I was waking up in the middle of the night wracked with anxiety. The line between free speech and abuse is a fine one, and those of us who work with online communities grapple regularly with the moral dilemma of having to figure out which is which. And whenever you have a forum for a group of individuals with wildly varying notions of what is acceptable communication, those who have the final say in the matter are sitting ducks for the kind of animosity usually reserved for meter maids and umpires. So there I was, caught in the crossfire, armed with a set of posting guidelines and a big bottle of Mylanta. There's a definite difference between advocating a mode of communication that one considers civil and advocating laws that enforce some standard of behavior.
Censorship has to do with making laws.
If there's a free market, then people who want to go to sanitized discussions will go to them and people who want to go to those other places will vote with their fingers. Lately, I'd been feeling that a few have been voting with their middle ones. I took solace in Miss Manners. Martin believes that there is a world of room between chaos and legally mandated restrictions. She eschews extremism, and champions self-restraint and tolerance.