Free speech on the forums

[Gxeremio Dimsum]

I would like the RA to consider and pass a legislative judgment about free speech on the forums, particularly the ability to criticize or question public officials. How shall we balance Article 12 of the UDHR:

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

with Article 19:

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
?

If changes are needed to the forum posting guidelines, I ask that the RA name such changes.

[michelmanen]

I, for one, am perfectly comfortable with the existing rules. I see no need to amend them. They balance quite well, in my opinion, both our rights AND our responsibilities as CDS citizens and are in conformity with both articles you quote.

[Beathan]

Dimsum --

Article 12 of the UDHR, as it relates to speech, is one of the most confusing, perhaps flawed, articles in the UDHR. On one hand, it protects personal correspondence from arbitrary interefence; on the other hand it prohibits attacks on honor or reputation. I take this to mean that communication channels shall be open -- but that states must provide some protection from defamation. However, having some rule against defamation does not tell us what that rule should be. First, truth is always a defense to defamation. Caveats in expression also avoid defamation. I am personally confident that I have not even approached defamation in any comment I have written anywhere in any post on these forums.

I also note that Article 12 does not require that we speak with decorum or Engish civility. Rather, it requires only that we avoid malicious and dishonest attacks on the intangible persons of our fellow human beings. We cannot make [i:tkmd5a0o] false statements [/i:tkmd5a0o] about another's honor and reputation. This has two components -- first, it applies to statements (claims of fact -- rather than expressions of opinions or suggestion of potential fact); second, the factual claims must be false -- even intentionally false.

Unlike Article 12, Article 19 is very clear -- freedom of expression of opinions is absolute. Therefore, we can express our [i:tkmd5a0o] opinions [/i:tkmd5a0o] about another's character -- even if our opinion is wrong -- provided we do not falsely claim to have [i:tkmd5a0o] facts [/i:tkmd5a0o] casting the other into disrepute.

How do we reconcile the Articles? It's not hard: provided a person expresses doubts about the honor of another person, or about the deservedness of the other's reputation, as opinions of the speaker, rather than as facts, such expressions are protected and are not prohibited as defamation. However, if a person makes untrue claims that dishonor or demean another person, and makes those claims as claims of fact, not opinion, and without caveats such as ("it is possible that" or "perhaps"), then the statements are prohibited defamation.

Let's apply these principles to my most infamous post.

I said [quote:tkmd5a0o]I observed then, and I again observe, that your behavior, and the follow-on pile-on behavior of your fellows in the Judiciary Faction, amounts to intentional interference with a democratic election. This is not fair debate. In the U.S., even with our extremely permissive rules on freedom of speech in the political context, the wilful hijacking of an opposing party's attempt to communicate with its members and with the general public is illegal. I again recommend that if this behavior is not yet prohibited in the C.D.S., the RA take it up and prohibit it. [/quote:tkmd5a0o]

This is a description of behavior and an expression of an opinion about it. I do not make any factual claims about the honor or reputation of anyone. I merely call to task someone for his misbehavior.

[quote:tkmd5a0o]Further, as has been observed on numerous occasions --- both at times when you have been warned by the moderators and when you have unsuccessfully tried to get the moderators to intervene to suppress proper and appropriate criticism of your behavior and legislation -- you have tended to cast the judiciary into disrepute. This has been observed on these forums. This has been pointed out during ingame debates about the judiciary -- and by people who are not, as you call me and my colleagues, "anti-judiciary extremists." It is widely recognized, and lamented by those people who do not oppose the Judiciary Act itself, that you have brought the entire judicial project into question by your behavior as its proposer, most single-minded defender, and only judge. [/quote:tkmd5a0o]

This paragraph involves a restatement of concerns that have been expressed about the reputation of the judiciary and Ash's affect on that reputation. It purports to merely state what has been said by others -- and it is truthful in that restatement. There is nothing defamatory here. I am merely saying, "people have expressed these concerns" -- which is undeniably a true statement.

