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Colleges Struggling With the Digital Bathroom Wall
theodp writes "Back in the day, anonymous character assassination was confined to permanent marker scrawl in bathroom stalls. But now, thanks to sites like the student-run CollegeACB.com (ACB=Anonymous Confession Board), which can get hundreds of thousands of hits on a good day, TIME reports that anonymous slander is going viral on campus. Even the most elite universities — normally the land of the politically correct — have been struggling with the problem of anonymous gossip sites and their very un-PC posts, which an Amherst dean likens to 'the worst of junior high.' If he thinks things are bad now, wait until the kids start getting creative with Google Sidewiki."
What is it with today's obsessions with feelings ? We're getting to the point where you can no longer say "it's bad to stone women", because it might hurt the feelings of muslims.
Welcome to the reality : caution ... reality may not always immediately gratify your feelings, and may in fact hurt them. In case you really can't deal with this : you know the exit ...
Natural selection would mean that it would be ok for me to beat you to death.
Macho Answer: Try it and you'll meet my little friend.
On-topic Answer: Your example is a strawman. Beating someone to death != insulting them
However in civilized nations we create rules that the majority of people believe are for the greater good.
The majority of the people can not infringe on our inalienable rights. One of those is the right to free speech. I don't recall one of them being the right not to be offended. Perhaps I missed that part of the Magna Carta/US Declaration of Indepencence/US Bill of Rights/Federalist papers/Universal Declaration of Human Rights? Could you point it out to me?
These rules general serve to protect those those that need protecting.
No law you can pass is going to protect someone who is so weak kneed that they can't handle verbal/written insults.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
That's not natural selection. Hiring the fine gunsmiths at Colt to protect you shows that you're too weak to defend yourself, and so -- if we're going to get all socially Darwinian here -- ought to be culled from the herd.
Making public untrue insults against someone is defamation, and is a legitimate tort.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood