Site announcements and information discussion

Question

Someone I exchange messages with mentioned he struggles to use CM since it seems to cut off people using the Tor anonymity tool. He lives in the Middle East, where homophobia is widespread and male chastity is a delicate matter. If his government tracks back these internet communications regarding that subject, it could hurt his career (and maybe personal life).

Is there a specific reason Tor users get blocked here? Is there a practical solution for him to bypass this issue and connect with CM?

member_41314d757c · Answer

Hello Zorglub, that is certainly an intriguing question, and I am not convinced it is something a responsible forum owner can easily sidestep.

As we all know, we bear responsibility for what we post on public forums. If anything posted ever catches the eye of law enforcement, most owners will hand over their logs without much debate—it would be too troublesome otherwise. Because of this need to comply, I imagine there are signup settings that might prevent anonymous systems from registering properly. So it is possible no workaround exists if he wants to use Tor or something similar.

That said, let's see if the @Administrator can shed some light here. He is a busy man with several projects underway, so his reply may not be immediate.

member_995bfc3014 · Answer

I am able to log in and post this using Tor. I suggest your friend update his Tor Browser (to version 6.0.5 or higher).

> zorglub said:
>
> Someone I exchange messages with mentioned he struggles to use CM since it seems to cut off people using the Tor anonymity tool. He lives in the Middle East, where homophobia is widespread and male chastity is a delicate matter. If his government tracks back these internet communications regarding that subject, it could hurt his career (and maybe personal life).
>
> Is there a specific reason Tor users get blocked here? Is there a practical solution for him to bypass this issue and connect with CM?

Click to expand...

member_5299da9ccd · Answer

>"I am not convinced it is something a responsible forum owner can easily sidestep."

I urge you to analyze that statement and reconsider what "responsible" truly means. A "responsible forum owner" would consider the privacy of their users, taking on a duty to protect that privacy within legal limits. No forum should do less. For a site dealing with people's sex lives, this is even more critical.

>"As we all know, we bear responsibility for what we post on public forums, and if anything posted ever catches the eye of law enforcement, most owners will hand over their logs without much debate"

That is terrifying. While I do not expect forum moderators to break or fail to follow the law, I definitely hoped this forum would take seriously its duty to protect users by requiring law enforcement to use proper procedures to get data. The purpose of police work isn't just catching criminals but also protecting innocent rights. There are several ways for police to properly obtain such data, and only very limited circumstances justify in my view "handing over the logs without question" (breaking the law or violating user trust).

I am extremely disappointed with your response to a legitimate concern. TOR is a valuable tool that protects individual privacy from abuse, specifically here at the hands of oppressive governments. The fact that some criminals also use TOR to evade police is no more reason to ban it than banning cars because criminals might use them too.