Richard Wan and the TRE are facing the heat of legal suits for defamation. Public apologies have been made and whether further demands or legal proceedings will follow are yet to be seen. The furious onslaught of lawsuits has put a dampener on the mood of bloggers and struck fear in some. The hundred flowers bloomed is taking its toll and some bloggers are making a retreat for a while.
The call for more propriety and care in allowing postings and comments to go through without censorship comes into question. The site or blog owners are accountable for what is being posted. There are counter arguments about the amount of control available and possible due to the nature of blogging and posting in cyberspace and how much blame can be put onto the owners.
In redbeanforum.com I was faced with several hundreds of pornographic posts and hate posts every morning when I turned it on. Initially I tried dutifully to delete them one by one. But the flood of unsavoury articles were just too much and demanding great effort on my part to vet them and delete them. My ultimate solution was to ban all postings altogether in the forum. It is now a read only forum except for a few blogger friends that I know.
Mysingaporenews also has its attacks daily. Fortunately Bloggers have quite an effective system to screen out the outright vulgar contents instantly. The other great thing about mysingaporenews is the restraint and maturity of the bloggers here. I have very little need to do any censorship. But that does not mean that all is fine. I tried my best to allow freedom of expression even with personal attacks against me or to other individuals as long as they are bearable. Anyone feel offended can notify me and I will delete the offensive stuff. I had a request once to remove an offensive thread for personal attack and it was done and the matter closed.
The danger of cyberspace and social media is that there are all kinds of bloggers with all kinds of agenda. There are the saboteurs, provocateurs, the internet brigade, the terrorists, the paid instigators, the moles and whatever that can do damage to a blog or site or its owners. Some may be dragged into trouble if they are not careful and thinking that the bloggers are just innocent complainants letting off steams. They could be planted there to do damage to the blogs and its owners. And it is very unjust when owners are prosecuted or taken to task when they were really fixed up without knowing what hit them. This is the ugly part about human conspiracy. The wicked became the innocent and the innocent became the victim.
I would like to thank all my bloggers here for their restraint and propriety in keeping this blog sane and respectable. The only exception is Matilah which we all understand is having some Tourette sickness problems and we can ignore his diatribes when he forget to take his pills. He will get back to his normal self very quickly.
I hope TRE will continue to exist as a social forum with more control of their material and not be dragged down for the wrong reasons. The internet can be a treacherous place if one is not careful. So please bear with me if I have to do some cleaning when necessary. So far I have done very little. Thanks to all of you.
2 comments:
There is a huge difference between one on one personal attacks and irrefutable DEFAMATION.
I fully support the self-censorship of forum and blog administrators.
"Freedom" does not exist in a vaccum. And it is not an "absolute" (like religious ideas).
Calling someone a "cunt" is a lot different from naming the person and accusing them of, say, rape or theft without any proof, or ripping into their integrity.
I feel that this is one of the better ones. It's fair and just comment in whatever issues. No personal attacks involved. We shld have more of such sites like yours. Right of freedom of expressions but no malicious intent. Keep it up.
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