Thank you very much, your Honor, and I do apologize again for not thinking of this sooner. My brief is as follows:
In this case, the Court must decide whether the suppression of DD's posts are a violation of his right to free speech - whether suppression is or can be a violation, whether the posts in question merited suppression in this case, and possibly whether this or any delegate can be prosecuted for making such judgment calls on the fly. More than this, though, the Court has the power to decide (and may, by its wording, do so whether or not it intends such) what constitutes protected speech and what measures, reasonable or otherwise, the Delegate may or may not take on the RMB at all. Given this, any decisions made in this arena could have broad-ranging implications on the state of the region as a whole.
I would, therefore, like to raise the following points for consideration during the Court's deliberations:
The TNP forum has seven or eight administrators (I am unsure what FEC's status is at this point) and a handful of lesser moderators who can oversee individual or a small selection of forums. They are both highly responsive and highly accessible, and have a number of methods of addressing misbehavior (perceived or actual). In contrast, gameside has the game mods, who are usually somewhat responsive but not terribly accessible, and it has the delegate. The delegate is the first point of contact when there is spam (adspam or otherwise), flaming, or other unpleasant behavior. I urge the court to keep this in mind so that its decision does not hamstring the delegate's ability to act quickly.
Second, what constitutes spam, or flaming, or other prohibited messages on the RMB, is definitely a subjective question. I can think of more than one highly charged flare-up recently that had several people clamoring for the offender to be banned, while others judged that the situation did not merit such a forceful end. Additionally, it is not easy or simple to answer whether or not someone posting the same word fifty times in one post, or posting "M" so many times it breaks the page, or constantly posting links to memes is spam, and with context added in (do people appreciate the posts? Were they relevant in conversation? Does the poster have a pattern of spamming or is this a first offense? etc) it becomes even harder to draw a clear line. Therefore, I also urge the court not to adopt heavy-handed definitions or bright-line distinctions that strip the delegate of flexibility in determining what merits a response and what does not.
Third, I would like to bring up the matters of unprotected speech. At this time, the Legal Code allows the Delegate to immediately ban any nation posting recruitment messages on the RMB, as well as any nation who violates an NS rule, at their discretion. But whether or not the NS rule on hate speech, or defamation, or offensive content, or so on, has been violated, it must be very clear to anyone who follows RMB discussions that some kinds of content are just as rude and disruptive as recruitment spam is, with the additional factor of being unkind and inflammatory. Given this, I finally urge the court to keep in mind the underlying logic of the existing laws regarding banning, and to account for practices that best serve the regional community as much as possible.
Thank you for your time, and thank you again for this extension.