[quote:tkmd5a0o]Further, I have pointed out that your strident opposition to the Rules of Justice, in which opposition you have clearly indicated that you believe that it would be impossible and foolish to attempt to apply the rules (clearly implying that you will not engage in any such attempt), amounts to a dereliction of your judicial duties. As you are not yet involved in a case, this dereliction is perhaps an anticipatory breach of these duties. However, it remains a dereliction; I think it is a culpable dereliction; and, in any case, it is fast approaching the twenty-eight day mark. [/quote:tkmd5a0o]

Ash has called the Rules of Justice "impossible to administer" and "foolish to attempt to reply". These are truthful paraphrases of his own posts. The rest is a logical unpacking of what those expressions must mean. Again, no factual claims about either Ash's reputation or honor.

[quote:tkmd5a0o]Further, I and others have pointed out multiple instances of bias -- starting with your litmus test examination for judicial office, extending through the bowing and fawning in your proposed Code of Procedure, extending to your defense of the Judiciary Act (despite its plain language) and continuing undermining of the S.C. (again, despite the continuing jurisdiction of the S.C. under the plain language of the Judiciary Act). [/quote:tkmd5a0o]

This again is a description and interpretation of behavior. I claim that Ash's behavior as chief judge shows a bias. This evaluation of judicial behavior is the only way to reveal a bias. Obviously, my claim about bias reveals my own opinion -- and Ash, Oni and Michel have been quick to point out that they do not share this opinion. As an expression of opinion, this is permitted and protected by the UDHR.

[quote:tkmd5a0o]Finally, I think that your sanity, and that of your project, is also suspect. You indicated that you thought I had a "stone-age deity" delusion in a post that clearly revealed your own messianic fantasies. I think it is not unfair to characterize your defense of the Act as a claim that you came to SL to restore order and law, saving SL from itself and its moral corruption, starting with Neufreistadt as a private Jerusalem. If I were to hazard a truly reckless diagnosis of such delusions of grandeur and monomaniacal megalomania, I might consider the behavior as symptomatic of narcissistic personality disorder. [/quote:tkmd5a0o]

Again, I am expressing a suspicion here -- not a fact. I characterized certain statements in a manner I stated was, in my opinion, "not unfair." An expression that is "not unfair" is very different than a claim that it is absolute and established fact. We don't talk of facts as "fair" -- but as true. However, opinions can be "fair." I would never be so irresponsible as to diagnose anyone based on forum postings alone -- as revealing as those postings might be. I also later stated my evidence -- which was far more than the fact of "vehement disagreement" -- and cited my sources (the DSM-IV). However, I never stated that my suspicion was fact -- or anything more than an educated hunch on scanty evidence. This is, again, surely the expression of a proper and protected opinion.

I then said [quote:tkmd5a0o]I see no evidence of corruption. As a possible further dereliction of duty, we have no Judicial Code of Ethics to assess other behavior against. Given the challenges to your behavior, I would consider any attempt by you to draft any such Code to be a clear instance of further bias. However, I think that any such Code, which is intended to regulate the nonpartisan office of judge, would have to prohibit electioneering and election tampering -- which were the specific behaviors that prompted my speculation about impeachment in the most recent instance. [/quote:tkmd5a0o]

I indicated that there is no reason to believe that Ash is corrupt. By this I implied that I thought there is no reason to believe that Ash is dishonest. He can be perfectly wrong and perfectly honest at the same time; and he is. I then merely note that the last basis of an article of impeachment -- violation of the Code of Judicial Conduct -- cannot be evaluated because there is no Code of Judicial Conduct. This is a factual claim -- but an undeniably true one.

I close by observing [quote:tkmd5a0o]I think it is time to begin an investigation to see if impeachment is proper under these circumstances, and to begin such proceedings if the investigation reveals, as is widely suspected, that you and your behavior has brought the judiciary into disrepute as it has just begun to develop its reputation. I hope that this post will meet your standard for substantive and detailed analysis of behavior in light of the specific Constitutional language concerning impeachment. [/quote:tkmd5a0o]

Here is the real kicker. This is tantamount to my saying, "These are my opinions; I have no facts; let's have an investigation and get the facts." Surely, if I were claiming to have the absolute truth about Ash's honor or reputation, I would not request an investigation. If I already had the truth, no investigation would be necessary, or even useful. Therefore, I was clearly expressing nothing more than my own opinions -- and opinions about the character of a public figure, which is a matter of public concern. Such expression of opinions is important and absolutely protected under Article 19.

