# Censorship System

IRCNow is a network that the users control. In order to ensure this, we must make sure that there is no network-wide censorship of speech or religion. Without this guarantee, it becomes impossible to have meaningful debates for policy decisions.

Our digital bill of rights state:

-> Congress shall not make any rules to establish an official religion or to stop the free exercise of religion; or to stop the freedom of speech or the freedom of the press; or the right of the users to peaceably gather to petition the staff.

IRCNow cannot censor network wide, there is no "official" censorship policy.

However, on each individual server, it is not legally possible for us to have zero censorship. In many countries, some form of speech is censored. For example, violent threats are illegal even in the United States. Other types of illegal behavior include copyright infringement. IRCNow is also a family friendly network so we do not want pornography on it.

So, each team has the right to set the type of policy it wants for censorship on its server. Each sysadmin has the power to censor any official IRCNow channels [on the networks](/ircnow/networks) his team has claimed. He also has the power to ban any users connected to any services on his server. However, no one can censor on another team's server or another team's network.