I note that I wasn’t asking about the use of illegal substances; but rather about the illegal use of a perfectly legal substance. A fine distinction, but a distinction nonetheless.
Also, I note that my question was not a “How to” question, but merely an “Is it possible” question.
However, drug threads are on shaky ground around here, and moderators are understandably skittish. Therefore, while I disagree with bibliophage’s decision to close my thread, I respect it.
So consider this not so much a rant as a couple of words in my defense.
The illegal use of a legal substance is still illegal, and hence a verboten topic here. One could make the same argument about black-market morphine or Percodan…they’re actually perfectly legal for therapeutic purposes, but are
illegal otherwise. I imagine the mods will also point out that there are potential issues of legal liability.
OTOH, in my experience we’ve always been perfectly free here to discuss the issues of drug prohibition, but we cross the line when we ask “how to”, or “where to”.
So where does talk concerning drug-prohibition go? GD?
How far can you go in conversations about drugs? Would a “History of marijuana cultivation methods” thread be against the rules no matter the forum? What about in the context of a drug prohibition thread?
Do the moderators differentiate between “How is it done?” questions and “Let’s do it!” statements?
What about other discussions of production methods that can lead to illegal activity, like guns? Can I ask “How do guns work?” in GQ? How about “How do you make our own bullets?” What about “How do you make a pipe bomb?” or “How do you make a nuclear bomb?”
Are there any clear cut guidelines concerning when the information is too dangerous or illegal to share? Does intent matter?
email the mods of the particular forum. Give them the OP and title and ask. I’ve never had a difficult time getting an answer from them and generally they’d prefer that to having to close or move a thread.
Email all from the particular forum in case one happens to be out of town. I’ve always gotten very speedy answers to such questions.
If you have any question at all about the appropriateness of the content or forum of a thread, construct an email with the OP and title of your proposed thread and email all the mods of the forum you intend to post in. I’ve gotten quick, reasonable responses from the mods. They seem to really appreciate having the chance to fix a potential problem before the fact.
“Whim” makes it sound a bit frivolous; perhaps a better word would be “discretion”.
IANAM nor do I play one on television, but I would guess that anything which might leave the Chicago Reader vulnerable to a lawsuit should not be posted, and it’s up to the Mods/Administrators to cast the final vote on what’s okay and what isn’t. It is often the case that this means erring on the side of caution, but such is the price we pay for a free (and litigious) society.
But according to the mod who closed the thread, it’s illegal to use NO2 only in certain states. Mine doesn’t appear to be one of them, although I haven’t thoroughly researched the matter. So why should I or anyone else who lives in a state where sniffing NO2 recreationally isn’t illegal have our conversations held hostage to those states who have passed this law? What about those who join us from outside the United States?
I’m sure if one looked deeply enough one could find a law somewhere restricting many of the actions discussed on these boards.
IANAL, but as I understand the law it is not illegal simply to discuss how to commit a crime, especially if there is no intent to commit the crime and the information is imparted for educational/informational purposes. rastahomie stated clearly in his OP that “This is not a thread about how to do illegal drugs” and “Not that I’m actually going to do this or anything. Just curious.”
Depends. Want to talk about whether certain drugs should be proscribed (or prescribed)? GD. Want to ask why certain drugs were proscribed, or when, or if- GQ.
Let me answer the last first- absolutely. The Chicago Reader has no interest in being brought into court for disseminating illegal information. If a “how is it done” question is asked, we may allow the question to stick around, based upon how vague or specific the answers get. The more specific, the closer we get to the point of being liable.
Unfortunately, we also have hundreds of threads to keep track of. This is a boatload of work, and singling out a single thread as “keep a close eye on this one” tends to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Therefore, we tend to close those threads simply to save ourselves the trouble. Yes, there might be a good answer that is sufficiently expository to satisfy the questioner while being sufficiently vague to satisfy the lawyers; but generally, we haven’t seen such. And all it takes is one person jumping in with “yO! DuDe U TaKe 5 PaRtS MeSc” etc.
To some extent; it depends upon the climate. “How do guns work?” is likely to be allowed because A) one can answer the question without being too specific on how to manufacture guns and B) because knowing how to manufacture guns is not yet illegal. “How do you make a pipe bomb?” is a bit greyer, and given the post-Columbine hysteria over the Internet, we may close it on the off-chance that it will get our asses sued. “How do I modify my semi-automatic to fire full automatic?” will be closed, as I believe that such modifications are illegal. (I wouldn’t personally close said thread, because I don’t know whether it actually is illegal. But Uncle Beer would know.)
