OK, so as I wander around Gaia I see so many ppl proclaiming their Constitutional Rights and spouting off about MODs, TOS etc. and so forth.
Let me set you straight on a few little bits and bobs you might not know about your constitutional rights and the internet.
1. When you sign up for any site or hosting, you basically give up your Constitutional Right to freedom of speech. If you sit and read any TOS closely, you will see that they have limits and restrictions as to what they allow on their privately owned servers. By agreeing to these terms you forfeit your rights and agree to conform your material to THEIR TERMS.
2. Even freedom of speech in the most free of countries IE: the US of A, has limits imposed by the laws of the governing body IE: Liable or slander. While everyone has a right to their own opinions and/or prejudices, no one has the right to act on them in an inhumane or illegal way. Depending on what the terms of use are for your ISP who provides your connection, your site server which hosts your web pages, the provider of your domain which you lease... NOT own, as well as the local, county, municiple, city, state, federal and/or international laws that govern your area, content and administration, you are bound to conform your content accordingly by some other governing party. There is no freedom without anarchy and with anarchy there is no freedom. That is the essence of civilization. We are civil people because we have laws.
3. Anyone has every right to do what they deem necessary in an attempt to rid the internet of sites that they feel violate applicable laws set forth. Anyone has every right to protect their family or themselves, anyone has every right to exercise their rights, and in fact, a failure to act upon those rights and report a crime can be a crime in itself.
4. On the flip side, everyone has the right to criticize or commend your actions so long as they do so within the guidelines of any applicable laws.
5. Much like Gaian MODs have the ability to delete posts and or action the users here, should ANY governing body involved in the running/hosting of ANY site feel a user has broken any of their terms of use, they can legally pull the site content no questions asked.
6. YOU have a legal and moral responsibility to self-censor in order to not only protect others but to protect yourself. Should anyone ever take anything you say in a forum or even on your own website literally and are actually harmed by it in any way, you have opened yourself up for unlimited civil action in a court of law.
7. Regardless of what image an avatar in Gaia or any other site may represent, no matter how hardcore anyone claims to be, no matter how much abuse a person asks for or how right you think you are in making comments, statements, flames or whatever, you should ALWAYS think twice before hitting "submit". After all, behind every avatar is a real, living, breathing, feeling HUMAN BEING and we should all be, in the VERY LEAST, CIVIL to each other regardless.
As Jerry Springer would say... "Be nice to one another."
For another month or so....
heart heart heart Mysteh
Mysteh Community Member 
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