Moderation of Comments
Over the last few days there have been a lot of complaints in our forum about the moderation of comments. The general theme of the complaints is that we do not approve all comments or that we are selectively excluding certain comments.
We appreciate the feedback, but there are a number of things everyone needs to consider when it comes to our forum.
Our forum is intended to be a source of information, referrals, resources and support for registrants. We have a member code of conduct that governs every aspect of our organization, including our forum. The following is an excerpt from our member code of conduct, “Members are required to treat other FAC Members, politicians, police, probation officers, treatment providers, members of the media as well as all third parties with whom FAC interacts, with respect, dignity, honesty and fairness. Threatening, insubordinate, violent or obscene behavior by any Member will not be tolerated. Any conduct that encourages or permits an offensive or hostile environment will not be tolerated. Members are expected to communicate with candor, courtesy and respect. Members must realize that Registered Citizens are already perceived in an unfavorable light and for that reason we must conduct ourselves in a manner that reflects the highest ethical standards and most professional conduct in order to strengthen the public’s perception.”
If a comment falls outside the code of conduct, we will exclude it. If your comment was excluded, ask yourself whether it fell outside the Code of Conduct. Did you use an offensive term to refer to one of the categories of people mentioned above? Was your comment bashing a certain religion or political group? You have to keep in mind that our forum is not a closed community. Any member of the public can read these comments and even some who you might not think are reading it, are. You also have to keep in mind that even though we share the same goal (abolishing the registry), you can’t assume that makes us the same in every way. We certainly do not want to alienate or offend anybody because we want them to feel safe, comfortable and accepted.
Our forum is also intended to be a source of information. Some commenters spread blatant misinformation (even unintentionally). Occasionally we will post the comment with a correction, including a reference to the Florida Statute, if we know that the comment is wrong. Other times, if we’re unsure of the accuracy of the information or can’t find it in the statutes, we will ask the person who made the comment to provide a reference to the source/statute/ordinance. But pretty often the information is just blatantly wrong based on the clear language of the Statute or case law. Rather than debate the law (we are not a law firm so we’re not qualified to give legal opinions anyhow) or confuse our readers into relying on something that is not correct, we delete the comment.
That said, we absolutely DO want people to share new laws or other information on this forum. That’s what we are here for. However, as a general guideline, if you are going to do so, please cite to the source of information, whether it is a statute number or even a news article from which we can validate the information. If you announce that a new Bill was passed that requires XYZ and we know that Legislative Session isn’t for another few months, we’re not going to post it. We also recognize that we have members from other states. If you are going to share information that is only relevant to your State (or County), please make mention of that. For example, you can write, “I am from ABC State and spoke to my Sheriff’s office who said I don’t need to report if I stay in a hotel for 5 days”, but please make sure that you mention that critical fact or you might cause another of our members in Florida to unintentionally violate the law in reliance on what you wrote.
As far as posting comments from trolls or people who disagree with our position on registration, yes, we do occasionally allow their comments through. As we’ve said, people who you would not think read this forum and responding to their post is an opportunity to rebut their opinion or provide facts in opposition. We know that there are many who disagree with us out there, and we want them to be educated by the information on our site also. If we just use this forum to chat among ourselves, we are preaching to the choir. On the other hand, if someone comes in and posts one of the many myths about people on the registry, you can write the facts and cite the research and throw it back at them. When the daughter (and victim) of a murdered registrant found our site and commented, we actually engaged in productive dialogue and developed empathy for each other. It was a positive exchange.
Also, sometimes we need to remove comments that drive the conversation off topic. If the post is about homeless registrants being evicted and the topic gets diverted to travel restrictions, we might not allow a perfectly acceptable comment because it has nothing to do with the topic and we need to keep the discussion on track. If anyone has a topic they would like to discuss, please feel free to write up the post and submit it to info@floridaactioncommittee.org. We try to post as many Member Submissions as possible but the reality is we barely get any. If there is a topic you want covered, this is your formal invitation to write up a few paragraphs about that topic or opinion (related to the cause, naturally) and send it in to us.
Finally, everyone needs to keep in mind that the individuals who review the comments are volunteers, we are not professional moderators or umpires. Thankfully, over the years, this site has accumulated tens of thousands of comments. It’s a lot to read through and there are multiple people managing the site. Sometimes a comment that should have been filtered out makes it through or the moderator accidentally clicks the wrong button. The person moderating might have a different level of sensitivity to what was written or might not have read the prior posts to understand the full context of the discussion thread. For whatever reason, it happens. We are human. We’ve made mistakes even in stuff we wrote and posted ourselves. Recently, when Ruth Ginsburg died, we dedicated a weekly update to her (primarily because of her dissent in Smith v. Doe), but mentioned other landmark decisions we suggested were great. The following weekly update was dedicated to apologizing for the prior one, because not everyone agrees with Roe v. Wade and we clearly offended some of our readers.
