With the events of Jan 6th, we have had to take action against posts which skirt, or cross the lines. Specifically things which discuss violence against fellow Americans.

I want to be clear to folks that this is not acceptable. While we know emotions are running high right now, everyone needs to be aware that the MSM and Leftist groups are using the momentum to pressure companies to shut down opposing viewpoints. They have targeted everything from Parler to FoxNews (and OAN and Newsmax) to get them removed. Google has gone as far as removing Parler from their app store unless they meet their demands. My opinion of these actions is that they are pure BS and contradictory to what they already allow. In short, they are attacking the conservative voice while they can. A simple example is the violence and hate posted HOURLY on twitter, which they ignore.

Regardless, we need to be vigilant in protecting this website or it will be shutdown and we will lose our voices and communications channel. From today on, we ask that ALL POLITICAL AND RELATED DISCUSSIONS be kept out of GD and posted to the specific politics forum. The politics forum should show up right below the GD in the forum lists. The politics forum is now restricted to Team members only for the time being. We are doing this to create a little more security for those discussions as well as allowing us a little more time to manage them. This does not mean we will change how we moderate those topics and expect everyone to continue to comply with the rules.

I implore you all to not post anything which violates our policies. This means you should avoid posting any threats (even veiled ones), promoting violence, and not support rioting of any kind. This is not anything new and continues to be in line with what every hosting provider enforces and what we, as websites, need to adhere to as well.

There is a giant spotlight on us right now, so watch what you say and watch your six. Do not trust anyone on any platform.

To those of you who feel we are caving into pressure, please understand if we fail to protect this community from itself, we will no longer be here for any discussion. You have already seen the attacks on Parler. You have seen conservatives removed from Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Google, Instagram, and others. We are running out of places to talk and share ideas. If we lose this place, we will allow the dominoes to continue to fall.

I once again ask you to understand the situation and choose to be part of our future. If you value your voice and freedoms, it's time to look at those who would sooner silence you and switch to those who would support you.



Once final note. We will be working to remove connections to Facebook and Twitter on ARFCOM. Please remember it takes time to make those changes and bring in support for other tools like Parler.


UPDATE
Since folks are not reading through the thread (which I totally understand in normal situations) I will update a few things here.

1) This is not all political and related topics, it will be for anything emotionally charged and pushing boundaries. (This does not mean crossing them, as breaking rules that exist are still not good.)

2) This is not adding rules or conduct expectations. Everything remains the same. We are moving some threads into the politics forum based on what we feel is a need.

3) Hopefully the team restriction will be dropped to logged in restrictions as things calm down a bit.

4) We are looking for alternatives for every aspect of the site to avoid issues and restrictions. Do not expect the COC to change.

5) We are working on changes and systems to better how we can vet each other and create special "secure" areas of the site. Information to be shared in another post later, but you can find it in a few pages in this thread. (Forget which ones and too much going on to find them at this moment.)

6) All conservative voices are at risk. See what's happening to Parler, Fox News, Newsmax, etc. We are just trying to give us a little more time to handle moderation on our end. Again, no rules are changing and not all topics will be moved out of GD.

I will add more if needed.

Update 2 - To clarify specifics folks seem to be missing out on.

thanks!

OST