Intent never matters, except in the case of our reviewing your member status. No matter the intent, we can’t control the content, and some people seem pretty damn quick on twisting such discussions to the point where we have to delete the info and close the thread, so even with the best of intentions the thread may be closed. But that doesn’t reflect poorly upon you… unless it’s the fifth time we’ve had to tell you not to ask that question, in which case bad things will happen.
Now, for Otto:
But the Chicago Reader can be held liable for information showing up in, say, North Dakota; it is far less likely to be held liable for information showing up in Taiwan. Remember, this isn’t about your legality in posting or reading the information; it is about the Chicago Reader’s liability in having that material posted and available to be read.
For the record, I didn’t have a major problem with the thread the first 2 or 3 times I saw it. It was a simple question asking what the law was. In the OP, rastahomie said
If your respondents had abided by that, I wouldn’t have had to close the thread. The problem was with Llamer’s post, the text of which I deleted. He gave tips on how to fraudulently obtain a controlled substance. Rather than check the thread every half hour to make sure nobody else would post such advice, I just closed it. I wasn’t particularly concerned that rastahomie himself would follow the advice, but that other readers might.
dalovindj asks
Discussion of illegal activities is not automatically prohibited. Tips on how to engage in them, or how not to get caught, are prohibited, especially if someone reading the thread is at all likely to take the advice.
Guns are not illegal, and making your own bullets is not illegal, so those topics are okay. Making an atomic bomb is illegal, but it is so unlikely that a reader will have the resources to do it, that I would probably allow it. I would shut down a thread on how to make a pipe bomb in nothing flat.
Otto says
I wasn’t concerned that the discussion itself was illegal. There are plenty of perfectly legal thing we don’t permit here, everything from Morse code to links to pornography. The Chicago Reader owns this message board and is free to make and enforce its own rules. You are perfectly free to discuss whatever you like on your own message board, but here we have rules.
First, let me say I understand that the Chicago Reader owns these boards and is allowed to make rules of conduct here. Why are the mods so reflexive about posting that any time someone asks questions? I’m not trying to turn this into “the mods suck, the rules are bad, boohoohoo,” OK?
Now, John Corrado said
Again, not a lawyer, but I question the level of liability the Chicago Reader or any other message board publisher would have in the event that someone acted on statements posted there, especially if it were to post a disclaimer. The First Amendment protects your right to publish as long as there’s no intent to conspire to commit the crime. That’s why the Progressive could print its atom bomb story.
You’re not wrong, I don’t think. Given sufficient resources, the Reader could probably defend successfully almost anything posted on a public message board by someone who is a customer as opposed to an employee.
The thing to remember is that the Reader has no desire whatsoever to find out what is permissible and what is not in the context of this message board.
The Reader is a (presumably) profitible newspaper and is the burning obsession of the owners – I have every confidence that they would use resources to the point of personal bankruptcy to defend their right to publish whatever they want there.
This board, OTOH, is something they threw up as a placeholder until they figured out what to do on the internet with Cecil. Much lower give-a-crap factor. Any grief, and they’ll just walk away.
So it falls to us to act as their sentries. Our goal is not simply to prevent things which may cause the Reader liability, but to prevent things which may cause the Reader to have to find out if they are liable.
Does that make us too conservative? Perhaps. But we feel that there is more than enough ignorance-fighting going on here to justify us coming down hard on the borderline stuff.
See, Zotti was unfairly cheated out of Samuel Morse’s inheritance when some actual relatives showed up. Ever since then, he’s been on kind of a vendetta, and as a result…
Nah, it’s the other thing. We just don’t have the time to chase down translations, so we can’t know if folks are following the rules if they post in morse or other code or another language.
It would seem to me, after reading this thread, that the reasons for alot of the enforcement that goes on around here are not neccesarily morals. It’s finance. This I think is a shame (censorship due to monetary concerns). But as someone else around here said, that is the price we pay to live in a free society with litigation.
In the name of free speach and free flow of info, I suggest you start a new forum: “Drugs, Weapons, & Pornography”
After all, these things are a part of life. These seem to be the only subjects without representation on this great bored. Stick a big disclaimer on the front of it and let this place become the place to come for ALL your knowledge.
I hope you’ll consider the benefits and do the right thing for freedom. In the meantime, thanks Mods, for all the great work. This place is alot cooler due to there being some regulatin’.