The bottom line is we want to be able to include as much valuable content to our site as possible and make every reader feel at home. If we allowed a post you feel is offensive, trashed a post you feel is valid or otherwise missed the mark on anything related to our site or our organization, reach out and let us know.
We appreciate you reading and participating. We appreciate your support of our organization.
Well at least I appreciate the response, long explanation and acknowledging there are some concerns.
I did see a comment from someone that was redacted. I would rather that happen than someone’s comment not get posted.
I am not worried at all with views that are different than mine but the past comments aimed at us with violence and death, even though it did not name an individual, but us as a whole, was disturbing.
My two cents worth
And either way, many of us are thankful for the site, even if it is just to vent or share an experience. Our end goal is freedom. Hopefully some day there won’t be a need for FAC (Mean that in a good way) when we all get justice from being held down.
We CANNOT “vent”. Apparently venting might hurt someone’s feelings. If only you could have seen the original comment I left on this post. I was the first to comment on it and as usual, it was not published.
This is getting ridiculous. Censorship is NOT helping. We cannot have a dialogue if this website is going to go the route of Facebook, Instagram and YouTube where if you say something that doesn’t follow THEIR political narrative, it gets deleted.
This is your 4th or 5th comment on this post alone, all with the same theme. I’ll let you have this one, but it’s enough! It’s distracting from our mission.
We spent an hour composing a post in response to your concern and apparently that’s not enough for you. I’m sorry, but this week we have 13 homeless people in Brevard, 9 of whom are sitting in jail right now because they can’t find housing and won’t get released until they do. That’s kinda our priority right now.
Maestro, on a daily basis we receive dozens of calls from families separated, parents who can’t attend their kid’s events, children who can’t help their sick parents, elderly who can’t find ALFs or nursing homes and people getting violated for technical BS. Nobody has time to deal with your petulance because we’re too busy fighting real battles.
If you feel that by not posting your 4 other repetitive and negative comments is censorship, why don’t you exercise your First Amendment right and start your own forum? In the mean time we’ll get back to work!
Thank you, FAC #3 and that response was well written and I believe you have said it all in a nutshell!!
Very well written and you were not offensive at all in your rebuttal.
Thank you.
I personally appreciate everything you guys at FAC do. Even when you guys do not post some of my comments. Usually the comments from me that do not get posted are written with high emotions and usually those comment are off topic, unprofessional and to be honest quite embarrassing. I completely understand the necessity of modetating comments and a website. Imo if a website is not ran with some professionalism then most people will not take is seriously. The last thing we need is people not to take us seriously.
Tim
Something no one knows I do, but sometimes I will write a foot long post. When I am done, I read it and sometimes it was just venting and it felt good, but have deleted it. I have done that at least 40 times on here.
But yeah sometimes you see my foot long posts on here. I have to remember to re-read my post for errors( I still miss some but also the autocorrect can mess me up) and also re-read to see if I need to take a step back. Having said that, almost everyone on here is going to piss someone off with what they say occasionally, including FAC. Like the old saying “The truth hurts”. And sometimes this one “You can’t handle the truth”. :)~
Lol oh I’ve had many, many rants that I’ve deleted before hitting the comment button. Even after typing for about 5 to 10 minutes straight. I go back and read it. After about 5-10 minutes of typing I’ve somewhat calmed down and had a complete different perspective and just delete it entirely. Sometimes I start over but others I’m just to lazy and just delete it lol.
Was this admonishment necessary in the forum? After all you have his email address and that would have been a better place to vent your own frustration without having to embarras the the person in front of everyone else.
Having said that I think the response is reflective of the point that some of this sites contributors are attempting to make, that is those “censoring” some of the comment based solely on perception rather than truth or factual certainty because someone might be offended is something that all of us experience by virtue of our status. We all know what is feels like to have other people and organizations ignore the truth because it uncomfortable for them and hence the battles before us we wage. Everyone agrees that certain standards must be maintained on any forum but if it is factually correct then it should not be censored solely because someone is uncomfortable with it. That type of censorship we all live with every day and with so many things in life taken from us as registrants we did not expect our voice in this forum to be taken as well simply for speaking the truth.
I totally respect your opinion. In this instance and in the individual’s own words in subsequent posts, the comment that was the catalyst for all of this was a comment “bashing Christians”. It’s not going to appear on our site. It was also completely out of context to the topic of the post.
We have the person’s email address, but in this case he or she is not a member of FAC, so it’s not like we can reach out to remind them about the code of conduct.
Although I somewhat agree to a point, it is their site, not ours. I posted something on Derek Logue’s site once and it never got posted. I posted something on Narsol’s story once, never got posted.
There are 3 (maybe more) main things you can do. Complain about it, accept it, or say screw it and leave. I know If I left the site, a few commenters on here would miss me but no one is going to miss a night of sleep over me leaving.
