But by the same token that doesn't mean we should tolerate an erosion in our ability to express our opinions and thoughts. The next step will be them.

I am against all forms of censorship. I believe that rubbish, libellous comments, spurious statements of "fact" will eventually be outed or destroyed by good reasoned debate and the support of solid facts. To rely on censorship to quieten the vocal minorities/idiots is failure.

Not true, i had a lovely evening in Mirfield recently, only the abundance of people speaking funny ruined it.

Firstly I entirely agree with the removal or abusive, aggressive or libelous posts and a warning to the individuals concerned. I am a regular visitor to VD as some will know however that does not mean I agree with that type of behaviour.

My only concern is that of immediate banning or not informing the individual and giving them chance to apologise or agree not to post in that manner again.

I also have some element of concern over interpretation of the behaviour and what constitutes inciting behaviour or agression and if this will be treated differently depending on who it is directed at and your acceptance within the club.

I know John quite well and consider him a friend however when I see this



I find it agressive and offensive, however knowing him and his 'jock' :p tendencies means I would just ignore it as it is not intended to be inciteful. However I could not say the same if someone else posted it that I didn't know.

My concern is how this will be enforced and if it will be used to prevent people posting something which may be challenging to individuals or actions under the get out clause that it was 'inciting'?

Can we go for a rideout yet.?

Nah, it's dark here now and there's a thunderstorm banging away.........:lol:

Lilly

I agree that it is important that people be given the chance to take things down, amend their ways etc. Anyone who has a post removed will be advised and it is normally only repeated abuse of privilage that will get someone suspended. It is necessary that we keep things within the bounds that are acceptable to the society in which we live.

There is nothing wrong with constructive criticism or for people to be able to express their views, you just have to mindfull of the consequenses of what you write if you overstep the bounds of acceptability.

With the changes in the law since the Sheffield FC case and in particular an author who has sucessfully sued for damages, the ground rules by which people can use message boards has changed. The Club is reacting to clarification of the law and needs to protect not only the Club but also its members from the threat of being sued.

As Jools has elequently put further up this thread, when have we ever had complete freedom of speech? There are a whole raft of lawyers just waiting to sue people on a no win no fee basis, if you trip over a paving slab. The payouts from that pale into insignificance compared with libel damages.

If we look at how few threads/posts actually get removed each year we are talking about a tiny minority and there should/always be proper justification for their removal.

Thanks Chris, I guess I was just concerned that there would be bannings left right and centre with no chance for the individuals to state their defence or make amends.

Your post confirms that people will be approached and treated with repect and this makes me feel much better about it.

I agree with all of that, but in the context of this thread it depends on whether everybody who uses this board has the ability to employ good reasoned debate in support of their arguement. It is abundantly clear that not everybody has that capability, and some are quite capable of causing a great deal of offence very quickly.

In my view, these offensive remarks are more often levelled by members against other members rather than directly at the webteam or the MT, so to interpret this policy as something for the MT to hide behind, or exert greater control over views expressed by the members is illogical and, in my view, takes 'MT conspiracy' theories to new heights of paranoia.

Failure it may be to exert some form of 'censorship', but the fact remains that control exists over what people say in public to an enormous extent. As a simple example, supposing that you were in a pub with your partner and someone started to insult them in an extremely offensive way. Supposing that you tried reasoned debate, but you were up against the most oaf-ish individual who was quite clearly too thick to understand the eloquence of your arguement. Would you stand behind your principles of using reason or decide that the time honoured censorship of a smack in the teeth would be more appropriate? If you did that the landlord would be entirely within his rights to throw you both out, since causing an affray might have legal repercussions for him.

Pah I'm not travelling to a 3rd world part of the country, I don't have a 4x4 and I like the convenience of electricity :) ;)

:eek: Not my experience recently with one WT member :o

Sadly there has to be censorship of some kind these days sometimes....

The law seems to hold the forum operators responsible where libelous stuff is not dealt with, ie where someone posts a libelous post on the site and it is just left there and not dealt with. I think readin between the lines as long as the MT/WT/Club are seen to delete said posts then they have upheld their responsibility......

Ozz

On a simple basis correct. What it doesn't do is relieve the original poster of their liability for what they have written. Assuming of course that it was in the 1st places incorrect/seditious/libelous or anything else that someone else doesn't like!

Don't you love grey areas.....

That will be an improvement then - I have only ever once had a post removed (which I don't believe deserved it, but that's another story), but I didn't receive any PM or communication from whoever deleted it - it just disappeared. And I don't believe I'm a contentious poster in any way shape or form

Yes you are...you're a right trouble maker you are...;)

Oh well, if the great voice of reason says so... I must be :o :o

Permission to say ****...:lol:

and there's the rub Chris! ;)

This post by Ozz earlier is very useful:

http://www.ukaop.org.uk/cgi-bin/go.p...category_uid=2

While the two links in the very first post should be born in mind too I feel.

