Double Shield Initiative 🛡🛡

Did you know? The Double Shield Initiative is over 4 years old as of this day!

The DSI endorses communities and the owners of those communities only. We are not able to endorse (and are often unable to know) the character of any other admins of these communities. Please bring any concerns about the character of any admins (not the owner) of DSI groups to the respective group owner. If you are not still satisfied after that, please contact @dogmikezc for escalation to DSI leadership.

Did you know there are two levels to the Double Shield Initiative? As an anti-abuse initiative, DSI works to solve some of the problems around evidence collection and notifying of abusive chat members. To accommodate the needs of the community, participating spaces can come in two different flavours: The owners of partner spaces work directly with each other to guide the development of DSI. They have direct knowledge about our process, so you can work with them to verify trust in the validity of a given sanction. We don't share evidence or abuse material, but partners can review evidence to confirm that a sanction meets our criteria. These spaces display the double-shield insignia at the end of their groups' titles, the same as you see on the title of this channel. The owners of affiliate spaces work with ambassador partners of DSI to uphold our baselines against abuse. These spaces link back to @doubleshieldinitiative in their descriptions, rules, and welcome messages, and they will have the @DSI_Helper_Bot in their groups. If you have any concerns, they should be able to put you in touch with their ambassador. Or find our contacts at the end of our intro post.

A message from the director of the Double Shield Initiative, Mike the Dog: In the beginning, this initiative was built to handle cases carefully and secretly, to respect the challenges involved in taking strong cross-community actions. Now we work a bit more transparently: The @DSI_Helper_Bot has some information, and lets you check your status. We're more clear about when and why someone has been sanctioned. But I need to apologise for the length of time it took to get here. The structure of DSI makes it slow to change, and slow to respond. We do see the criticisms posted, and always consider them: We need to put in the work of building trust with potential partners. We need more staff to respond quickly. We need to be present in the community to have conversations about how the lines should be drawn. As part of this commitment, I need to recognise the fears that surround this type of organisation. They are reasonable fears, because many people have been hurt by similar collectives in the past. And I need to speak more openly about how I, personally, guide DSI and how I've worked with others. I'll talk about that shortly. The partners of DSI have been busy making plans that should improve transparency to a proper level: A) We will lead public conversations about what conduct we expect, what we define to be abusive, and how we should draw those lines. We want community feedback about the rationale we use to decide sanctions. B) We will work to build relationships with potential partners. We understand that we cannot simply expect others to trust us without those relationships. C) We will improve our contact points for DSI so that people can easily contact us about any matter that needs our attention, and receive a response quickly. In short, while fighting against abuse is itself important, we're changing to recognise that any initiative within our community has a responsibility to clearly explain itself and to be visible and accessible.

If this is your first visit here, read our pinned message!

