This statement is provably false. Someone here already interpreted it differently. I think you might want to rephrase.
How do you know that Muffin is in Canada? It doesn’t appear in location.
It’s in his profile.
My location no longer appears on my posts because this feature is reserved for people who are not guests. I am a guest rather than a charter member because I got tired of paying for craptacular moderation by a mod and an admin, and some truly ludicrous rules decreed by Ed Zotti concerning what particular words were permitted and what particular phrases were forbidden. Since the location feature and the number of posts feature are conveniences for the benefit of people reading my posts, as opposed to being features that somehow might benefit me, I think it is rather silly for those features to have been pulled, but then that is to be expected here.
It seems to me that SmartAleq was not advocating reporting Cesario. SmartAleq was advocating reporting the SDMB for harboring Cesario or promoting Cesario’s views.
Now, could that campaign create legal trouble for the SDMB? Muffin says no, based (presumably) on the First Amendment. But when asked about reporting Cesario directly, Muffin acknowledges that the hope is that police would take an interest in Cesario, investigate Cesario, and “proactively” be on top of anything illegal.
So why wouldn’t a natural outcome be that the SDMB itself would be the target of “proactive” investigation?
In my view, being the target of “proactive” police interest falls into the ambit of “legal trouble.”
If the SDMB were to turn into a pedophile website, then yes, I expect that the police would take an interest in the SDMB. Since the SDMB is not a pedophile website, I expect that the police would not take an interest in it, thus no legal trouble for the SDMB.
If the SDMB is concerned that legal trouble might arise out of it being used as a platform by Cesario, then the best solution would be to stop being a platform for Cesario.
:dubious:
Normally, I’m a fan but I must say that’s not only stretching, it’s straining with a side order of wishful thinking. If motivations are in question, why not ask for clarification rather than ascribe intent? SA inadvertently omitted two words from her post. I’d link to the correction, but I’m not allowed. In addition, I would say that calling attention to mandatory reporters such as yourself of their legal duties is neither spam nor a threat so much as a reminder.
You’re right. I’ll rephrase: there is no other interpretation that is supportable by any kind of consistent or reasonable logic based on what was posted.
This is vague and self-contradictory, and also doesn’t address the questions I asked: if SmartAleq was talking about reporting obligations and not creating a problem for the board, why did she tell people to report the board, and how did my post advising her not to start a campaign of reporting the board (to whom I don’t know) discourage anyone with a reporting obligation from following their obligations?
Thank you for your interpretation of what is and what is not consistent and reasonable.
How is it a campaign? Did she provide a link you had to remove? Did she name a commercial corporation? Did she represent herself as an agent of that corporation? If you’re going to claim spam or campaign, do you think you could do so a little less broadly?
A campaign is “a systematic course of aggressive activities for some specific purpose.” SmartAleq said “if TPTB let this nasty individual continue on his merry way, especially if they allow him his own little fapfest, that every person who reads this board who is also a mandatory reporter get on the stick and inform law enforcement that there’s a venue that is encouraging his behavior.”
So she’s encouraging people to take a specific aggressive off-board action.
Muffin, with all due respect, you look to be beating a dead horse. There’s clearly no professional reporting requirement here, and your assertion that there’s a moral requirement is a bit silly. Who are you going to report it to? The police? If you’ve been a criminal lawyer you should know they’re not going to take any action on a report about someone on a message board who may or may not be a pedophile and who may or may not have actually molested children, who can’t be identified in any event.
I absolutely agree that permitting Cesario to post here makes this board a worse place. I am a defender of free speech, but if someone came to my dinner party and started talking about how great it would be to be able to fuck children, I’d unceremoniously boot him out.
I don’t post here often, but I do like reading the posts on this board. I’ve missed one poster in particular, and often wonder why she stopped posting. I suspect it’s the same poster that Muffin is referring to, and if so, it’s really unfortunate that the board lost such a valuable member in order to protect Cesario’s “right” to spew tripe that is morally repugnant and extremely offensive to most of the members of this community.
I suspect that that board will lose a few more posters over this nonsense. That’s unfortunate. Depending on how things pan out, I may be one of them. My departure won’t be a great loss as I don’t post much, but TPTB should be aware that allowing this type of person to remain part of this community will undoubtedly have a deleterious effect.