Beathan

[michelmanen]

Beathan wrote:

[quote:pwqq8091]...This is tantamount to my saying, "These are my opinions; I have no facts...."[/quote:pwqq8091]

Indeed. You have no facts whatsoever. Just your personal opinions. And to make such unsubstantiated and biased statements in a public forum, with the clear intent to influence public opinion as to the character of a public official and to his suitability for his office, is not simply reversing, in fact, the burden of proof and finding him guilty untill proven innocent - but more than that, it constitutes nothing else than a witch-hunt masqerading as a parody of free speech. And now, based simply on your opinions, in your own words untainted by the slightest sliver of a fact, you wish to drag our Chief Justice in front of a "Representative Assembly Committee on un-CDS Activities?" Thank God, we no longer live in the early 1950s USA for such crass McCarthyite tactics to take any hold upon the minds of your intended audience...

Despite moderators' warnings, despite your commitment in our discussion, you continue to fill these public policy forums with your diatribes and accusations, albeit in a slightly different, less vitriolic, but no less insidious form. To paraphrase your favorite orator, Cicero, as he unmasked Catilina's conspiracy to overthrow the Senate and the duly-elected consuls of that year and establish a dictatorship:

[i:pwqq8091][size=150:pwqq8091][b:pwqq8091]”Quosque tandem Beathan, abutere patientia nostra?”[/b:pwqq8091][/size:pwqq8091][/i:pwqq8091]

[Beathan]

Michel --

Now I am Catiline? Wow -- I claim to be Cicero, and you claim I am Catiline. Amazing juxtaposition. However, I have no intention of overthrowing our Republic. I rather intend to preserve it from the triumvirate of C.A.R.E. (The Confounded Archons for the Restoration of Elitism.)

It is true that I don't claim to have facts -- or the Truth in the big "T" sense. Despite claims to the contrary, I do not have a god-complex, or claim to be omniscient or to have some privileged insight only I and some special few, those who can truly understand me, can share. However, I do claim to have evidence -- enough to state a claim or provide for a bill of particulars. Usually I start with evidence, investigate, and reach the facts. I do not have the hubris to believe that I start with the facts without the need to investigate.

I also do not think that investigating is McCarthyistic. Murrow himself recognized that investigations were proper -- and that people should not be convicted unless investigations reveal a basis for the conviction, and legislation should not be passed unless investigations show a need for the legislation. I agree with Murrow here. McCarthy's problem was not that he was investigating -- it was that he was disregarding the facts that came to light in his investigations -- and was actually holding show-trials masquerading as investigations. I have never suggested that we go down that road. Rather, I have pointed at the rising smoke and said, "there might be fire -- let's look." If my approach to the smoke fans the flames, that's neither here nor there. I didn't kindle the fire; I just want to see if it is there and, if so, put it out before it spreads.

On a related note, now that Publius has announced that he will seek a position on the RA, I will not do so. Therefore, the forces of C.A.R.E. can rest knowing that they can pursue their elitistic agenda without me having any formal position of power from which I can hold public hearings. Therefore, even if, despite all the evidence to the contrary, the members of the C.A.R.E. triumviate honestly think I am a pocket McCarthy, I am unlikely to be on any unCDS affairs committee any time soon.

In passing, I will also note that references to Roman history on these forums appear with far more frequency now that Colonia Nova has opened. This is a change in discourse -- and might well suggest the emergence of the unique CN culture I thought possible.

Beathan

[michelmanen]

Beathan wrote:

[quote:339kv74v]Now I am Catiline? Wow -- I claim to be Cicero, and you claim I am Catiline. Amazing juxtaposition. However, I have no intention of overthrowing our Republic. I rather intend to preserve it from the triumvirate of C.A.R.E. (The Confounded Archons for the Restoration of Elitism.) [/quote:339kv74v]

I didn't claim you were anyone in particular or that you were trying to overthrow anything. I simply put the question I asked of you in its historical context. It is rather you who continue with personal attacks by playing around with the acronym of an official CDS faction with no other purpose but that of discrediting it before having even read its platform and policies. Is that the kind of free speech you and the "unbiased" reporter who started this thread are seeking to bestow upon us all?

