BILL: Senate Off-site Procedures Rules Resolution (Passed)

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

SENATE BILL

To resolve leaking from private chats and harassment on discord

Be it enacted in both Houses of Congress Assembled,

Discord Regulations Bill

1. Discord Crimes
A:Conducting official business on discord- This crime shall be considered the conducting or taking part of a formal votes and making of formal motions by any regional assembly or the federal senate or federal  house. Any legislative business conducted by the previous mentioned assembles  shall be considered null and void if done on discord.
B. Sharing of non authorized Direct Messages- This crime shall be considered the direct sharing of direct messages either whole or in part with other citizens of Atlasia either on Discord or on the public forum without the express written consent of the other individual(s) in the DM.
C. Sharing of non authorized messages in locked channels in Atlasia serves- This crime shall be considered the direct sharing of messages in a locked channel of a Atlasia affiliated server either whole or by part on either discord or in public without the express written consent of all individuals that posted in the shared messages.
D Spreading liable speech about another Atlasia citizen on discord- This crime shall be considered the spreading of knowingly false information about a registered Atlasian to at least one other registered Atlasia citizen.
E Harassment of other Atlasian citizens on discord- This shall be known as the public posting of vulgar or threatening remarks directed or about another Atlasian citizen.

2.Criminal liability and sentencing procedures- The above crimes shall be tried the same way  as Crimes against Atlasia. The above crimes shall have a maximum sentence of a 1 year voting ban and a 1 year ban on holding office.

3. This bill shall take effect immediately upon passage.

People's Regional Senate
Pending

Sponsor: NC Yankee for the Attorney General
Senate Designation: SB 9020

[Mr. Reactionary]

The noncommercial sharing of legally obtained information is generally protected under free speech. That is often the difficulty faced when crafting revenge porn laws.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

There will have to significant changes to this to stand a chance in passing, but I will hold off saying more until the Attorney General addresses the Senate.

[Sirius_]

I would like to express concern that this singles out Discord and isn't just an "Off-Site Regulations Bill" or whatever.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Sections B through E are blatant violations of the constitutional right to freedom of speech.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Well, this is problematic, to say the least.

[Terry the Fat Shark]

Imagine all the juicy leaks we would've missed without section B......

[Esteemed Jimmy]

I have to agree with ASV and Truman that this bill is quite problematic. And I specifically have concerns with subsection D and E of Section 1. I can forsee many abuses of the criminal liability section against other players by faking screenshots of them saying harassing or false information, in order to hurt them in the game.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I have to agree with ASV and Truman that this bill is quite problematic. And I specifically have concerns with subsection D and E of Section 1. I can forsee many abuses of the criminal liability section against other players by faking screenshots of them saying harassing or false information, in order to hurt them in the game.

That is the opposite of what is trying to be achieved here obvious. Like I said, it will need massive changes, this was the raw text that the AG posted for introduction in the thread.

[Terry the Fat Shark]

All of these sections are bad.

[Terry the Fat Shark]

A is repressive and should be left up to the voters, B would've stopped pretty much all of the leaks and basically makes news agencies nearly pointless, C makes party spying illegal which although I disagree with the practice that should not be codified, D isn't defined well and almost anything we have all said about each other could be considered "false information" based on opinion, and E again same very opinion based

[Pragmatic Conservative]

I would like to thank the Senate PPT for agreeing to sponsor this bill. I agree with Yankee that this bill will need amendments before being passed. However this is an issue the senate needs to solve. Currently Discord is largely unregulated which has been rife with targeted harassment toward other players, leaks  from private server and private messages. It is important that we create some basic laws regulating discord in order to bring a level of civility to the platform which will create a welcoming environment for all Atlasians. We also need to clamp down on the leaking of private messages which have caused serious issues in the past on discord.

[Terry the Fat Shark]

I would like to thank the Senate PPT for agreeing to sponsor this bill. I agree with Yankee that this bill will need amendments before being passed. However this is an issue the senate needs to solve. Currently Discord is largely unregulated which has been rife with targeted harassment toward other players, leaks  from private server and private messages. It is important that we create some basic laws regulating discord in order to bring a level of civility to the platform which will create a welcoming environment for all Atlasians. We also need to clamp down on the leaking of private messages which have caused serious issues in the past on discord.

1. It is not a requirement for anyone in Atlas to join discord, you can't regulate something that isn't even part of the forum.
2. Again if Atlasians want to enjoy their environment here and not be on discord, they can choose to do so, many do as it happens.
3. It is good to have the release of discord dms because it keeps people honest. Think of the Pericles-Louisvillethunder scandal for example, this caused big changes in Atlasian politics and taught people they can't say what they want in discord without being caught, it's good for self-regulation.
4. This is a massive overreaction to the "Glam Glam" incident which people quickly discovered was false anyways and everyone but you has moved on from it at this point.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

1. It is not a requirement for anyone in Atlas to join discord, you can't regulate something that isn't even part of the forum.