I suspect the mods probably don’t like him any more than the rest of us do, but I get the impression that they’re waiting for some specific action they can point to to be able to ban him. But this isn’t a court of law. The mods don’t need to follow due process to ban someone for being a jerk. And I think this is a pretty clear example of someone being a jerk.
You mean, a legally required action? (Incidentally, the words ‘I hope’ should have been posted between the words ‘fapfest,’ and ‘that.’)
Have we really come to the point where you are reprimanding a poster for reminding other posters to do that which they are legally required to do, and couching it in such a way that you appear to be dismissing that reminder as a campaign? Is the board administration really so terrified of some phantom threat of legal retribution that you’re willing to defend that position?
How is it legally required?
Kinda like encouraging people to take the specific agressive action of changing the laws to allow people to rape kids?
And this situation pretty clearly does not meet reasonable suspicions, for the sole fact that you can say anything you want on a message board without regard to reality.
But let’s run with this for a moment. That site says the standards for reporting differ from state to state. Which state’s law governs a message board? In the SDMB’s case, I’m presuming Illinois. The PDF for Illinois states:
We do not have reasonable cause, because again, any damn fool can say any damn thing online, and the individual in question has not even mentioned anything close to serious abuse of a child beyond “flirting,” as reprehensible as that may sound to the rest of us. Because of this, we can’t fulfill the criteria of “a child known to [us].”
This is simple hysteria.
ETA: Oh, and to add something I just noticed:
Cesario has been posting on this board for months now. I don’t follow his posts except when other people point them out, but I know the flirting thing is months old. So we’re kind of past the point of reasonable response here.
‘Reasonable suspicion’ does not mean ‘iron clad proof.’ Cesario has admitted to being a pedophile, to engaging in actions with children which are suspicious. In addition, we’re not discussing Cesario’s actions. We’re discussing SmartAleq’s. She did nothing remotely wrong, and it’s up to mandatory reporters to decide whether or not his actions are reportable. Not you, not me and certainly not Marley.
As we are often reminded by TPTB, the registration agreement clearly states –
They don’t even need to justify it with the “jerk” rule, and it is disingenuous of them to pretend otherwise.
I could almost see the outrage if he had said “Do not do this,” or “You will not do this,” but “Please don’t do this” doesn’t seem like all that offensive a request, especially if he doesn’t think it rises to the level of a reportable situation.
Besides, the problem wasn’t that SmartAleq’s post was telling people to report suspicious activity. It was that she did it in a very torches-and-pitchforks rabble-rousing inciteful manner. Parties who have a legal obligation to report child abuse already know they do, and if they believe there is a need here they would have done so already. SmartAleq’s post did nothing but fan the flames of hysteria over a situation that clearly does not meet the standards of reasonable cause.
Really. Aren’t we being just a tad hyperbolic?
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Marley quoted the registration agreement and called SA’s post a campaign on the level with spam. That’s not ‘please don’t do this.’ And he wasn’t worried about ‘fanning the flames of hysteria.’ He was worried about this board getting into (legal) trouble for allowing a pedophile to talk about having sex with kids should a mandatory reporter actually report Cesario and the medium he was using (here) to do so. Let’s not do the White Knight thing, huh?
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Can we dispense with the whole ‘storming the castle’ scenario? It’s very romantic but hardly factual. What SA said was nothing more and nothing less than ‘I hope if a mandatory reporter sees something in his posts worth reporting, they do so.’
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Who died and made you arbiter of what is and is not the standards of reasonable cause? No, really. What position do you hold to say? I’ve already said I don’t know if they constitute reasonable cause or not, nor is it my place. Do I have an opinion? Yes. But my opinion may or may not be fact. Is YOUR opinion fact? Are you a mandatory reporter? If not, then you need to stop asserting that opinion as if it were.
Yes, SA was telling people to report suspicious activity. That’s what they’re supposed to do. So what is wrong with her telling them to do that? Does that mean they have to listen to her? Does that mean they’re going to jump straight away and involve the authorities? No. Again, it is up to mandatory reporters to decide whether or not his posts qualify, and SA’s pointing at those posts and saying ‘could you do something about this.’ doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. As you said, it’s the internet. People say shit all the time. I would hope that most mandatory reporters are well trained enough to determine with some degree of accuracy and intelligence whether or not his posts qualify.