Frequently Asked Questions

Here are some frequently asked questions potential members (and the public) often have about NearlyFreeSpeech.NET and our services. If you wish to restrict the list of FAQs to only those containing certain keywords, enter them below. Otherwise, all public FAQs will be displayed. (Our members have a much more detailed FAQ accessible via the member interface. Non-members can peek at that here.)

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Policy Questions

Non-Member Questions

Policy Answers

  • What is the "MFFAM" policy?

    Because we believe in free speech, we host a small amount of offensive content. Some days, that's really hard to do. There are views expressed using our service that we find personally repugnant. (Although we don't host as much of that type of content as one might expect, given our extremely broad Terms & Conditions of Service. The simple fact is that our service is for smart people, which disproportionately excludes people who hold those types of views.)

    Nonetheless, our content policy does occasionally put us in a position of accepting money to host sites we find abhorrent. But we have no interest in profiting from sites like that. For that reason, since our founding in 2002, we have what we have more recently started calling the MFFAM policy: Morons Funding the Fight Against Morons.

    When we find a repugnant site on our service, we mark the account. We receive reports about all payments to such accounts, and we take a portion of that money larger than the amount of estimated profit and we donate it to the best organization we can find. The best organization in any given case meets two criteria:

    1. The recipient organization does share our values.
    2. The recipient organization is as opposite (and hopefully as offensive) as possible to the site operator that funded the donation.

    Examples of organizations that have received funding over the years include the Anti-Defamation League, the Southern Poverty Law Center, local chapters of the NAACP, the National Bail Fund Network, the American Immigration Council, the Trevor Project, and others.

    This policy isn't perfect by any means, but neither is the world we live in. MFFAM does let us help the organizations that we hope will eventually get us closer to that perfect world. It helps the people who operate repugnant sites understand that they are here because we tolerate them... barely... not because we endorse them or their views. It also does a pretty decent job of further thinning out the number of such sites, as a fair number of people who run them only believe in free speech when they're the ones talking.

Non-Member Answers

  • One of your customers' sites offends me. Who do I email to have it taken down?

    Please see Abuse @ NearlyFreeSpeech.NET.

  • Why do you host really, really offensive content?

    The simple answer is that we allow offensive content — whether that means offensive to you or offensive to us — because our Terms and Conditions of Service allow all legal content and it's not illegal to be offensive.

    The real question, then, is: why we don't we change our Terms and Conditions of Service?

    Well, everything from this FAQ entry and our Abuse page definitely applies. But when you get into websites that advocate or represent viewpoints that are particularly offensive and harmful, there are additional reasons.

    Most importantly, websites that advocate or represent viewpoints are created by people who hold those views. If those people are willing to stand up and wave their hands and say "Hey! Here I am! Over here! Look at me!" we prefer to let them. To some extent, we are willing to host certain types of content to rub the world's nose in the fact that people who think that way still exist. And if that makes you uncomfortable, good, it's working.

    In addition to that, we have very strict requirements to provide accurate contact information and we operate from a nation of laws. If someone who hosts a site on our service engages in criminal activity and the police come to us for help (with appropriate warrants/subpoenas/etc), we're very likely to be able to provide not only information, but technical assistance that may be essential to catching them. If we kick them off and they pop up twenty minutes later on some third-world ISP that hasn't put our level of thought into their policies, doesn't keep good records, and doesn't have the legal system we enjoy, that opportunity is lost.

    Of course, the simplest reason is that it's not up to us to decide what the rest of the world should or shouldn't see. Bad news, it's not up to you either. Worse news, it's still true even when we agree. Which is probably most of the time.

    Finally, censorship is always bad, for a variety of well understood reasons that we don't need to repeat here. But in the case of some types of content, it has special dangers. When you censor a web site based on the extreme or dangerous views of its creator(s), you haven't stopped those people from thinking that way. You haven't made them go away. You certainly haven't stopped the people who hold those views from doing whatever else they do when they're not posting on the Internet. What you've actually done is given yourself a false sense of accomplishment by closing your eyes, clapping your hands over your ears, and yelling "Lalala! I can't hear you!" at the top of your voice. Pretending a problem doesn't exist is not only not a solution, it makes real solutions harder to reach.

    So that's why we host really, really offensive content. It's not because we like it. It's certainly not because we agree with it. And it's not because we profit from it; our MFFAM policy makes sure of that.

    It's because we've spent a long time thinking about this very carefully and concluded that it's the best course of action. But that's our opinion. We respect your right to hold — and to express — a different view.

    Please note: If you found this because of a specific site that falls into the offensive-but-legal category that you were hoping to censor, here is what you should do instead:

    • Speak out against the views espoused on that site.
    • Learn more about the issue so that you can advocate effectively against it.
    • Find a way to become locally involved in activism related to the issue.
    • Donate money to related causes.

    That's what we do. Unfortunately, all of those things do take more effort than demanding censorship. But they're both useful and effective, whereas censorship is neither. If you're upset by something you see online but not upset enough to do these sorts of things, then "don't look at it" is probably the best advice we can offer.

    Of course, if you find something that's actually illegal rather than merely offensive, take appropriate action immediately.