Seeing as discord screenshots are admissible as evidence in court, that's not exactly true. In principle, I'd be open to some legal measures to protect against harassment/privacy violations, but this particular bill is . . . just really bad. I could go through it point-by-point, but honestly I'm not sure it's even salvageable.

[Terry the Fat Shark]

1. It is not a requirement for anyone in Atlas to join discord, you can't regulate something that isn't even part of the forum.

Seeing as discord screenshots are admissible as evidence in court, that's not exactly true. In principle, I'd be open to some legal measures to protect against harassment/privacy violations, but this particular bill is . . . just really bad. I could go through it point-by-point, but honestly I'm not sure it's even salvageable.

It might be admissible as evidence in court, but the court doesn't even have to do such a thing. Arguably the only thing that should be regulated by atlasian officials and/or law is things within this part of the forum.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

1. It is not a requirement for anyone in Atlas to join discord, you can't regulate something that isn't even part of the forum.

Seeing as discord screenshots are admissible as evidence in court, that's not exactly true. In principle, I'd be open to some legal measures to protect against harassment/privacy violations, but this particular bill is . . . just really bad. I could go through it point-by-point, but honestly I'm not sure it's even salvageable.

It might be admissible as evidence in court, but the court doesn't even have to do such a thing. Arguably the only thing that should be regulated by atlasian officials and/or law is things within this part of the forum.

If something is admissible in court, the implication insofar as the law is concerned would be that it is real and thus potentially subject to legislative action. To take it from another angle: in real life, only evidence that is 'of this world' is admissible in court—you can't find someone guilty based on a dream, or because you say God told you they committed the crime. Must is no longer a relevant question here, because the court does admit such evidence, so Discord is evidently part of Atlasia and thus subject to regulation. Congress has in fact already moved to regulate activity on Discord in the past, with the prohibition against holding session there in the House and Senate Rules. What it is not, is a Guantanamo-esque free zone where the Bill of Rights does not apply—so this bill as it stands is unconstitutional.

[Terry the Fat Shark]

1. It is not a requirement for anyone in Atlas to join discord, you can't regulate something that isn't even part of the forum.

Seeing as discord screenshots are admissible as evidence in court, that's not exactly true. In principle, I'd be open to some legal measures to protect against harassment/privacy violations, but this particular bill is . . . just really bad. I could go through it point-by-point, but honestly I'm not sure it's even salvageable.

It might be admissible as evidence in court, but the court doesn't even have to do such a thing. Arguably the only thing that should be regulated by atlasian officials and/or law is things within this part of the forum.

If something is admissible in court, the implication insofar as the law is concerned would be that it is real and thus potentially subject to legislative action. To take it from another angle: in real life, only evidence that is 'of this world' is admissible in court—you can't find someone guilty based on a dream, or because you say God told you they committed the crime. Must is no longer a relevant question here, because the court does admit such evidence, so Discord is evidently part of Atlasia and thus subject to regulation. Congress has in fact already moved to regulate activity on Discord in the past, with the prohibition against holding session there in the House and Senate Rules. What it is not, is a Guantanamo-esque free zone where the Bill of Rights does not apply—so this bill as it stands is unconstitutional.

I disagree that discord should in terms of speech and other things be regulated by anyone on this forum. Regardless, I think we can disagree there are massive holes in this bill and it is substantially overreaching any bounds that are available to the Atlasian government.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I must disagree with DFW even while noting my own difficulties with the underlying text. Truman is right.

We cannot stick our heads in the sand on this and pretend "we can do nothing" when so much of this game is being offshored to Discord.

And we have regulated PMs to the extent that if you PM someone to get them to invalidate their vote, such is a crime. Same for intimidation to vote etc, same for a number of other such crimes. If we can do that with PMs, we can do it with off site chat rooms. There are narrow aspects that can indeed be regulated and yes broadened to include a multiple number of medium not just discord.

Also DFW is functionally incorrect from a practical standpoint. I would certainly not support this, but we could ban anyway playing the game from using discord. We can condition access to the game on not using it with a penalty being a ban from the game. Would never support it, would really be oppressive, but it illustrates the point that we are to become powerless slaves to continual being subjected to more of the same is both incorrect and unsustainable.

Atlasia shall not be crucified on a cross of discordification!

[Terry the Fat Shark]

I must disagree with DFW even while noting my own difficulties with the underlying text. Truman is right.

We cannot stick our heads in the sand on this and pretend "we can do nothing" when so much of this game is being offshored to Discord.

And we have regulated PMs to the extent that if you PM someone to get them to invalidate their vote, such is a crime. Same for intimidation to vote etc, same for a number of other such crimes. If we can do that with PMs, we can do it with off site chat rooms. There are narrow aspects that can indeed be regulated and yes broadened to include a multiple number of medium not just discord.

