Editing, Censorship and FOS in A Forum Community

I have recently been discussing, debating and arguing about editing, censorship and freedom of speech (FOS) on an online forum. As you know online forums are usually open to the international public where people get together to dicuss things (sorry I really cant be specific because they usually have topics ranging from what brush to use for your hair type to Sadaam having pictures taken in his underwear).

Now forums have administrators and appointed moderators to keep topics on-topic and to moderate (thus the name). There is also a trend to appoint moderators that have a similar political, religious or lifestyle views to the admin. Now when someone becomes a moderator, they gain a bit of power over the other ordinary members, part of this power includes being able to edit ones post if they deem it distatseful or downright abusive. Which seems fair enough considering the sensibilities of some members who are not used to that kind of language and in normal circumstances the way to get a posts edited or removed that you do not like is to alert the moderators and the moderators will change the post by removing or replacing the offensive word/s and by making a quick note that it has indeed been edited. And sometimes if the person being offensive is a repeat offender then they can be expelled from the forum.

Now, there are members who do not like that there are people out there with editing powers, especially in forums where it is suspected that the moderators are abusing this power. And these people tend to label any editing done as censorship. And this could very well be censorship considering the words excised are usually immoral. But why are you complaining? The thing is there would be no need for moderators with editing powers if people could show restraint over what they write and phrase their words in a more formal manner. But this could be alot harder to do than say.

Take into account say an individual from America who has grown up knowing that they can hide behind their constituation to be able to say what they please without fear of litigation. Freedom of speech is all well and good, but does it not also come with responsibilty? Anway, say this individual comes onto a majority black forum originating in Australia and starts spouting the ideals of the KKK (yes i know even the KKK can get in trouble for their ideals). So they start by editing this persons posts, instead of the derogatory word nigger, they replace it with something else or place the posts into a different, hidden from the general surfers, section Ahh yes censorship. So this KKK fan starts screaming that it is their right to freedom of speech to say these things and to stop censoring and editing. But what about freedom of speech? Well hate to tell ya Australia does not have freedom of speech. So it is not so much the moderators rights to edit these posts, but their duty perhaps? Although Aus is quite lenient, there is always someone who will take exception to this and could sue the hosts of the forum for allowing the slander to be on their website.

There is the general agreement that not only do you have to abide your own country's laws but also the Laws of the country of origin of the website (except for China, i think). This in itself is not a Law, lucky for some, but taking advantage of that fact is, well, selfish. So taking this into consideration do people have the right or is it their duty to edit and/or censor posts in a forum?

Fooling Around

Just fooling around with pictures

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