So what denotes a reporter? What if you share with a friend who works for a newspaper? Or someone who works with a blogger.
It's a stupid rule, and imho only there to make the users feel like they are in a unique clique. There is no real way to enforce it, nor any penalities.
Are rules only valid when they consider every edge case? That disqualifies almost every law, among other things.
With a little bit of moderator judgment a rule like that can be enforced. It's ridiculous to say that these bans somehow can't be done, that moderators will look at a proof that their system is imperfect and come undone.
Honestly, I think rules should cover ever edge case that you can brainstorm within 10 minutes of thought.
If some unaffiliated party can come up with the edge case easily, your rule should have a guideline about it--even if said guideline is only internal documentation.
To be fair, were I running this moderation system, I would simply say anything unclear would be dealt with on a case by case basis, and those decisions would set precedent like in the actual legal system.
> There is no real way to enforce it, nor any penalities
Sure there is. Break the rules and you get Permabanned!
> What if you share with a friend who works for a newspaper? Or someone who works with a blogger.
Permabanned!
> Insert other weird edge case here....
Again, Permabanned! No exceptions.
Don't think its fair? Well I don't care. It is their site, they don't have to be fair.
Don't want to lose access to the hip neighborhood social network? Then don't break go around making things public that were supposed to be private. Don't toe the line with weird edge cases either.
Yeah, sure, you could go all secret agent and take all the precautions and not get caught, or try and get around onerous multi-account protections that they have in place. But that sounds like a lot of work that most people aren't going to do. People are lazy, and you don't have to catch 100% of everybody in order to make people afraid enough so that they mostly follow the rules.
People make mistakes. You might be able to get away with it or you might not.
Reporters reveal their sources all the time. For example, when they quote someone. Maybe they'd think to protect you or maybe they will make a mistake.
Enforcement doesn't have to be 100% for it to be an effective deterrent. Maybe they have access to your IP logs and can track your viewing history down. You don't know what tools they do or do not have.
And even if it truly IS completely unenforceable, well who says that the average user even knows that? They might just play it safe because they don't want to get banned. That's how rules and enforcement works.
It's a stupid rule, and imho only there to make the users feel like they are in a unique clique. There is no real way to enforce it, nor any penalities.
So basically, just PR.