As to your claim of having enough evidence to start a claim against a public official - you know full well that, as a private citizen, you have no [i:339kv74v]locus standi [/i:339kv74v]to take such action. The only purpose of your statements is to create, by any and all means possible, the required atmosphere of doubt, apprehension and ill-will (if not fear and intimidation) to both influence the course of the upcoming elections in an entirely unethical manner, and to attempt to browbeat the RA and SC into thinking there is enough public clamour on this issue to justify and require some such action as you advocate to be taken.

Your objectives are obvious. Your strategy is clear. Your tactics are plain for all to see. I can only ask again, in the same words as before:
[size=150:339kv74v]
[i:339kv74v][b:339kv74v]”Quosque tandem Beathan, abutere patientia nostra?”
[/b:339kv74v][/i:339kv74v][/size:339kv74v]

[Beathan]

OK -- Michel -- I will answer your question. You ask, "Tell us, Beathan, when will you cease to try our patience?"

I have not yet begun to try your patience -- and I am not a hypocrite. As the Catilinian question is generally used to claim that the person being queried is a hypocrite, I take it as a groundless personal attack of the very kind I do not make, despite accusations to the contrary. As the question was first asked of Catiline, I take it also as an accusation of treason -- or at least a claim that I desire to harm the C.D.S.

Yet your mistrust cannot make me a traitor. Tell me whereon the likelihood depends.

Also, Michel, I don't see that C.A.R.E. is an "official faction." Will it be? Will it be so soon, just days, after Ash declared, in no uncertain terms, at a C.S.D.F. meeting that "there is no judicial faction"?

Finally, I am not swearing out a bill of particulars against Ashcroft, nor am I setting out articles of impeachment. I was, however, drafting a document that might approximate what such articles would look like to answer the question, "what is an impeachable offense."

But, once again, the forces of C.A.R.E. are trying to hijack a forum thread and drown it in misdirected and accusatory uselessness. So, I ask, Quosque tandem C.A.R.E., abutere patientia nostra? Unlike me, I think that the accusation of hypocrisy will stick on an elitist junta that includes the words "Rights" and "Equality" in its name. However, I do admit that C.A.R.E. is candid to this extent -- they have three stars on their flag, one for each member of the triumvirate.

Beathan

[michelmanen]

Gxeremio,

Beathan wrote:

[quote:2ndzzych]...I think that the accusation of hypocrisy will stick on an elitist junta that includes the words "Rights" and "Equality" in its name. However, I do admit that C.A.R.E. is candid to this extent -- they have three stars on their flag, one for each member of the triumvirate...[/quote:2ndzzych]

Is this the kind of "free speech" you advocate and wish our legislature to enact and our forum moderators to tolerate?

MM

[Ashcroft Burnham]

As Pat has already pointed out, the issue is not about defamation, it is about maintaining civility in forum discussions, which is a very important end in itself. Prohibition of criticism of character is common on web forums for good reason: there is no reason why this web forum should be an exception to that general rule. And there is no such thing as a "legislative judgment": the courts interpret the law, the legislature makes new law. If the legislature purported to interpret the law, it would be acting outside its powers.

[Ashcroft Burnham]

[quote="Beathan":1a6g2swi]I have not yet begun to try your patience[/quote:1a6g2swi]

Does that mean that you intend to start soon?

[quote:1a6g2swi]Finally, I am not swearing out a bill of particulars against Ashcroft, nor am I setting out articles of impeachment. [/quote:1a6g2swi]

Isn't it odd that, despite all your incessant insistence that the procedure in the "frontier" of the CDS must be very different in both form and substance to that in the first life, you start writing about "bills of particulars" and "articles of impeachment", which are evidently US technical terms (they certainly do not appear in any procedural document here), whereas, in reality, the Dean of the Scientific Council has never issued any directions on procedure in the Court of Scientific Council? It is particularly ironic considering that the original Code of Procedure used entirely novel concepts and names (a "notice of impeachment"), even though Publius mis-guessed and thought, for some entirely unexplained reason, that "notice in the ordinary" was some form of English originating process.

