Forums and Censorship

[John M.]

I just don't see why a Message Board would not fall into the same category of "Public Business" as a coffee shop.

You had to register to post here. You don't have to register to walk into a Starbucks. Permission to enter the coffee shop is assumed. On a message board requiring membership you have to request permission to participate. That permission doesn't make your ability to post messages a right.

I also don't see Message Boards in the same light as your newspaper editor analogy. Newspapers choose what to publish. Forum Admins choose what not to publish. By default a post is published unless something is a problem. That's a big difference.

Not at all. That's just a function of space. The underlying concept is the same. The newspaper editor or the website owner has the right to decide what appears in their publications.

Still, your points and those made previously are valid John. I just think it could go either way.

That's the thing. It can't go either way. This is important. The rights of publishers -- of whatever medium -- to control the content on their outlet is the very heart of the First Amendment.

If Kevin doesn't have the absolute right to govern what appears here, who does? No one? He has to let anyone write whatever they want? What prevents this site from falling victim to trolls, troublemakers and spammers?

Does the government decide? If the government told Kevin what he could or could not delete, THAT would be censorship.

There is a reason the Constitutional amendment governing the rights of speech and the press is the first one. But your right to disseminate your speech does not include the right to use other people's property to do so -- even if they had previously granted you the privilege. That's why dvinfo.net deleting your post did not infringe on your freedom of speech.

 

[Chicago Dog]

Tim, did you bother to read the agreement before registering at the site?

From the last line of the agreement (shown before you choose to make your registration final or not):

The owners of The Digital Video Information Network reserve the right to remove, edit, move or close any thread for any reason at any time without explanation or delay.

When you signed up and clicked "I Agree," you lost all ability to claim that they're censoring you.

 

[Nino]

Is their site and they can do whatever they want.

However

To start, there’s a big difference between the political freedoms versus the commercial version.

20 years ago there were trade magazines in this business where readers were the first priority. Today most magazines have become manufacturer’s puppets. When was the last time you saw a bad or even a mediocre report on any product. They are more concern about not loosing their advertising dollars that they are about telling the truth about our industry. Subsequently we are the ones getting screwed, this is why magazine are getting smaller and smaller, they forgot that in order to get advertisers they need readers first.

A discussion group is there just for that, discussions. If the owner of the group or forum is more interested in keeping sponsors happy then say so, but remember what happen to the magazines.

We all participate with good and useful information, our knowledge and our willingness to give our time to share our skills is what makes these sites successful. If wasn’t for us these sites would not exist and surely they would get no sponsors. If there’s a bad product or service it is also our responsibility to let everybody know in a form of open discussions; they have to take the good with the bad. This also gives manufacturers a unique opportunity and a platform to defend themselves and their products, a good company could get a lot of free advertising. Does this make too much sense?

Look what happen to Rosenblum own blog. He started copying portions of my posting of B-roll and other forums and re-posting them out of context on his blog. That’s when we started having some very healthy and heated discussions. The point was that he was never able to defend himself and answer questions, so instead of coming up with answer the logical thing to do was to ban me from participating on his blog; that’s his blog and he can do whatever he wants. However, he had the highest traffic and widest participation when these discussions were talking place. That was his true opportunity to present, defend and debate the issues, he chosen instead to exercise his rights to silence his opposition and ever since his blog has become a ghost town.

 

[Tom Servo]

If forums are on the way out, what should we "phase-in" here at b-roll.net to replace the b-roll.net FORUM?

I don't think you should replace it with anything. Just because the attention-deficit crowd hops to a new online social networking system more often than they change underwear doesn't mean that the forum format isn't perfectly good. You have a system of information flow here that works. You have posters. We aren't going anywhere (although admittedly I don't post here nearly often enough, but that isn't because I'm "tweeting" or whateveer the flavor-of-the-day is). If it ain't broke. . .

In my mind, the best chance I have to get Sony to agree to this is to gather as many 700 owners as possible and have us contact Sony as a group.

Probably. Start a petition

To this end, I'm not interested in any general discussion on one Forum.

So you want to squelch discussion? How is that true to the spirit of the first amendment? You're doing exactly what you accuse the forum admin of doing, only you're doing it in someone else's house, and aren't even ponying up the money for the forum or the bandwidth to do it.

Yes, that's self-serving but it also benefits a group of individuals that frequent these Forums so I was hoping that the moderators could see the benefit.

I'm betting they could better see the benefit of a discussion on a discussion forum rather than trolling for private purposes to no benefit of the forum itself. To be blunt, you spammed the board. Most of the boards I've ever adminned on would have banned you for it. You only got your post deleted.

Now say a guy buys a coffee at Starbucks and sits down and starts talking to his friend about how he prefers Seattle's Best, would it be right for a Starbucks employee to kick him out because his conversation was inappropriate?

Yes, because it's their business and you are disrupting it.

What if he talked about how he liked Obama or Bush, but the owner of the coffee shop was a Nader supporter? Does he have the right to kick the guy out because his politics don't jive with his own?

Yes, and you and all the other customers have the right not to patronize his establishment if you don't like his rules. Same with the forum. The Constitution only applies to government, and does not now or ever apply to businesses, private property, groups, individuals, or private messaging forums/

What if the coffee shop owner were White and he kicked a guy out because he was Black . . . Does "His house, his rules." still apply?

No, because the Civil Rights Act specifically prohibits that kind of discrimination. There is no such thing as a Message Forum Trolling for Private Purposes While Attempting To Squelch Discussion Act, and I don't think you'd get very far if you tried to convince your congresscritters to sponsor one

 

[TimG]

That's the thing. It can't go either way. This is important. The rights of publishers -- of whatever medium -- to control the content on their outlet is the very heart of the First Amendment.

If Kevin doesn't have the absolute right to govern what appears here, who does? No one? He has to let anyone write whatever they want? What prevents this site from falling victim to trolls, troublemakers and spammers?

Does the government decide? If the government told Kevin what he could or could not delete, THAT would be censorship.

I don't disagree with anything that you have said John other than your assertion that only the rights of the publishers are protected. There has to be some protection for the public too and I can't really express how that would be realized. I think things are fundamentally changing in terms of Freedom of Speech and in particular freedom of information. As corporations become global, as the internet becomes the dominate form of communication there are going to be some very subtle but very significant challenges to how we perceive our freedom of speech or more accurately freedom of thought.

This is going to be my last post in this thread because I'm obviously not convincing anyone about what I'm trying to say and quite honestly I don't like being the verbal pinata here. Let me just end it by saying this one last thing. When an organization like Google can create a search engine for the Chinese government that promotes disinformation and perpetuates a propaganda that goes against everything our country represents - that is the canary in the ethical coal mine. It is straight out of George Orwell's 1984 and it is an American Company that's doing it.

Corporations spend billions to find ways to influence the mind's of consumers. They actively advertise in our schools under the guise of "corporate partnerships". These corporations (and not just US Companies) are buying up our national newspapers, TV and Radio Stations - any information system they can get their hands on and using them as marketing tools to get inside our heads and influence us commercially as well as politically. At some point, it is going to become grossly obvious that this is detrimental to the good of the larger society. In order for a democracy to function effectively it's members must have access to and participate in open and honest information systems. I just worry that before you know it there won't be any venue left for a real dissenting voice to be heard.

Tim

 

[Canonman]

I just worry that before you know it there won't be any venue left for a real dissenting voice to be heard.

Tim, I know you wanted that to be your last post, but I wanted to point out that there is room for dissenting voices on the forums. The important part is how you go about it.

FWIW, Tom Servo's post was spot-on IMO.

cm