I am wanting to know what your generalized idea of Cencorship is, and what should be cencored and what SHOULDN'T be
A difficult question to answer from where I'm sitting. In general I think it is a legal issue, meaning it can typically only be imposed by a government, or perhaps a quasi-governmental entity. In the USA most colleges have imposed rather draconian speech codes, as an example of what I mean by "quasi-governmental."
Beyond that it is the restriction of ideas, images, books, etc., through fines or prison terms, that sort of thing. I'm afraid I'm rather a prude on sexual issues, so I generally support restrictions on (say) sexually provocative billboards. I do not support the suppression of any ideas, no matter how absurd or offensive. As in, if somebody wants to deny the Holocaust they should be allowed to. Doesn't mean I have to read what they say.
I'm a firm believer in private property, however. Meaning if somebody wants to watch pornography in their own home, they should be allowed to. Going the other way, if a commercial webserver doesn't want to host porn or holocaust denial or what have you, they should not be required to...somebody else doubtless will.
I honestly think that the Admins of SF cencor too many of our posts because somone might find it "Offencive" yet they are willing to post up things that might make somone kill themselves as long as *Trigger Warning* Is in the topic. And thats just retarded..
I think you're proceeding from a mistaken premise in that Suicide Forum is private property and the owner of the site can impose whatever sorts of rules they wish. If you wished to, with a little effort and some cash you could create a discussion forum of your own where you could permit or forbid anything you wished. If you wish to post here, though, you agree to abide by whatever rules the administration sets. (And FWIW, I've seen a few "free speech" forums, they've all turned into nonstop flamefests in short order.)
Thus, whatever is done to you (or me, for that matter, and yes I've had at least one post deleted at SF) here is not really censorship. And are things really that restrictive here, anyway? The biggest thing I personally need to bite my tongue over is the pro-life/anti-suicide bias, but I understand that the rules are the rules.
No doubt my message will be edited because of the previous post, but the admins are simply taking away more knowledge and insightful conversation that may spark from this
Speaking of "insightful conversation" should you yourself define the terms you're asking others to define?
Now this is rather contradictory of me to say, but i will admit, that there are probably some posts that need to be tweaked a little. Like just Bashing Christians, or Vegans, Excessive swearing Etc.
I imagine this sort of thing is done simply to keep threads from devolving into flame-fests. Unfortunately unmoderated forums sink pretty quickly to that level. For a forum to remain viable somebody has to be willing to play cop. Preferably somebody with thick skin because nobody's going to appreciate you and everybody's gonna bitch at you. (At least that's how it seemed my one and only time being a moderator on a site devoted to political debate. :tongue: )
But cencoring somones views and own personal oppinions is wrong in my oppinion. Lets see what the masses say.
I agree with you in one sense, in that the censoring by statute of personal opinions is wrong . However, I disagree that what occurs here is censorship in that sense, or really in any sense. That someone will be denied an outlet for any opinion simply because it is not permitted here on SF does not follow. And I'll take that one step further. If somebody showed up here and all they wrote about was automobiles, Jessica Simpson and The Lord of the Rings, the Adminstration would be perfectly within their rights to send them on their way. This site simply isn't supposed to be about any of those topics, even though none of what I've mentioned is necessarily offensive. They're just all wildly off-topic and would degrade the discussions of suicide and depression.
Heck, there are hundreds, for all I know, thousands, of discussion forums out there. If SF isn't to your liking, find one that you're more comfortable with. Or start one of your own.