[quote:1a6g2swi]But, once again, the forces of C.A.R.E. are trying to hijack a forum thread and drown it in misdirected and accusatory uselessness.[/quote:1a6g2swi]

If your memory does not fail you again, you will find that you were the one who invoked the post about which you received an official warning as to your misconduct by a forum moderator, and that, in each case, Michel was merely responding to what you had written. Explain how replying to the particulars that you wrote involves hijacking anything.

[Gxeremio Dimsum]

My thread has been hijacked!

Again with the Latin. Is it less rude to insult people in an ancient language, Michel?

I think that some of the attacks here, from both Michel and Beathan, SHOULD be protected speech, since our forums are, as someone has pointed out, very different from the typical web forum. These are more akin to a public square, or I daresay a community meeting, where ideas and arguments are tested out. As such, different kinds of speech and opinion-giving should be tolerated (though not always celebrated). One big concern I have is that instead of responding to or ignoring criticisms, some people using the forums instead reply by appealing to the "forum guidelines" as a away of suggesting that the criticisms are invalid.

I hope that the bickering on this thread will stop (not by force, mind you!) and the RA will pass a judgment on the question. I suppose the SC may be a good group to hear from on this as well.

[Gxeremio Dimsum]

[quote="Ashcroft Burnham":qgso84q4]And there is no such thing as a "legislative judgment": the courts interpret the law, the legislature makes new law. If the legislature purported to interpret the law, it would be acting outside its powers.[/quote:qgso84q4]

There most certainly is such as a thing as "legislative judgment." It is mentioned and defended in the opinions of the Supreme Court of the US in the following cases: Furman v. Georgia (1972), Minersville School District v. Gobitis (1940), South Carolina State Highway Dept. v. Barnwell Bros. Inc (1938), Zablocki v. Redhail (1978), Metromedia Inc. v. San Diego (1981), among others.

Perhaps it doesn't exist in England (I don't know), but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist at all!

[Ashcroft Burnham]

[quote="Gxeremio Dimsum":zs4j6u9g]I think that some of the attacks here, from both Michel and Beathan, SHOULD be protected speech, since our forums are, as someone has pointed out, very different from the typical web forum.[/quote:zs4j6u9g]

That would require a very substantial and significant rewriting of the forum moderation guidelines. Do you advocate that? If so, what do you have to say about the point that the rules are there to preserve civility and prevent people from being deterred (not just from posting, but from joining the CDS at all) by what are colloquially known in web parlance as "flame wars"?

[quote:zs4j6u9g]One big concern I have is that instead of responding to or ignoring criticisms, some people using the forums instead reply by appealing to the "forum guidelines" as a away of suggesting that the criticisms are invalid.[/quote:zs4j6u9g]

The point is quite properly made that it is improper to make personal attacks, that is, statements adverse to a person's character, rather than a person's arguments, on a web forum. How, in any event, do you expect somebody to respond to an attack on her or his character?

[quote:zs4j6u9g]I hope that the bickering on this thread will stop (not by force, mind you!) and the RA will pass a judgment on the question. I suppose the SC may be a good group to hear from on this as well.[/quote:zs4j6u9g]

We already know Pat's opinion on the matter, and there is no ambiguity in the forum moderation guidelines themselves. However, what you appear to be advocating seems to me to be the sort of thing that would, if put in place, multiply bickering tenfold.

[Ashcroft Burnham]

[quote="Gxeremio Dimsum":3u5x9ccd]There most certainly is such as a thing as "legislative judgment." It is mentioned and defended in the opinions of the Supreme Court of the US in the following cases: Furman v. Georgia (1972), Minersville School District v. Gobitis (1940), South Carolina State Highway Dept. v. Barnwell Bros. Inc (1938), Zablocki v. Redhail (1978), Metromedia Inc. v. San Diego (1981), among others.

