Posted by Marquis [Marquis] on November 09, 1999 at 13:16:30 {4Hfg918T5gHSG.vl05doc9QpzHSPFY}:
As a lurker, I would like to ask the good folks responsible for this site why so many postings are deleted these days.
The reasons given by the so called "moderators" seem to me to be a rather bad excuse for suppressing people with other views than themselves.
I have seen reasons given as violation of copyright, even though no copyrighted material was quoted what so ever. And it is legal to quote from any material, under the regulations of fair use.
It seems like the "moderators" here should move to witnesses.net, where this censorship is common. H2O claims to respect "freedom of speech" - which is a right out lie. The moderators do not. They delete postings on random, varying by who the author is. What is by one participant accepted will be deleted if another does post something of the same.
I remember some months back, when some moderators went bananas. They deleted all kinds of postings, even though they contained nothing in violation of the FPP. The reason was obvious; they simply did not like the posters. Critics of the Watchtower were not popular. These day some apologists have started out a new war against the so called "apostates", and the "moderators" (read: censors) accept that these people do call people apostates - even though that is a violation of the FPP. Why? Just because they have their own agenda, they accept the fact that "bad guys" are being name called. Instead of being honest, stating their true intentions, they delete postings, claiming to have some kind of valid reason - while they do perfectly well know they do not.
People like Greg Stafford might say anything in the world as to the honesty of AF, and nobody would even dream of giving him a warning. If people like JH or Kent had done the same against Greg, the postings would be deleted with claims of legality like "extreme hate" or something even more insanely stupid.
I would say the "moderators" and owners of H2O do a great job helping the ones that really want to harm the watchtower. This they do by proving beyond doubt the fact that Jehowah's Witnesses are narrow-minded, arrogant, and unable to handle indifferences. That they do not accept at all criticism if they decide this is what the world look like.
H2O is being monitored by lots of people interested in the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society, and the Jehovah's Witnesses. And people like ForumDirector do a great job helping the ones that are anti the views of the Watchtower by proving the so called "apostates" right time after time. Over and over and over again we do see the moderators do something quite different, namely censoring. Censoring on quite fuzzy reasons, because it is obvious to all the deletions of postings are quite often done to silence critics.
Sad, but true.
Marquis