❓Who is in the DSI, and how does someone join? The DSI is made up of owners of various communities: Telegram groups and channels, Discord servers, and some websites. We limit participation to owners so that we can enforce sanctions and spread an anti-abuse message. If you own a community and would like to join, see the instructions near the end of the welcome message. Or get involved and build something new! We accept communities of any kind who adhere to our mission. 📝 How does participation work? We have two main levels of participation - affiliate and partner. Affiliates don't have any community size requirements and coordinate with DSI staff. Partners do have community size requirements, but have access to our internal documents and are responsible for their own spaces. Partners can get involved in our day-to-day operations, and can gain seniority to vote on sanctions, staff appointments, and the policies governing the DSI. 👥 Who leads the DSI, and who are the staff? For privacy and safety, we do not list the names of our participants, except for the designated staff contacts shown in our welcome message. In the future, we hope to provide a public list of some Telegram communities. Staff positions are not permanent, with policies in place to allow for appointment and recall. In essence, the DSI is led by the votes of all the community leaders who have demonstrated an understanding of our rulesets to become senior partners. 🔍 How do I know if a community is a DSI participant? Check for the 🛡🛡 branding in the community's name. Legitimate participants must state "A @doubleshieldinitiative 🛡🛡 participant against abuse." in their description, welcome message, and/or pinned post(s). If you can't find a link back to this channel, you should message the appropriate contact given in our welcome message. Any illegitimate communities will be listed here. Please note that non-Telegram communities may represent us differently, but they will always link back to this Telegram channel! ⚠️ What are sanctions, who are they against? Sanctions are usually (but not always) a permanent ban across all DSI communities. We only place sanctions on entities involved in animal violence and/or child abuse. We do not sanction those who identify as having interests in these activities - only those involved in them (including distributing its material or planning to act at some point in the future). We do not sanction those discussing or sharing media related to "familiar" animal violence such as hunting or slaughtering, provided the act is not fetishized. We expect the leaders of those communities to effectively moderate their spaces beyond the minimum required by DSI policies. 🗳 How does the DSI decide sanctions? We recognize the responsibility that the seriousness of our sanctions pose, so we adhere to a strict process before enacting them. First, potential cases are filtered through staff, who ensure a minimum degree of evidence has been met and that the case falls within our mission's scope. If valid, the case will be presented to the Council for a vote. Only if a 2/3rds majority agrees is a sanction then enacted. 🕵️‍♂️ How do you collect evidence? Do you report to the authorities? We rely primarily on reports from our community members to inform us, and have a strict policy against our participants involving themselves in vigilante behavior. The DSI is not a vigilante organization. We operate as a resource for community self-policing - an internal authority where governmental or corporate oversight is lacking. ⛔️ How do I know if I'm sanctioned, and can I appeal? To avoid aiding in abuse networking, we do not publicize our sanctions. In the future, we hope to be able to distribute this information among qualified communities, but we need to filter the abusive users out first. If you believe you have been sanctioned and wish to appeal, you should message the appropriate contact given in our welcome message. Please note that the DSI cannot help with the independent decisions of our participants. v3 23-06-15

🎂 Today the Double Shield Initiative celebrates its 1st anniversary! 🎂 We're thrilled to announce that the Initiative has been a resounding success - we now represent over 100 communities led by dozens of participants across three platforms! While we were initially unsure if our mission was possible, the faith placed in us by our peers has ensured that the DSI will continue to grow, creating safer spaces for us all. We'd like to thank our participants, who set aside their differences to act under common cause, and we are especially grateful to the members of our communities, who trusted us during this teething period. All of you can take credit when we say - it's working, and we're here to stay! Of course, it hasn't been easy. During our first year, the DSI was attacked by a number of entities acting in bad faith, including an organized disinformation campaign. The result has kept us from being as transparent as we wanted, and we've been applying the lessons we've learned to help navigate that. So in celebration of our first year, we've put together an FAQ to address some of the feedback we've heard. Please take some time to read through it, and thank you once again!

The Double Shield Initiative is a network of over 100 independent communities working under a "bare minimum" ethical standard against abuse. The DSI represents an understanding that despite other disagreements, there is no tolerance for animal or child abuse. Our united front allows us to sanction abusive individuals and communities as a collective power - enforcing network-wide bans and promoting cross-community communication. Sanctions are enacted against ONLY the following violations: -1- Those acting on real-life violence against animals; consuming or distributing its real-life materials; or glorifying or fetishizing the real-life suffering of animals. -2- Those acting on or glorifying child sexual abuse, or consuming or distributing its real-life materials. -3- Spaces permissive or promoting of these individuals and/or materials, including spaces operating as secretive abuse platforms, or which lack proper or present moderation. -4- Those choosing to remain in sanctioned spaces after being notified of the sanction and its rationale. Read our FAQ post for more! —— FOUND ABUSE? Get in touch with your DSI community owner or send evidence of abuse directly to us through our @DSI_Helper_Bot. We will need the name of the abusive users/communities, the dates of any offenses, and evidence, such as: forwarded messages, screenshots, recordings, chat exports, and media. You may censor small regions of abusive media before sending it, but on the whole we recommend not to interact with it. The exception to this is uncensored CSEM, which DSI will not handle. Anonymity is guaranteed if requested. WANT TO JOIN THE DSI? We are happy to help communities of any kind in protecting against abuse. Are you a group owner? Be sure to read our FAQ, then contact @Akitoee or @DogMikeZC to get started. SOMETHING ELSE? To ask questions, voice concerns, or appeal a sanction, contact @DogMikeZC. v7 25-11-10

Channel created