Free Speech? Ha!
By: Pierce

Free speech is in many ways a lie in this country, especially on AOL.
Why
would I say that? Because of first hand experience.
I use AmeriKKKa Online. With that, I am supposedly given the very same
constitutional rights that I'm supposed to live with in real life. That
is
something that I don't see with AOL's policies. Every aspect of
members'
communication on AOL is censored. In chat areas, Guides, armed with
internal
policies (including a list of 90 forbidden words), patrol the service
looking
for violations of their precious Terms of Service, TOS for short, which
they
regard as a sort of bible for online activities. America Online censors
virtually any communication it deems to be 'bad', that including, but
not
limited to, revolutionary thoughts, pornography (which should be
available to
those over 18), bootlegged files, programs (which are usually
misconstrued as
punters- not so. I have several programs, most of which simply make
chat rooms
more interesting with interactive games, called BOTS, and other fun
stuff.) To
do this, it has a large department with the group name "Community Action
Team,", or CAT for short, whose job it is to patrol the service and,
when
forbidden content is found, to delete it and the person who posted it.
They
usually end up punting the offending person, which- if applied to real
life-
would be like police brutality. The "authority figure" used his or her
advantage to disable another person. It's like spraying mace in the
eyes of
someone who said "fuck" in public- it's just not right.
There is also another department, by the name of "Security Service",
appropriately SS for short (ha ha..) that helps maintain obedience and
conformity on AOL's server.
Anyways, I had and still do have AOL. I didn't really have a problem
with it
too much until as of late, when they started deleting my profile. I was
sure
to never add any obscenities to my profile, but I did have political
views,
quotes from Conflict, and the like. Needless to say, AOL found it
necessary to
delete my profiles. To test my theory out about AOL's blatant profile
censorship, we did this with a friend's screenname too. It was deleted
within
a few hours. Now, to further my theory I "took one for the team": I
made my
profile sound like the all Amerikan teen. Here it is, in it's entirity:

===============================================================
Member Name: Stephen
Location: The best town in Massachusetts!
Birthdate: October 19th
Sex: Male
Hobbies: Abercrombie, J. Crew, Old Navy, Football (yeah! go team!!),
AOL is
fun and it doesn't censor at all!
Computers: God bless Bill Gates and his excellent corperation!
Occupation: I work in an Abercrombie store, AND I LOVE AMERICA! I love
God
too!
Personal Quote: Note the sarcasm in this profile. It is a farce...
===============================================================

I put it up a few days ago, and needless to say it's still there. Shows
how
much AOL hates those with anarchist and otherwise radical views.
Whenever someone submits a profile, it has to go through AOL's terms of
service department first, with TOSAdvisor or one of many other guides
and
hosts reading it. If it doesn't hold up to their scrutiny- if a single
person
is offended- they have every last right to delete it, which is fascism.
It's
like taking someone's ID and cutting it in half because you don't like
their
date of birth or their signature. It's just not right!
Now, about chat room censorship. AOL has over 200 guides, or people who
are
paid to patrol the chat rooms that AOL is famous for, looking for cyber
troublemakers. If you know a guide is in a room, and you would know
because
they have "Guide" as part of their screenname (ex: "Guide Dick"), all
you have
to do is tell them that someone is doing something wrong or harassing
you, and
the guide will punt them. It's like they're 12 year old kids with a
slingshot,
they'll shoot anyone down, regardless of how flimsy the evidence is.
It's like
going to court and someone said you did it, so you go to jail without
being
able to contradict the person.
For how much longer will we just sit here and do nothing about it?
There needs
to be some serious reforms on the security system of AOL. I think that
you
should be able to say whatever you please in any room except for "Kid
Chat"
areas. And profiles should DEFINITELY not be edited to conform to AOL's
opinions. If you have anything to say on this topic, EMail me at
FluxANOK@aol.com. People you can also email to try to change things:
Steve Case@aol.com (steve case- or one of his many fake "selves"- CEO
of AOL)
TosAdvisor@aol.com
TosEmail1@aol.com
TosEmail2@aol.com
any guide you see......

Yours in solidarity,
Pierce