Perhaps it doesn't exist in England (I don't know), but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist at all![/quote:3u5x9ccd]

It does not exist in the CDS either:

[quote="The constitution":3u5x9ccd]5. Subject to Section 8 below, only Judges of Common Jurisdiction shall preside over proceedings in any trial or other hearing, or deliver any judgment as to the law in any Court of Common Jurisdiction, or otherwise exercise any of the powers of any Court of Common Jurisdiction, save for those powers exercisable by juries, and any power, not exercised during the course of a trial or other hearing, deemed by any Judge of Common Jurisdiction to be administrative in nature, providing always that any party to such proceedings may appeal to a Judge of Common Jurisdiction from any such administrative decision.

...

8. [Member of the Scientific Council may sit as Judge of Common Jurisdiction when no Judge of Common Jurisdiction is available]

9. Subject to any powers of the Scientific Council when sitting as a court expressly stated in the text of this Constitution, Courts of Common Jurisdiction, and only Courts of Common Jurisdiction, shall have the power when giving judgment on a disputed matter between two or more parties (who must be residents of SecondLife or bodies corporate, including states, recognised as such by the law of the Confederation of Democratic Simulators, but who need not be citizens of the Confederation of Democratic Simulators): –

(a) to make binding determinations of the rights, duties, powers, privileges, immunities, liabilities and disabilities of any or all such parties according to the law of the Confederation of Democratic Simulators;

(b) to make binding determinations of any facts in dispute between any or all such parties, provided that making such determinations are necessary in order to make such a determination as mentioned in paragraph (a) above, or (c) below;

(c) subject to either (i) a party formally accepting, or (ii) a court finding as a fact at a trial held in accordance with law that a party's conduct is culpable, to impose upon that party in respect of that conduct any penalty, including, but not limited to, banishment from any or all territory of the Confederation of Democratic Simulators, either permanently or for such shorter period as shall be specified by the court, and forfeiture of any SecondLife asset (including debts and other such duties owed thereto), either immediately or suspended on such conditions as the court may prescribe;

(d) to make any non-penal orders such as to give effect to the rights, duties, powers, privileges, immunities, liabilities and disabilities of any party according to the law of the Confederation of Democratic Simulators, including any law relating to judicial procedure, or any other person or body on behalf of whom any party makes any claim, or to give effect to any penalty imposed by any Court of Common Jurisdiction in accordance with paragraph (c) above; and

(e) to order that any person be removed from the court-house at which any trial or any other hearing is being held, or, if he or she refuses so to be removed, banished from the Confederation of Democratic Simulators for the duration of that trial or other hearing (and for up to one hour thereafter) on the ground that that person is disrupting court proceedings, improperly interfering with the administration of justice, or attempting to do so. [/quote:3u5x9ccd]

The constitution explicitly provides, therefore, that only the Courts of Common Jurisdiction (or, in special, limited circumstances, the Court of Scientific Council) may interpret the law. Furthermore, the constitution does not grant the legislature any power to interpret the law, and bodies only have those powers expressly granted to them by the constitution.

[Gxeremio Dimsum]

[quote="Ashcroft Burnham":2xptxa1y]That would require a very substantial and significant rewriting of the forum moderation guidelines. Do you advocate that? If so, what do you have to say about the point that the rules are there to preserve civility and prevent people from being deterred (not just from posting, but from joining the CDS at all) by what are colloquially known in web parlance as "flame wars"? [/quote:2xptxa1y]

Dear friend, you are the only person I can ever remeber having read who has invoked the protection of that rule as a response to criticism on any of the CDS forums. If you had never complained, I would never have needed to ask for a clarification of the rule. And I don't think anyone wants to deter people from posting, but slowing down the pace of posts would sure be nice!

[quote:2xptxa1y]The point is quite properly made that it is improper to make personal attacks, that is, statements adverse to a person's character, rather than a person's arguments, on a web forum. How, in any event, do you expect somebody to respond to an attack on her or his character?[/quote:2xptxa1y]

Ash, Ash, Ash. Again, I think the question hinges on what is an attack on "character" rather than calling a public official onto the carpet for demonstrated temperment issues. For example, you've said that under your system of lifetime judicial appointments someone can be impeached for insanity; how will their sanity ever be called into question if that is considered an attack on character?

I know how I have responded to attacks on my character and mental ability on these forums: angrily. When I did so I was warned as being in violation of the guidelines. Odd, isn't it?