Re: Clarification of SI's Criteria for Booting Someone
Recently, another naysayer, Droog, was suspended (terminated?) from SI. He joins a list of other "straight shooters" with whom I am familiar: Mad Monk, Y2Kster and Hedgy1. Droog's ouster prompted me to make the following comments (in reply 233 on this thread):
Want to boot someone off SI? It appears that all you have to do is threaten to sue SI. I'll give Jill the benefit of the doubt and say what a sad commentary on society it is that SI feels so threatened by lawsuits. After this post I plan to write her and see what more I can find out.
Well, that post prompted SI to e-mail me because they were concerned I might be giving people the wrong impression about their policies. I based my comments on the following e-mail written by Jill, the webmistress, that was posted on the "2000 Date Change" thread as regarded Mad Monk:
Oh, he'll most likely get back on, but we have had lots of legal entanglements lately and we HAVE to take immediateaction to protect Silicon Investor as the "provider" of such allegations. This is a REAL PROBLEM, not a flippant attempt to censor anyone.
I e-mailed back that my comments were made in defense of SI-- how what I perceived was SI's fear of being sued in an overly litigious society was a "sad commentary on society". Let's face it, we're breaking new legal ground here with regard to freedom of speech. In a recent lawsuit, AOL is claiming they should not even be held liable for material written by someone they paid for his commentary. So, certainly, while I think SI will ultimately be indemnified from similar lawsuits, I certainly do not blame them for proceeding with caution.
Jill, the webmistress, was nice enough to give me permission to post the first paragraph of her response to me on this issue:
My comment doesn't AT ALL translate into "you can get someone (or yourself) kicked off of SI if you threaten them with a lawsuit." If we receive legal, valid proof that statements are false or a subpoena, yes, we'll take action, but I think that your spin on my comment was a stretch and VERY misleading. If we receive proof that someone is posting misinformation on our site, then we CERTAINLY won't allow them to continue, but "just a threat" is not justification, nor have we made "lawsuit threats" a minimum requirement to do so.
I've taken pains here to try to separate information regarding SI's general suspension policies from individual instances of it being applied. Therefore, I feel completely comfortable saying that I have confidence that SI is trying to "do the right thing" while also reserving the right to express my hope that Mad Monk, Y2Kster, Hedgy1 and Droog are allowed back on SI!
- Jeff |
