Limits of free speech

[odeon]

That's sort of how I feel, Blue Alien.  We shouldn't preferentially censor one type of crime (child porn).  It seems hypocritical.  We should just take a stand one way or another on depiction of criminal acts. 

By keeping the place legal, we do take a stand. Nothing hypocritical about that.

[Janicka]

That's sort of how I feel, Blue Alien.  We shouldn't preferentially censor one type of crime (child porn).  It seems hypocritical.  We should just take a stand one way or another on depiction of criminal acts. 

Right, that's what I am saying.  How is a video depicting the beating of a homeless person diffrent than child porn?  They are both illegal and they are both exploiting vulnerable individuals. 

By keeping the place legal, we do take a stand. Nothing hypocritical about that.

[odeon]

That's sort of how I feel, Blue Alien.  We shouldn't preferentially censor one type of crime (child porn).  It seems hypocritical.  We should just take a stand one way or another on depiction of criminal acts. 

By keeping the place legal, we do take a stand. Nothing hypocritical about that.

Right, that's what I am saying.  How is a video depicting the beating of a homeless person diffrent than child porn?  They are both illegal and they are both exploiting vulnerable individuals. 

I edited your post, to get the quotes right.

Anything that's illegal to publish here should be kept away. The rest shouldn't.

[duncvis]

I'm with odeon here - the point at which we have to censor or forbid content is driven purely by the law - anything else is determined by the members, and the members alone. And if someone does feel the need to link to abhorrent videos, we can flame them to the Kuiper belt.

[SovaNu]

i'm with Janicka. i think we should take a stand and not just obey the law. i've never cared for the law, i do what i feel is right. i smoke pot if i want to but i don't steal, for example. both are against the law. i think posting videos that first of all show people who don't want to be shown on video on the internet is wrong and therefore shouldn't be allowed. and it should be illegal.

[DirtDawg]

What I see is an argument from two sides of the same coin. Obviously, the legality of most  media content is not debatable, but clearly defined in most  cases. That is already the standard here, if I understand correctly.  From a legal standpoint, however, it can be a very fine line between allowing something offensive to be posted and endorsing it. That's where the community must define itself, in contrast unfortunately, to the pure ideals of unlimited free speech.

[Calandale]

i'm with Janicka. i think we should take a stand and not just obey the law. i've never cared for the law, i do what i feel is right. i smoke pot if i want to but i don't steal, for example. both are against the law.

Right, but do you smoke pot in front of the
police station? Look, there are risks we CAN'T
take. It's that simple.

And it is one hell of a stand to allow anything
that we can.

[SovaNu]

no i don't smoke pot in front of the police station, my point was that i don't steal when noone is looking. i do what i feel is right. i don't feel it's right to allow videos that hurt people and feature people who are unwillingly filmed and posted online. it's not right and should be illegal. stealing should be illegal because those are activities that hurt people. just because it's not yet illegal doesn't mean we should accept it.

[Janicka]

But that seems like a slippery slope...  We shouldn't judge what SHOULD be illegal.  Beating the homeless is illegal.  Child porn is illegal.  Animal cruelty is illegal.  Those are the types of things that I don't think we should allow on here. 

[Peter]

I'm with odeon here - the point at which we have to censor or forbid content is driven purely by the law - anything else is determined by the members, and the members alone. And if someone does feel the need to link to abhorrent videos, we can flame them to the Kuiper belt.

Sounds like an interesting idea for a space propulsion system.

[Peter]

But that seems like a slippery slope...  We shouldn't judge what SHOULD be illegal.  Beating the homeless is illegal.  Child porn is illegal.  Animal cruelty is illegal.  Those are the types of things that I don't think we should allow on here. 

The difference between child porn and videos of homeless people being beaten up, is that one is illegal to possess and the other is not.  We should let people post whatever they want as long as it's within the TOS of our host.

[SovaNu]

But that seems like a slippery slope...  We shouldn't judge what SHOULD be illegal.  Beating the homeless is illegal.  Child porn is illegal.  Animal cruelty is illegal.  Those are the types of things that I don't think we should allow on here. 

some things are obviously things that should not be legal. like posting images or video footage online of someone who doesn't want to be seen online. obviously beating someone is also illegal, and video footage of it should also be, it's like snuff films, those are illegal. videos of someone getting beaten up for real should be also illegal. unless the people getting beat up have agreed to be beat up and filmed and posted on message boards.

would it be ok for me to post someone's picture who didn't want their picture posted? most message boards would delete my post if i did that. i realize this is not most message boards but i would expect those kinds of actions here too because it's no different than when Lit posted Odeon's picture. that was wrong because he didn't want his picture posted.

[Pyraxis]

Can anyone seriously expect that once something has been posted somewhere on the internet, its distribution can be controlled? I understand that people feel they have some kind of possession of images of themselves, but trying to stop such a thing from spreading once it's been posted is really a futile prospect - for every thousand considerate people, there will be one inconsiderate one who will multiply it everywhere. The best protection one can hope for on the internet is insignificance. Control/authority just ain't gonna happen, and attempts at it generally do more harm than good.

[SovaNu]

we don't have to be inconsiderate because other people are inconsiderate. we can only control our own actions, we don't have to worry about everyone else's.

[Pyraxis]

I have no problem with you being considerate, but for you to propose that your level on consideration ought to be administrative policy is presumptious.