Freedom comes first, and here is what it means

Three priorities, and why this post is about the first

We check every product decision at Nicholic against three things: freedom, safety and privacy. This post is about the first one. Safety and privacy will each get a post of their own.

We list freedom first because it is the starting point. Safety and privacy are the reasons it has limits. Putting freedom first does not mean the other two lose when they clash. We write the limits down in advance, so the hard cases are decided in public before anyone is caught in one.

A word about the word "priorities". Most companies publish values. Values cost nothing, because nobody can show that a company has stopped believing in one. So we do not treat freedom as a value. We treat it as a short list of rules. Each rule can be checked from outside, and each rule says where it stops.

Freedom means four things here

• The freedom to speak.
• The freedom to leave.
• The freedom to take your own data with you.
• The freedom not to be pulled back in.

Each one gets a section below. Each section ends with what it does not cover.

The freedom to speak

On TruXSocial, we do not remove a post for being unpopular, uncomfortable, or on the wrong side of an argument. Disagreement is what the place is for.

We moderate only five things:

• Direct threats against a person.
• Terrorism.
• Scams.
• Fraud.
• Coordinated abuse. That means an organised campaign against someone, not one person being rude.

The list is short on purpose, and we publish it so we can be held to it. A rule that can be stretched to cover anything is not a rule. It is permission.

We also moderate where you can see it. A post stays up while it is being reviewed. It does not vanish first and get judged later. Every decision comes with a reason, and you can appeal it to a person.

What this does not cover: it is not a promise that every decision we make is right. It is a promise that our decisions are visible and can be argued with. That is the part most places leave out. The TruXSocial page describes the product in full.

The freedom to leave

This one is a published commitment. Here it is, word for word from our principles page.

In plain terms: deleting your account takes no more steps than creating it. It happens in the same place. You do not have to email us, wait for a reply, or talk to anyone.

What this does not cover: deletion is not instant everywhere. Backups roll off on a published schedule. Nothing stands in the way of your decision, but the decision takes time to finish. The commitment and its limits are on the principles page.

The freedom to take your own data with you

This is also a published commitment, word for word.

In plain terms: anything you put in, you can take out. The export comes in a documented format that other software can read. You do not have to ask us, and you do not have to pay. Export works whether or not you are closing the account. The full wording is on the principles page.

What this does not cover: we cannot promise that every other service will accept the file. We promise that the file exists and that you can have it.

The freedom not to be pulled back in

A lot of software is built to be hard to stop using. That is usually because somebody is paid by the minute of your attention. Two of our published commitments rule that out, word for word.

In plain terms: no streaks that punish you for a day away. No notifications designed to drag you back. No feed tuned to keep you scrolling for as long as possible. We do not measure success in time spent. And the thing a product is for keeps working without you watching or clicking an advert. Both commitments, with their limits, are on the principles page.

This is only possible because of how we are paid. Supporters of TruXSocial pay a small amount each month, and that is our whole model. We carry no advertising and we have no investors. Paying is optional. The platform works without it. How Nicholic makes money is written up in full. If it ever changes, we publish the change before we switch it on.

What this does not cover: it is not a promise that the product will be dull, or that notifications will not exist. It means our test for adding one is whether you would want it, not whether it raises a number.

Where freedom stops

The five moderated categories are the boundary. Freedom to speak is not freedom to threaten a specific person, run a scam, or organise a campaign against someone. Those are the places where safety takes over. We list them in advance rather than leave them to judgement in the moment.

Nothing else is on that list. If we moderate something that is not on it, we have broken a rule. The safety page says where to report it.

What this post does not promise

Nicholic is one person, in one time zone, with no team and nobody on call. That limits what we can honestly promise. We keep a list of promises we refuse to make for exactly that reason. We do not promise that the service is always up. We do not promise a reply within a set time. The response windows on the safety page are targets, not guarantees, and we label them that way.

Nothing in this post describes a control that is not switched on. That is a commitment in its own right. It is why this post links to rules instead of describing features that might exist one day.

How to check any of this

Our principles page is dated and versioned. We do not edit it quietly, and old versions stay readable. So the wording quoted above can be checked against the wording that is live. We publish changes before they take effect. If we break a rule, we write it up in the updates log, even when we broke it by accident and only noticed later.

That is what makes freedom a priority here rather than a slogan. Every part of it is a rule that somebody outside Nicholic could catch us breaking. Safety and privacy get the same treatment, each in a post of its own.