Thankfully, moderating and removing posts here is becoming a much more rare occassion than it use to be. The forum rules and the constitution cover most eventualities for us but, its obvious that legislation is struggling to keep apace with many aspects of the virtual world.

Regards - Frank

Unfortunately we live in a country where you can be sent to jail for "thought crime"...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7084801.stm

Deeply worrisome. "Thought crime" indeed - until you get to the almost throw-away line near the end of the article where the defendant allegedly had attempted to donate money to a terrorist organisation. I think that would be a crime, morally if not in law.

Note the "allegedly" in there, let alone "attempted"!

"attempted" requires a definition; thought about it but didn't? Wrote a cheque but ripped it up? Put some money into a box at a mosque?

The whole "terror manuals" thing is bullshit. She had the owner's manual for a Dragunov sniper rifle on her computer; the owner's manual for a rifle which is widely available in most countries and it not technically illegal in this country either if you hold the correct licence. FFS, I've got pictures of me on my website firing that very same rifle (and scoring 45/50 at 250m!) so does that make me a terrorist as well? Surely that's worse than owning the user manual?

In this case, and it opens a whole can of worms, I think that the police backed up the terrorism charges with some very weak circumstantial evidence to paint a very bad view of a very naiive person; god help us if they ever checked out most people on this board!

You can still think what you like, just don't write your thoughts down/"publish" them or speak about them.

Ray.

Why not?

What's the difference between having the thought and writing them down or speaking out?

Surely the deciding factor should be the intention?

I downloaded the Hacker's Handbook many years ago when I first got access to the internet because I thought it would be interesting to read (which it was). I never had any intention of using the information it contained, and most of it was US based so wouldn't work anyway, but if I did the same today I'd have a spell at Her Majesty's Pleasure!

I have similar books about internet security and hacking sitting on my bookshelf at home due to the nature of my job. They are years out of date but if my house was raided and the police were that desperate to send me down, I'm sure they'd be used as evidence against me.

Damned if they do, damned if they don't.

If this person did happen to be involved in atrocity in the near future and it came out that the authorities had known about her and done nothing for lack of evidence, they would have been wrong then as well...

Very true.

But isn't that what the security services should be doing - keeping a close eye on people like this and making their way higher up the chain to unravel the networks and make a bigger impact? Picking off the minions won't make much of a difference.

If they'd have found 2lbs of C4 under her bed then I would applaud the conviction, but as it stands what little evidence that has been provided is very circumstantial and I'm surprised it stood up in court.

But we're digressing from the subject... ;)

Indeed we are.

And I do agree with your valid points about a perceived lack of firm evidence. Just strikes me that no-one can really do the right thing these days. It probably also didn't help her case that she worked at an airport - had she worked in the local corner shop she might still be there.

Bit difficult to present thoughts to a court unless there is evidence, i.e. written or evidence of conversations.

"Are you thinking what we're thinking"...........unless there is communication in some way you'll never know although some egg heads might say that technology does exist to know what someone is thinking, you can give away what your thinking in so many ways but how many stand up to court scrutiny is the difficult question.

The ways things are going though I s'pose with the state having to provide less evidence or in some cases no evidence to your guilt and the burden of proof shifts to the accused having to prove their innocence then maybe "thought" crime as I see it or think of it is going to become more common.

I'm thinking its time for a cup of tea............................and possibly a quiet lie down in a darkened room.............................:D


Ray.

I think the mentioned case highlights exactly that problem.



Just don't have any naughty thoughts while you're there! ;)

theres an interesting post on VD about this, in trems of the quoted litigation etc

back to bikes, lost out on one today so still looking :rolleyes:

Interesting page from the BBC:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/606/2/popups/defamation.shtml

That's a bit different. She was convicted for possession of terrorist materials.



This is not the same as being convicted for having thoughts. She was in possession of articles forbidden under the relevant act.

Yes, but what about the original charge?

And besides, there is no definition of "terrorist materials" in law, except that the police can make it up as they go along. Seriously, the owner's manual for a sniper rifle? FFS!

The reason I came to DSC was because the board I was on before just spiralled out of control and the owner had to shut down the forum. I became almost impossible to get anything of substance done because there was so much cutthroat immature posting going on. That only took about 7 or 8 months to degenerate into the final mess and although I doubt this board will do anything similar, the web team is probably mature enough to cut that kind of action out early and still leave in the normal unabusive crackpot postings. To me, it is not censorship at all or a matter of the law, but truly a question of viable survival. The WT is in a difficult position! Yet, the strength of the board is in our hands.