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."
They aren't wanted there either.
But Jim made damned sure when he kicked them out... that he pointed them all over to a fledgling Libertarian board that valued free speech and placed a premium on it.
Thanks a friggin bunch.
Anarchists they're not, it's simply an enviornment easily penetrated.
Life is full of dichotomy. There is no end to the challenges. God Himself is challenged by Satan, and believers are challenged by Amalek. For the philosophical non-believer, the usefullness of a God ethic is constantly in dispute.
So why not a libertarian message board, that tries to stick by the belief that good arguments must eventually win out over bad, be legitimately challenged to live up to that principle?
The answer is found in limited use of casuistry.
When absolute principles collide, one principle must give ground, temporarily, in the interests of preserving the overall rule. Rules are made to be broken. They should be broken only in observance of a higher principle -- whatever is applicable at the time.
Does this suggest an answer to the question I asked you to begin with?
I hope so. Maybe your answer will reach those who need to consider such troubles.
FReegards.
-Avoiding Sulla
LP is what? libertarian than LF.
I thought libertypost.org and libertyforum.org were two different things.
Puh-lease. Most of them were posting on both sites already. LF has been anti-Jew since its inception
LOL. OK, ignore my post 25. Now I get it.
That's tame compared to the neo-Nazi spam-o-rama I found in "my comments" section last week. It'd been pulled before I could read it on the thread, but it had links to hard-core neo-Nazi sites and a whole bunch of spew.
From what I can tell the folks in charge at Liberty Post are making an effort not to allow their site to become a dumping ground for the nutters, anti-semitic and otherwise.
Your slip is showing. At least you finally admit to being a power monger. LOL
Pardon my saying so, but that's horseshit.
I was one of a half-dozen people that founded the place.
Not an anti-semite in the bunch.
Didn't have a lick of trouble with the skinheads until they got kicked off this site (and Jim pointed them in our direction).
Sorry, but that's how it was.
You guys dumped your trash in the well, and then bitch about the water quality.
I retract that LF is a anti-Jew site. It just has a lot of anti-Jews there.
It's been on the radar of banned FR folk for sometime. (and not accidentally)
I don't know how you got this idea that Jim issued links to everyone he booted.
Perhaps it was watching him actually do it.
I retract that LF is a anti-Jew site. It just has a lot of anti-Jews there.
Can't imagine why.
I was one of a half-dozen people that founded the place.
Not an anti-semite in the bunch.
Didn't have a lick of trouble with the skinheads until they got kicked off this site (and Jim pointed them in our direction).
Sorry, but that's how it was.
You guys dumped your trash in the well, and then bitch about the water quality
Always playing the "persecuted" victim, don't you OWK. No wonder Libertarians are so cozy with the ACLU.
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