How We Managed to Make IRC Inclusive and Free Speech-Tolerant Without Banning People
Many people still use Internet Relay Chat (IRC)
OUR own network for IRC was established in 2021. Prior to that all our channels used Freenode. The new network puts us in complete control of our destiny. It now has many channels and they've long offloaded off-topic discussions (e.g. not technology) to more "social" or niche channels. It was around 2009 - if memory doesn't fail me (checking the exact date is doable, but such a task takes some research) - when we first created a "-social" channel for this purpose. This was modelled after what Fedora had done.
People in IRC seldom agree on everything, more so if politics are aired and especially in the wrong context/s.
Up until 2023 there were vandals and saboteurs in IRC. Their sole goal was to destroy the channels and the network. They kept trying to blackmail the webhost. We have evidence of it. Several of them did this in tandem. They did this to several webhosts, too. They used their own abuse as a pretext or as evidence of abuse. So we had to get rid of them, we reported them to the police (actual crimes did get committed), and eventually we also filed legal cases [1, 2]. It was quite revealing when they resorted to yet more blackmail against webhosts and even borrowed 'firepower' from Microsoft men who strangle women (and were put in prison for it).
In 2025 we no longer have those sorts of issues and it's difficult to recall when we last banned people. It was probably months ago when the despicable Microsoft Lunduke was siccing his 4chan trolls at us. Since we're not in Social Control Media and we don't facilitate blog comments, they tried to vandalise our IRC network. They very soon were shown the door; they failed to do much damage.
Of course some of the things they did were the typical "4chan things". And this is what audience Microsoft Lunduke is using his 'dogwhistle' for; he tailors his agenda for these sorts of people, echoing their memes and amplifying their rallying cry (with a racist agenda).
IRC in Techrights encourages free speech within the boundaries of the law. If people start hijacking other people's usernames and defame them using sockpuppet (or identify-thieved) accounts, we must take action. █