Re: Offensive Screen Names
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A member of the ACLU and you think arguing for freedom of expression is ridiculous? ... interesting.
Look, we all understand that there's a difference between govenment censorship of free speech and private entities barring expressions they don't like. The latter have much greater latititude, and rightly so.
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a clear well thought out argument. thank you.
i wrote the ACLU bit in response to a poster stating that he would not want to keep others from saying they disagree with Hitler or binladen. personally, neither would I. but that’s not really what the screen name was being used for in those examples. Write a book or make a speech and develop the ideas to the complex issues if someone truly believes that. but there are no free speech rights over your 8-10 characters for a screen name on a poker site which you pointed out is a private business—but that goes w/out saying but i said it anyway.
in those examples they were simply used as inflammatory statements whose only purpose is to get a negative reaction. And some people say, “well then just don’t react then.” as you mentioned this is a private business that has the right to ban what they deem offensive. it’s in the site’s best interest to curtail this type of occurrence. So the site may take it down or i may file a complaint through email.
we all have different levels were we find things offensive and we all find different things offensive. some people find it offensive when his country is insulted, when his mother’s name is degraded, when his race is put down, or when his religion is attacked.
i personally get my buttons pushed when the deaths of thousands of innocent people gets trivialized as a joke.
all this being said, im not laying awake at night worrying that people have “cleverly” spelled racist names as screen names. I just got into this thread and found it interesting.
as far as the B&M example, you raise an interesting point. The real question at stake here though is whether id be offended and the answer is yes. would the casino do anything about it? im sure they wouldn’t but i dont really expect them to.
bwana
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