Posted on 10/27/2003 11:53:33 AM PST by SJackson
Wednesday, August 13, 2003 at 13:41
Attack of the Nazi Trolls: A Lesson for Message Board Moderators
In a recent blog entry titled, "I've Been Red-Baited!", I wrote, "I'm not familiar with LibertyForum.org, but it appears to be an anti-Bush, anti-war message board with a distinctly anti-Jewish undertone."
A member of LibertyForum.org named Max Soldo (aka "thoughtcriminal") has responded by e-mail and provided further clarification of LibertyForum's political orientation. He writes:
This forum is a libertarian forum, and is devoted to the libertarian concept of unabashed free speech. With that principle in mind, most posters aren't libertarian as many fringe types have taken advantage of this policy (which includes a no-banning policy) to run amok...hence the preponderance of anti-Jewish posts on this forum.
All of this raises interesting questions for any message board moderator -- such as myself -- who has tried his best to allow a relatively high level of free expression. Inevitably, Nazi trolls find your forum and begin probing your defenses. If you allow them to post messages, they immediately spread the word to other Nazi trolls and soon your message board is infested.
At that point, all the normal people stop posting. It's a bit like when a fight breaks out in a bar and everyone stops talking and turns to watch the fight, transfixed. Suddenly, your message board becomes an arena for Nazi trolls and people arguing with Nazi trolls.
This is called "free speech."
I decided long ago that allowing Nazi trolls to occupy my message board and drive off everyone who does not share their idiosyncratic obsessions is a very poor method for encouraging "free speech." Therefore, I make frequent and forceful use of such allegedly un-libertarian methods as censoring and, when necessary, banning troublemakers, brownshirted or otherwise.
Apparently, the decision-makers at LibertyForum.org have adopted a different approach. As a result, their self-styled "libertarian" message board has become, by Mr. Soldo's description, a playground for non-libertarian "fringe types" to "run amok."
"It does get quite ugly at times, but that's the price one pays for sticking to one's principles," writes Mr. Soldo in a subsequent e-mail.
Well, if that's the price, I don't think I'm willing to pay it. I will add the sad fate of LibertyForum.org to my growing list of reasons for rethinking whether or not I wish to continue calling myself a "libertarian."
Is Fred Phelps planning another trip to Canada?
And then you just can't leave well enough alone. No, you have to go chasing us all over the fricking map!
More like genetic mammories.
You are what you eat, after all.
I guess I wasn't clear about that in my last post; Jim has every right to run this forum as he sees fit and I understand that perfectly. What I meant to question veronica about was whether she actually supported the prosecution of Zundel realizing these same tactics can be used against anybody the left doesn't like.
That perhaps is where I come the closest to breaking the forum rules. I am in fact quite bigoted against Islam. I consider it to be one of the most dangerous death cults that has ever existed on the face of the planet. I also consider it to be a fascistic political ideology that deserves the same treatment we give to nazism and communism and satanism for that matter.
That being said, I also believe in freedom of worship. Don't believe in dictating that to anybody, although I always reserve my right to tell anyone who will listen about the reality of Jesus Christ. Quite a paradox, eh?
Which of course leads me to the last point: I can't stand anti-Christian bigots. Christians and the Judeo-Christian worldview are the mainstay of our free republic--always have been, and will be til the day it dies. In fact the departure of that worldview is the only thing that CAN bring this nation down.
Now, what exactly were you lecturing me about? I didn't quite understand.
Wait just a minute, I'm the last of the Mohawks, ok?
LOL, that Fred Phelps character is a tad too strident for my taste, but I do worry about heading down that slippery slope of government censorship or prosecution of thought crimes. Today it's Zundel...tomorrow, it could be any of us.
Civilized tribes...Hah!
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