Libera Chat's "Level of Control Might Make Sense for a Corporate Platform"
Moments ago: Libera Chat is Corporate
Corporate censorship platform (Reddit) traded in Wall Street, in a post now marked "[deleted]", has the following explanation of Libera Chat:
When the open source community migrated en masse from Freenode to Libera.Chat, many of us hoped for a breath of fresh air — a platform that respected developer autonomy and upheld community values. But now, several years in, it's fair to ask: has Libera.Chat delivered on that promise, or just replaced one set of problems with another?The issue isn't that moderation exists — it should. But the way Libera.Chat enforces its network-wide rules often feels overly centralized and rigid. Projects are expected to conform to a one-size-fits-all conduct policy, even when they have their own long-standing governance and culture. Channels are monitored closely, and there's a sense that any deviation from the "approved tone" could result in warnings, restrictions, or even bans.
This level of control might make sense for a corporate platform — not for IRC, which historically thrived on decentralization, autonomy, and diverse philosophies. Ironically, Libera.Chat’s efforts to “protect” the community sometimes push active contributors away or force them into walled-garden alternatives like Discord or Matrix, where at least they can set their own terms.
Meanwhile, other forces blamed for IRC’s decline — Slack, Discord, social media — didn’t “kill” IRC. They just offered features IRC refused to adopt. What’s hurting IRC now isn’t external competition, but internal gatekeeping disguised as safety.
We should be asking: is this model serving the projects that made IRC relevant in the first place? Or are we slowly losing them to platforms that may be less ideal philosophically, but more welcoming in practice?
Today's Libera Chat is GAFAM friendly (it tolerates GAFAM abuses). But the issue isn't IRC. IRC is not centralised; those who treat is as centralised are making a mistake. There are many networks of IRC that are known and open to all. Anyone can create one's own network. █