There is nothing to twist. Sidjf stated that there is nothing in pedophile forums that can be considered illegal. I stated that these sites are illegal because these sites connect people in conspiracy to commit illegal acts and at the same time makes DMOZ editors guilty of criminal recklessness. He tried to make it sound like that I don't know what I am talking about and I haven't read these forums which is not true and I stated that he doesn't even need to read the forums or believe my version and the only thing he needs to do is to look at quotes from pedophile forum provided by DMOZ editors in DMOZ internal forum.
Perfect, so may I suggest all of us taking a break from this thread, meeting again in 72 hours? It might help to cool down a bit
In other words, you haven't read them. You are claiming that there is illegal content on them, but you have not actually read them. I think that speaks for itself. Actually, compostannie said that. I haven't read the forums either. The only thing I have to go on is the word of people who have read them (ie compostannie). I haven't seen (or don't remember seeing) anything posted that conclusively demonstrated illegal content on those forums. How do you know this if you haven't read the forums? I will continue to base my opinion on the one person who has claimed to read the forums - compostannie. She read them and didn't see anything illegal, that's the best information I have to go on right now. Maybe she's wrong, maybe she's right, but I'm not in the position to make that call since I, just like you, haven't actually read the forums for myself. Hopefully Annie is wrong. I would like very much for you to be right gworld, because then the sites could be deleted with much less trouble.. But you just don't have anything to back your claims up with...At least, nothing I have seen so far.
sidjf Not only I have read it, but I think that you must be well aware of the illegal nature of the sites if you read DMOZ internal forum. The only way that you have not seen the quotes is if you are one of the editors that imocr mentioned that doesn't read the internal forum.
I've seen some quotes that were quite disgusting and disturbing, but nothing that was outright illegal. What have you seen on the dmoz forums? As compostannie has said, we all (hopefully) know what the intention of these forums is! But that doesn't make them illegal. I want these sites deleted just as badly as you do gworld, if not more. But I am going to base my arguement on the facts.
sidjf, almost two weeks ago I spent several hours on 2 of those forums. In most cases I did not get it what these people were talking about. The language they are using is almost cryptic, not being familiar with that scene, how should one be able to discover illegality at all? It is not like posting here or in any other forum, this was my impression. For the sake of it, I even will go back there.
Exactly! They know how to not break the law on the forum. That is exactly mine and compostannie's point (if I may speak for her). I bet anything that might be posted that is outright illegal is quickly removed by a moderator - they don't want their forum to get in trouble with the law...
Sidjf is right, I read the forums and I said that. Disgusting yes, but not illegal that I can see, limited by my legally uneducated opinion. Everyone, please read the pedophile forums. Prove me wrong. Sometimes it's good to be wrong. While you're there, you might like to leave a message. Yes! This is it, in a nutshell!
There are a lot of editors who feel betrayed by this whole mess, I am receiving a lot of emails and you will be surprised how badly DMOZ is leaking. I think when some people start talking about hunting pack in this pedophile forums, to think of conspiracy is a logical conclusion.
Which clearly demonstrates that a decision whether to list or not to list those sites can NOT be based on questioning the legality of there pure existence, but on the fact that they are used for maintaining a network for those people. It can't be DMOZ duty continuously monitoring what is going on there, once listed.
Obviously for a logical person, this is a logical conclusion - unfortunately the law isn't always logical. That's why we need lawyers Since most editors (can't say all because I'm sure there might be one or two) are not criminal lawyers, we can only take action when the law breaking is implicit not assumed or pieced together. We can't read between the lines (no matter how much we want to) and use what was only hinted at to say "Illegal Content - Delete". I have read the internal discussion - any quotes posted have been very offensive to me - but I don't think the FBI would find the statements to be illegal. If my head tells me that I don't think the statements, in and of themselves, to result in prosecution - then the site where the statements are cannot be determined (solely based on those statements) to be illegal. I've also spent time reading those forums - I want to reach through and delete every single poster on those forums (not just the sites themselves) - I think the world would be a better place if my computer could accomplish that. I haven't found any illegal material in the forums - the sites that they choose to link to seem to be another matter, and that's been brought up also. Now if someone (or a whole bunch of someones) complained repeatedly to all the agencies involved in stamping out child pornography and managed to get these web sites shut down - that would answer the legal/illegal question once and for all. The websites wouldn't be there and could be very easily deleted as not working.
Which is exactly the point I have been trying to make...(not sure which way you are leaning on this, so maybe we have agreed all along...)
That is where I am leaning to http://www.google.com/search?q="when+in+doubt+don't+list"&hl=en&lr=&filter=0 Not that many results, yet
In conclusion, people who are not lawyers, do not use law library and don't have access to lawyers, can not find anything illegal. What a surprise. The same people some how know that it is legal even they have no legal justification for their opinion.
There is the potential for illegal content to be on every single site on the internet. I'm not a lawyer, so how can I be sure... It's obvious that the only sensible solution is to delete the internet. Right...?
No, but I'm pretty sure you have no idea what this discussion is about. We are discussing chatrooms/forums targeted at pedophiles. These rooms may (and most likely do) lead to child molestation. But that doesn't make them illegal. In the same way that a forum about guns isn't illegal just because someone who reads them might shoot someone.
You are right, I usually don't like to read second hand sources, so I read the original "FREE SPEECH" article in defense of pedophiles which is listed in DMOZ pedophile category that "AFFIRMATIVE VIEW" editors re-word.