Also DFW is functionally incorrect from a practical standpoint. I would certainly not support this, but we could ban anyway playing the game from using discord. We can condition access to the game on not using it with a penalty being a ban from the game. Would never support it, would really be oppressive, but it illustrates the point that we are to become powerless slaves to continual being subjected to more of the same is both incorrect and unsustainable.

Atlasia shall not be crucified on a cross of discordification!

I suppose you can do anything you want, but a good chunk of the game and most of the active players would leave the game, causing a self-destruct. It might be "constitutional", but it's not feasible or logical, which is the point I was trying to make.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I must disagree with DFW even while noting my own difficulties with the underlying text. Truman is right.

We cannot stick our heads in the sand on this and pretend "we can do nothing" when so much of this game is being offshored to Discord.

And we have regulated PMs to the extent that if you PM someone to get them to invalidate their vote, such is a crime. Same for intimidation to vote etc, same for a number of other such crimes. If we can do that with PMs, we can do it with off site chat rooms. There are narrow aspects that can indeed be regulated and yes broadened to include a multiple number of medium not just discord.

Also DFW is functionally incorrect from a practical standpoint. I would certainly not support this, but we could ban anyway playing the game from using discord. We can condition access to the game on not using it with a penalty being a ban from the game. Would never support it, would really be oppressive, but it illustrates the point that we are to become powerless slaves to continual being subjected to more of the same is both incorrect and unsustainable.

Atlasia shall not be crucified on a cross of discordification!

I suppose you can do anything you want, but a good chunk of the game and most of the active players would leave the game, causing a self-destruct. It might be "constitutional", but it's not feasible or logical, which is the point I was trying to make.

To that extent maybe, but no one is saying anything about going to that extent.

[P. Clodius Pulcher did nothing wrong]

Hello, peeping in from the other chamber of Congress here. This bill is a good first start, and I wholeheartedly support its intent. It's clear that there are some constitutional issues to solve before Congress can pass this, but Discord must be regulated somehow. I definitely agree with Speaker Ninja in that the language should be broadened to include other platforms that aren't Discord. Yankee put it best:

Atlasia shall not be crucified on a cross of discordification!

I look forward to seeing the final language crafted by this Esteemed Upper Chamber!

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

This law is ridiculous and should be rejected in full. First off, Atlasia is if anything too public. There are lots of secrets in the US government, and so it follows that there should be lots of secrets in Atlasia. To criticize part by part:

A:

Unconstitutional - Regional Legislatures are allowed under the consitution to decide their own rules, within the limits of the consitution. The document does not call to regulate discord.

Unnecessary -  The rules of the South and Fremont effectively prevent doing business on discord, as do the rules for the federal house and Senate. To the extent that there are loopholes in the Lincoln Rules, those should be corrected on a regional level.

B:

Unconstitutional - Whatever the Atlas TOS may say, Atlasian Court Precedent explicitly allows the release of Atlas PMs. This naturally extends to discord.

No Law Enforcement Exception - Under this part, it would be illegal to share relevant discord PMs with the AG, unless you could somehow get consent from someone who is likely being investigated by the AG.

Impractical - Impossible to get consent if one of the other users has since left Atlas.

C:

Unconstitutional - Releasing Discord Messages from a generic locked channel, not containing classified Nat Sec Info, is protected by free speech court rulings dating back to 1992

Law Enforcement + Impractical: See B

D:

Unconstitutional - Free Speech

Bans Jokes/Mistakes: The provision does not account for Jokes, Harmless Mocking, Memes or Being Mistaken rather than lying. All that it says is that all spreading of false information is banned. One might say that a good jury would consider context, but the text of the law does not allow a jury to do so. All it allows the jury to consider was whether the info was false. In the most extreme case, a typo could be criminal activity, due to our habits of Screenshotting en masse.

E: Similar to D

[IceAgeComing]

several things from the perspective of someone who has the misfortune of moderating the atlas discord:

Firstly any "law" passed here that tries to enforce us to do something will not be followed; we are guided solely by our rules and I have absolutely no intention to listen to anything that yous all attempt in enforce on us.  Most of those rules already ban things listed here and if there are any problems please fire me a discord PM and we can have a chat about it.  The current legislation doesn't which I appreciate; but if there are amendments that seek to do such things I feel the need to just clarify that.  That also applies to expecting us to somehow keep evidence of these things: as far as I'm concerned that is all your responsibility.

Secondly the release of PMs without the consent of both parties is also against the Discord Terms of Service and so if you wished to prevent that you have recourse there I guess.  I'd have to speak to the mods on the discord when it came to publicly sharing that stuff (don't think its came up really) but I'd guess that would be something that we wouldn't want to become common practice there.

