Free Speech:Bring Back Prokofy

Many people have argued the point that the Bush sign guy should be protected by Free Speech (this is a private company with Private Severs so free speech doesn't apply. Contrary to popular delusional thinking LL is not a country). If the Bush guy should be protected by Free Speech, shouldn't that extended to our greatest forum polarizing force Prokofy Neva? Why is the free speech of Prokofy less worthy than the free speech of the Bush guy?

Afterall, Prokofy just pissed the forum people off, and in World provides valuable services to many residents. The Bush guy on the other hand is a blight on the mainland and an annoyance to countless residents. The majority of the people who are rallying support for him based on free speech are private and large mainland owners, who are unaffected by the signs and often claim "I rarely see them, I don't see what the big deal is".


I vote bring back Prokofy, who was tried in the court of "OMGZ, he is insulting me and making my forum posting at work suck". If free speech is so important, let it apply across the board, not just for the people who annoy the powerful people less.

Sure why not. I think it would be fun.
I have to admit you raise very valid points.

Well..Prok did make numerous and frequent personal attacks, which IS against the rules of the forum, while posting signs on your own land demanding the Impeachment of a President isn't.

See the difference there?

Having said that though, I was never for Prok being banned, and would be fine with him coming back to spew his endless tirades.

Ban them both. From the entirety of SL.

Forums != Inworld.

Well then will we ban all the people that still personally attack Prokofy in these forums and on IRC with Lindens present when Prokofy is not there and is unable to defend himself? People were giving it back to Prokofy as hard as Prokofy was giving it. Do they get a free pass? Also if you read Prokofy's blog the same people go to his blog en masse and attempt to impede his free speech even on non-linden servers.

Pie

No doubt, if you review the order of things, you will see that Prok attacks, and then people defend, for a large majority of the posts. However, do two wrongs make a right?? Probably not. But it's easy to get pulled into a forum argument if someone is bad mouthing you and singling you out all the time. And besides, you know as well as I do, that Prok revels in the attention and infamy.

As has already been pointed out, there's a big difference between making a political statement without breaking the TOS, and posting thousands of words of personal attacks and derrogatory vitriol every single day, very much in violation of the TOS. They aren't equivelant. Prok was given many warnings and chances to clean up his act before he was rightfully banned. He's lucky he wasn't thrown out of SL completely. You can't post made up conspiracy theories about a private company on its own forums every day and expect to be tolerated for long. That kind of behavior should (and thankfully does) have consequences.

Gotta love leading and biased polls.


- Newfie

How many times does this need to be said? Free speech does not apply to private spaces.
The forums are a private discussion space that you can only use if you agree to abide by the CS and TOS. And you people have it easy compared to how strict *I* would be. As long as the forums are full of bitterness and drama, whoever's in charge of moderation here is doing a poor job.

I'm curious how you can impede someone's free speech on their own blog? Are they reporting the blog to Dubya in hopes he shuts it down? Are they blotting out the blog using nefarious technical means?

personally Porky got what he deserved, nothing more nothing less.

I voted Pie for the simple fact that there was no "I support free speech and trust that prok was banned for violating TOS".

Unless you know why PN was banned, you can't presume that it was for any other reason than just simply she violated forum rules.

MJ

Oh --don't think I don't see what you're doing here, David. You mean ME dontcha. Well I've seen right into your charade and I'm reporting this post --so there

However, by citing freedom of speech as a reason for not acting against the Bush signs, LL have made the choice to apply freedom of speech to their private spaces, in which case it's reasonable to expect - although not demand - that it be applied equally.

That said, though, although I actually think some of Prokofy's points have merit, the way in which he put them - in particular by attacking other individuals directly - wasn't acceptable, and that it is indeed different from making a political statement.

When did they cite freedom of speech? All I've seen is "those signs are within TOS." I've seen other posters invoke freedom of speech when talking about the signs... but then again, I pretty much don't read those threads anymore

I think the exact same thing about Prokofy. He has very interesting insights on economical and political issues but they often get lost in the middle of all that bitterness and long windedness. He was always pretty nice inworld, so I have no idea why the forums should be any diferent.
While I believe that LL may have over-reacted a little in permanently banning him, I think it would set a terrible precedent to reverse this decision... and besides, we certainly have no shortage of drama without him. If anything, LL should start being stricter around these parts.

btw

Was it literally 'freedom of speech' that was cited by Linden as the reason for not acting against the Bush signs?

At least judging from Robin's post here, it appears to me that the reason they have not yet acted against the Bush signs was because they felt there was a lack of a clear TOS violation. I'm not finding anywhere that Linden states the reason for their inaction is specifically due to free speech concerns.

Linden Lab reserves the right to be utterly inconsistent for any reason or no reason.

I think that may be their "corporate mission statement"; I could be wrong.

There is a potential irony here.

Prokofy has been removed from this forum space, yet his name is continually resurrected.

Presuming Mr Divine's political signs might be someday banned, would they likewise be put up by other people after such banning?

I completely agree with this. After experiencing a few other online forums with other games, they are much stricter and SL forums is way to relaxed.

I also believe that the OP has only started this thread to incite a debate that has been dragged through the ringer. Looking through the post history, this person does not enjoy SL and I'm just not sure why she is still around.

MJ

Posting gallons of hate-filled garbage at everyone who crosses prok's path is different from erecting blue signs on your own land.

If you want the impeach bush guy to be banned, make him cross the line and lose his temper. Problem solved.

Bringing prokofy back would further dilute the already questionable usefulness of these forums.

She didn't ever bring anything useful to the table, except for extreme paranoid ramblings and thinly veiled ad hominems. Go search for her posts, I'm sure you'll find amazing nuggets of wisdom.

Bah, what's it matter, she's beaming already, and it'll be on her blog in about 30 minutes.

She's going to be cackling insanely on her blog about this forum thread. Congrats, she got another suckling of attention.

LF

First, your poll is impossible to answer. Like a great many polls on this forum, it's slanted towards delivering a pre-meditated answer. According to the poll's questions, anyone in favor of the ban must be against free speach, and anyone in favor of free speach must be agains the ban. The truth is never that simple. It is entirely possible for one to be pro-free speach while still being in favor of the anti-rudeness rules that got Prok banned, but your poll does not allow for that possibility at all.

In the real world, we all know the immortal words of Oliver Wendell Homes, "Freedom of speach ends when someone yells fire in a crowded theater just to see what would happen". Well, in SL, freedom of speach ends when it violates the Community Standards and/or the Terms of Service. Why? Well, quite simply it's because each of us made an agreement to abide by those rules when we got here, and we all agreed that if we break them, we're gone. It's that simple. Prok's banning was her own doing, no one else's.

The comparison between Mr. Impeach Bush and Prokovy is not a fair one. As annoying as the Bush guy happens to be, he's careful to remain just shy of breaking the rules. Prok on the other hand crossed the line hundreds of times. She was out of control, so she had to go. It was unfortunate that it came to that, of course, but she left LL no choice.

I suspect that sooner or later the Bush guy will end up crossing the line as well, and that will be the end of him. Until then, all we can do is wait.