How do you reconcile your inherent support of the right to engage in P4P predicated on a Constitutionally guaranteed right to privacy and personal autonomy, with your support of the unabashed trampling of 1st Amendment rights guaranteeing freedom of expression by moderators who exercise unlimited censorship of the various boards? Seems somewhat hypocritical, don't you think?

Dear RY,

You are confusing the right we have under the First Amendment to not have the government restrict our freedom of speech with the right that TER has as an individual corporation to express its right to censor anything they so wish to censor seeing as how they own this board.

I for one wish that they would not censor things as much as they do, but I concede their legal right to do so, which, not too ironically, is a way that they can express their freedom of speech, which the government guarantees to them.

still not a lawyer

Granted, it's been a long time since I took Con Law, but I do remember the Bill of Rights only protects against government intrusion. As you so aptly point out, they are free to do as they please.  I simply find their stance to be hypocritical, not unconstitutional.

They can and do whatever they like as far as moderating posts, comments, material.

And as you can see they have no problems doing it that way.

Have you ever moderated a board?  It's a thankless job for the most part.  And the pay generally sucks  

On the one hand, they support a right for a person to engage in P4P.  That really doesn't have much to do with freedom of speech - privacy rights, yes, but that is a whole other kettle of fish.

As the owners of the board however, they have a right to enforce whatever codes of behaviors upon the people they let use this forum they want to enforce.  If they want to ban people who say rutabaga, then that's their right and is protected by the First Amendment.  There was a SCOTUS case not so long ago that reinforced that right involving a private organization that banned gays from marching in their St. Pat's Day parade up in Boson because the court ruled that to force them to accept gay participants who openly displayed a message calling for equal rights for gays was a violation of the organizers' freedom of speech.  So be it, I say.

The court of public opinion however eventually brought those organizers around and now, belatedly, they have begun to allow gay themed messages at their parade, at least to some extent.

This is the Constitution functioning in the way (I think.) the founders meant it to.

You also have to give TER owners some credit.  They may do things we members may not like, but they do give us a forum, like this one, to bitch about it, at least to some extent.

However, I do feel it is hypocritical to produce a vehicle to assist individuals to break the law in most U.S. jurisdictions, I.e., prostitution, under the guise it is a privacy issue that should be protected under the Bill of Rights, and then engage in indiscriminate censorship of their discussion boards.  

I respect your point of view Fish, and I admit to making an extreme argument. Perhaps I'm simply frustrated by the perception, whether founded or not, that a select few whiney, unethical, and dishonest posters exercise the ability to manipulate the boards by having commentary critical of their exploits taken down

END OF MESSAGE

Hypocrisy is the act of saying one thing and doing the opposite.

It is similar to cynicism which is the act of saying one thing while meaning another.

The former is a felony and the latter is a misdemeanor.

END OF MESSAGE

I enjoy most train wrecks, so I'd let most posts go through that shouldn't.  

TER has a right to moderate whatever they so please. A business has a right to run their business as they chose. Now if they said there can be no female hobbyists, male providers, or gay people on here, that would be a violation of rights. They don't do that.

I do support their moderation. Might not be as much fun as back in the day when we had unpaid moderators such as Gambler.... But it is their business to do as they wish.

Have yet to hear anyone got moderated for something that shouldn't have been denied.  Some people don't think before posting.

In all fairness, you have no idea what posts and reviews and whatever else never see the light of day for even a second - people trying to out each other's identities, outing TS's, all sorts. The idea that this should be an unmoderated free for all, where (just because the hobby is not legal where you are) people can make their own determinations as to what's appropriate and what isn't, is the start of sheer mayhem.  

A hypothetical: one disgruntled provider with your information decides she's going to post that information on the general discussion board, and there's no moderation. Your real name, your address, your job, your phone number, your email address, what you named your kids (because you just can't stop with the small talk during a session!), how long your dick is, whatever. The kind of information that everyone here would quite like to be kept private, as it should be. My guess is that you would wish there was someone making sure that didn't go up on the internet rather immediately.  

Also, no amendment rights are being trampled on. Free speech does not mean speech without repercussions. Sure, you are free to make some horrendously inflammatory comment about some group of people, but that does not mean you shouldn't expect someone from that group to want to punch you in the face for that comment. The moderation is an attempt to curtail the need for those repercussions, and indeed protect you from irreparably damaging yourself and others.

In comparison to what is let through on some of these boards and what is deemed wrong or eventually deemed too much after a time (now that's some funny shit). There for sure has been some unfair "moderation" done. At the end of the day who cares but shiiiiiitt. Some sensitive mofos on these boards. HA.

it's their rules, and if we don't like them, we do not have to be members.  Yeah, we don't have to like the way they run the site, but what the fuck can we do about it?  Easy answer, not a damn thing.  Since it's not based in the US, they do not have to worry about our American first amendment rights.

I was a moderator, I am now the only board host, and I didn't worry about what admin did or didn't do, it ain't my place to do so.  As a moderator, I had limited power, as a host I have none.  I just do what they feel I should be doing.  So far, I have not been told by admin to change what I do.

LLAP,
Swim

are clearly stated. I don't like posts being pulled either.  

I see both sides of the argument as being "whiney". It amounts to the whine "I want my post to stay" versus the whine "I want that post to go". Whoever makes that call based upon the board guidelines will piss off one side or the other of the argument; let the whining begin.

Given that a moderator can never win the "whine vs whine" dispute, I think they do a fairly decent job.

and you are correct, but my main issue is not the posts that never see the light of day, but the huge number of posts that are aired and then trimmed later. I have days where half of my posts are no longer there the next day, not because there was anything wrong with MY posts, but because entire threads are pulled routinely, threads that most likely never should have seen the light of day to begin with.

It's also the reason that all posters start off here moderated, no matter how diligent the mods are,  the risk of having personal or damaging information aired publicly is a real risk, not to mention culling out all the spammers, especially the Russian spammer that used to, and I am sure still do bombard this site 24/7

I would rock this bitch!