rex,
If I am reading you correctly, you hold a number of misconceptions regarding where free speech (or, technically I suppose, press, since this is not the spoken word, but the published word) exists and where it does not.
Quote:
Originally posted by rex
Private and Internet seem to be a conflict of terms. Add in public forum and all bets are off.
Yet others have posted that on this PUBIC FORUM as long as it pertains to baseball all things should be available for discussion.
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First, an internet site is not a soapbox set up in some vast mystical public square where anyone can hop up on the box and speak whatever they want. An internet site, such as this one, is private property. A private person or group or company owns or leases the computer server, the hard drive space, and the network connections to that server. This private property owner either purchases the software, or employs or contracts with the software engineers to write and maintain the software that makes this board function. You are allowed to post your thoughts here at their pleasure. It is not a public forum. You have to register, and you have to agree to abide by the rules of the site. Those rules may be interpreted anyway it suits the owner of the site. Whether their decisions are good for them and their overall objectives is for them, and them alone, to decide.
You reference a open letters area as if this, if provided, would provide you with your free speech area. Do you really think the letters to the editor of your local newspaper provides anyone with free speech or free press other than the owners of the newspaper? They choose which letters to print, and even edit those letters to match the criteria they set (length, clarity, addressing a pertitent topic, etc.).
If you want free speech (press) on the internet, start your own baseball site. Make if fully and freely open to anyone to post whatever they want. See how long it takes before your board is complete chaos.
But, there would be no censorship!!!
BTW, I deleted a thread I started on the football section of this board. Not because it was in any way controversial, but because it was not providing the information I was looking for. Big deal.