Freedom of Speech Notice

Some people are under the delusion that in posting on this website that they are entitled to freedom speech and can post whatever rude or offensive comments they wish. I'd like to set everyone straight on this freedom of speech nonsense, those who aren't grasping a full understanding of their actual right.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

The First Amendment protects individuals only from government curtailments of speech. Private entities are not subject to constitutional free speech guarantees. A forum is not a nation-state, and the members are not "citizens", so the concept of "free speech" is null in the context of a forum. This is not a government funded site therefore the first Amendment does not apply. See firstamendmentcenter.org,

Posting (on a website owned and paid for by another individual) is a priveledge, not your right. There are rules, and you agreed to them when you created an account. If you don't agree, if you don't like the rules, if you don't agree to have your comments moderated, click the logout button and don't use this site.

This moderated website exists for the purpose of providing expat advice/support and discussion of other topics in a civilised manner. This is private property belonging to myself and I set the rules as I please. Deal with it or move on.

You are free to express your opinions and observations as long as you do so in a way that complies with the rules. However, this freedom does not include the right to insult, belittle, deride or offend other members or moderators. It takes the fun out of reading, posting, and learning here. I wouldn't allow insults, abuse, etc in my own home and I'm not going to tolerate it on my forums either.

Those who continue to violate the rules that they agreed to when joining, regardless of whether they bothered to read them or not, and despite being warned repeatedly, risk being banned without further warning. This includes posts complaining of censorship, moderation and rights complaints.

If you choose not to follow the guidelines agreed to during registration, the result is a disabling of your account. If you don't care, neither do I. 

Well. Huh. I always wondered who owned this site.

Yes, and I'd like to remind everyone that not only does Leah own it, but she devotes a lot of time, effort, and money to keeping this site up and running. You'll note that it's also free to use.

Leah rocks!

This is definitely one of the best expat sites I've ever been on. Thanks Leah!

Thanks for posting this Leah, I'm sure it will be Very useful to elad people to on occasion!!

Thanks for this, Leah. It's good to see the First Amendment protections clarified. I have a feeling few Americans realize that the Amendments were designed to protect people from the government, not from private individuals.

And not to take anything away from you Leah, but as I personally have contributed to this site and plan to do so again, especially if a specific need arises, and I fully support you in how you run this board, and especially on the clarification of what "Freedom of Speech" means in practicality.

It is also important to note, that even the Supreme Court has put limits on freedom of speech, specifically when it comes to hateful speech.  Not as extensive as Canada per say, but people maybe under some sort of grand allusion that the US Government cannot abridge their rights to free speech when they can and do.  Falsely yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre is an example of where there are limits on free speech in the US.

wow...who knew?

Leah:
Thank you for putting this site together for us, and for those who help.
I, for one, am most grateful.

I also want to say thank you for this incredible website. These forums are incredibly important and valuable to me, and I know the reason I received my PCP
visa is because of the "how to" information I got from this site and another site
I'm on. Without input from others who have done it and been successful, examples,answers to questions that are not clear on the UKBA website, it would have been much more stressful. Thanks to a few people I was given clear answers.
And although I was given a real slap down after asking my first question-which seemed stupid to someone I continued to ask. There are no stupid questions, we are on this and read this to find out, and you do get nitpicky after researching for months.
I look forward to my new life in the UK, feel priviledged that I can be with my partner finally in the UK, and will use this site to learn more in the future.
Thank you again.