There is no freedom of speech on privately-owned fora, regardless of how many times it's asserted.

In my experience with largely political message boards all over the internet, in my experience the posters who intend to cause the most trouble are the ones who assert that their "Freedom of Speech" is being violated if posts are deleted, or if they are called on the carpet for violating clearly posted rules. This goes on in almost every forum on the net. For some reason people have come to believe that, because they are anonymous, they can post any spiteful, obscene, or ridiculous statement that they feel like posting. They post attacks upon perfect strangers right from the start, perhaps just by finding something about the user's internet handle to ridicule (mine refers to Herpetology, by the way, and has nothing to do with STDs, but calling me some form of Herpes seems to be most posters' height of cleverness). You seem to be hedging your bets here. You're telling us that "they can say whatever they want to." True, but if you have good moderation, that "whatever it is" that they want to say, if it violates forum policy, will be removed. If it's bad enough, the rules typically inform the poster that their account will be banned. My point, therefore, is not whether or not people can be jerks on a message board due to the bravery born of internet anonymity, but rather whether or not they have Constitutional RIGHTS to do so. You're arguing apples and oranges here. The First Amendment to the Constitution refers to one thing, and one thing only: censorship of private speech BY THE GOVERNMENT. It has nothing to do with the right to go onto someone's private site and scream obscenities at them; neither does it give people the "right" to run into someone elses' home and start verbally abusing them in their own living room. So, the First Amendment says NOTHING AT ALL about limiting of objectionable speech ON PRIVATE PROPERTY. Any private site owner or administrator has the right to bar ANYONE from participating on their site, for whatever reason they choose, like it or not. As I noted, perhaps it would be wise to read the text of the Constitution to determine what the First Amendment actually says and does not say. Unfortunately these days, because most people have heard the term "freedom of speech" but their best knowledge of the US Constitution is hearing those three words (which has no relationship to actually reading it), their first knee-jerk reaction on message boards they don't personally own is to invoke their "First Amendment rights." Bunk. So, in closing, you're trying unsuccessfully to split hairs here. Saying that "they can say anything they want to say" due to the First Amendment, and then telling moderators that they can delete it, is frivolous. If they can say anything they want to say, it would stand to reason that all sorts of web administrators would be sued, constantly, for deleting objectionable posts or banning abusive users. It doesn't happen. In my experience, people who scream the loudest about rights violations on message boards are the people who intend to cause the most problems for the site -- trolls, if you will. The First Amendment to the US Constitution has no bearing on privately-owned sites, any more than it protects the right of someone to come into your house and demand that you stop smoking that cigarette while they are there, because they don't like smoking. If it would be desecrating the Constitution to pick that person up and deposit them outside on the sidewalk, so be it. It doesn't violate their rights, but it DOES violate private property rights of the smoker, as does abuse of stated rules on private websites.