One thing I'd suggest since Discord will likely be a time limited platform would be to genericise the bill to also include things like IRC, Slack or other similar instant messaging services.  Should be relatively easy to do with a simple definition defining "instant messenger service" and using that instead.

B:

Unconstitutional - Whatever the Atlas TOS may say, Atlasian Court Precedent explicitly allows the release of Atlas PMs. This naturally extends to discord.

This is 110% wrong by the way: pretty sure that Dave is above whatever you all decide and if he decided to enforce that rule then they would.  Same goes for discord: I'm entirely fine with deleting shared PMs if I feel that they break our rules and there's nothing you can do about it.

[Former President tack50]

While I personally support Discord regulation, I think this bill may go a bit too far.

I agree with points A, D and E. It's important that all official business takes place here and not on the Discord (remember that Lokcord, the most used channel, isn't official or even open to everyone!).

Regarding D and E, I'm pretty sure that slander and harrasment are both crimes already in the forum, so they should be illegal on Discord as well. And if they aren't, they should. Harrassment and slander are very bad actions that should be illegal. Probably with a high threshold to actually sentence someone, but crimes nontheless.

B and C are the ones where I disagree. These 2 should remain legal (of course, leaking stuff from places like the National Security Council should still be punishable) and I think this is where the courts have ruled that bans here would be unconstitutional.

I also agree with the fact that we shouldn't single out Discord. If we moved to IRC, or Whatsapp, or something like that for some reason then this bill would be obsolete. So, I'm presenting the following ammendment:

SENATE BILL

To resolve leaking from private chats and harassment on discord off-site chat rooms

Be it enacted in both Houses of Congress Assembled,

Discord Off-site chat rooms Regulations Bill

1. Discord Off-site Crimes
A:Conducting official business on discord off-site chat rooms- This crime shall be considered the conducting or taking part of a formal votes and making of formal motions by any regional assembly or the federal senate or federal  house. Any legislative business conducted by the previous mentioned assembles  shall be considered null and void if done on discord off-site chat rooms.
B. Sharing of non authorized Direct Messages- This crime shall be considered the direct sharing of direct messages either whole or in part with other citizens of Atlasia either on Discord or on the public forum without the express written consent of the other individual(s) in the DM.
C. Sharing of non authorized messages in locked channels in Atlasia serves- This crime shall be considered the direct sharing of messages in a locked channel of a Atlasia affiliated server either whole or by part on either discord or in public without the express written consent of all individuals that posted in the shared messages.
D B. Spreading liable speech about another Atlasia citizen on discord off-site chat rooms-  This crime shall be considered the spreading of knowingly false information about a registered Atlasian to at least one other registered Atlasia citizen.
EC. Harassment of other Atlasian citizens on discord off-site chat rooms- This shall be known as the public posting of vulgar or threatening remarks directed or about another Atlasian citizen.

2.Criminal liability and sentencing procedures- The above crimes shall be tried the same way  as Crimes against Atlasia. The above crimes shall have a maximum sentence of a 1 year voting ban and a 1 year ban on holding office.

3. This bill shall take effect immediately upon passage.

This removes sections B and C and extends the bill to other off-site chat rooms

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

several things from the perspective of someone who has the misfortune of moderating the atlas discord:

Firstly any "law" passed here that tries to enforce us to do something will not be followed; we are guided solely by our rules and I have absolutely no intention to listen to anything that yous all attempt in enforce on us.  Most of those rules already ban things listed here and if there are any problems please fire me a discord PM and we can have a chat about it.  The current legislation doesn't which I appreciate; but if there are amendments that seek to do such things I feel the need to just clarify that.  That also applies to expecting us to somehow keep evidence of these things: as far as I'm concerned that is all your responsibility.

Secondly the release of PMs without the consent of both parties is also against the Discord Terms of Service and so if you wished to prevent that you have recourse there I guess.  I'd have to speak to the mods on the discord when it came to publicly sharing that stuff (don't think its came up really) but I'd guess that would be something that we wouldn't want to become common practice there.

One thing I'd suggest since Discord will likely be a time limited platform would be to genericise the bill to also include things like IRC, Slack or other similar instant messaging services.  Should be relatively easy to do with a simple definition defining "instant messenger service" and using that instead.

B:

Unconstitutional - Whatever the Atlas TOS may say, Atlasian Court Precedent explicitly allows the release of Atlas PMs. This naturally extends to discord.

This is 110% wrong by the way: pretty sure that Dave is above whatever you all decide and if he decided to enforce that rule then they would.  Same goes for discord: I'm entirely fine with deleting shared PMs if I feel that they break our rules and there's nothing you can do about it.

What you can or can't delete is besides the point, the goal of this law is to enable prosecution in Atlasian Courts and denial of voting rights. An Atlasian Court denying voting rights because of a released PM would go against Atlasian Court Precedent.