When I get mad at FAC (Sometimes justified) I take a break and come back in a day, a week or when I can clear my head. Once I said to myself I wasn’t coming back but I secretly was still reading all the new stories and the comments, posts etc. One particular story or comment can trigger me to come back lol
But regardless of how we feel personally, this is the only forum for Florida that I know of. I would not even know about it if they had not mailed out flyers like 7 years or so ago. And like any public forum, not everyone is going to agree. I see a lot of comments I do not agree with, some I call out, others I say to myself “Its not worth it”. But most often if it is justified, someone else might beat me to it.
Lately my best inspiration was someone who got off the registry, and yet they are coming on here sharing their experience and how they did it even though they could have just moved on and forgot about all of us. And if I ever get removed (God willing and the creek don’t rise) I too will come back on here to encourage others to not give up. It seems there will always be registry in some form even if they struck down the current one. I do not think they are ever going away, Michigan is proof of that.
Jack
Are you my much older twin? I’ve thought and done the same. Sometimes you need a break because of the emotion involved regarding the registry. Honestly sometimes I forget this is a public forum and goes to my head.
Now I have a much older twin I had no idea I had.
I understand from both sides of posting comments and I’ll contribute when I can even policing myself. When things get heated the focus isn’t the topic at hand anymore, but why was my comment(s) not posted. After all the goal I’d to abolish the registry not pit registrants against each other.
This is a breath of fresh air.
Lately, I have read a certain forum member repeatedly bash ‘Christians’ as though we despise and shun people with sex offenses and that simply is NOT the case!!
I experienced shunning at a Church that I went to and it was VERY Un-Christian and those who do that do NOT properly represent Christ and do NOT properly understand Who He is and what He came to do!
Jesus said to those who were going to stone the woman caught in adultery ( a capital sex offense ) “Let anyone among you who has not sinned be the first to throw a stone at her!”
Jesus came to forgive and save regardless of the crime and THAT is the truth and anyone who claims to be a Christian and does NOT follow that standard is either not really a Christian, or doesn’t know Who Jesus is and what He came to do and they need a lot of spiritual growth.
I can honestly say that moderation of the forum is absolutely important for a few reasons. Being able to debate the best direction for each of us to take in our own life’s is good. Monitoring threats or overly negative content is essential. When I was using TikTok, super toxic environment, there was a therapist who openly shared actually facts about SO treatment. She was amazing, I commented a lot sharing talk information. She had supporters, people who understand what is best for society. Yet, she received death threats and a lot of harassment. What she does is amazing, but we don’t need that here.
I have posted using different “names” and some of my posts are me being close to the end of my rope and feeling hopeless. Those feelings are valid, and started by others whether they choose to admit them or not. Not a single post has been moderated. I think that is amazing that we are allowed to say I don’t know how long I can keep living like this, because it’s is real. I support the forum, I support the work done by FAC and it’s members.
Thanks Mike!
Mike
I don’t know your situation or circumstances. Please don’t let your frustration, anger, fear, and other emotions get the best of you. Registrants and our advocates need YOU in this fight. Please reach out.
I think that we registrants have to remain calm and be positive. We’re trying to change the laws enacted for reasons based on fear. We need to practice being strong and articulate so that we can win. I’ve experienced many negative things that others here have as well. Some of my experiences have left me contemplating suicide, many have just depressed or angered me. A few have given me hope. We are all in this together and only by supporting each other can we survive.
All of us on the registry are in the same boat no matter how we got here. We are all frustrated and sometimes there seems to no light at the end of the tunnel but there is, and I believe if we all keep on the same path and work constructively together one day sooner than you think there may be some relief. We have people working hard on our behalf at the Florida Action Committee tirelessly without any compensation trying to help us navigate through it all. Let’s focus on the end game and not lashing out and distracting from our mission. Other people read these articles and form opinions about us, lets show them how we really are and educate them on our situation. Lashing out and frustration doesn’t help our cause, we need to focus and move forward .
If you are unaware 30k was raised to fight the new SORNA regulations; which could start the ball rolling for true freedom in all states. No matter where we live, what our crime was, and long ago we need to band together. Now is the time Stand up against oppressive laws/bills., speak up to make your oppression known to legislators of your state, and show up to testify against bills or speak up for decent bills. Trust the volunteers of your advocacy organizations and be grateful for all the do even if you don’t always agree with their decisions.
@Warg
We’re in the same storm, not the same boat.
I try not to make controversial comments but sometimes I have added fuel to the fire. When I see a person make “offensive” comments I usually ignore it, however it depends on the topic, my experience, and overall mood. For me I don’t like when other registrants go after each other and that’s when I try to make peace, if I can’t do that I feel forced to defend or go after someone; which offends me more than a post. As former First Lady said, “ be best.”
These message boards are chicken shit. You don’t allow Derek to call women cunts when he posts here like he does everywhere else on the internet. Weak.
That’s true, we have a code of conduct and are not the same as other internet forums.
I want to su Nextdoor for constantly calling me names & attacking me.