A question of ethics

[Scott75]

Hey everyone. So I've been thinking of whether or not to introduce a subject concerning whether a rule in an online forum is fair. I don't mean in the legal sense- I assume that the forum I'm thinking of has a legal right to have this rule. I'm talking about ethically. However, I'm not sure if there's any interest in this type of thing here, so I'll just ask- anyone interested? Oh, another question would be whether or not I can name the online forum in question.

Edited January 4 by Scott75

[John Stone]

Is this jewcy? 

[Scott75]

25 minutes ago, John Stone said:

Is this jewcy? 

Lol :-). I got a 1 week ban from the forum a few days ago and I suspect my days posting there are about to end- thinking of doing a farewell post once the one week ban is over. Alright, here's the setup. The forum has a rule that says that you can't share the contents of PMs. Now, in regular circumstances, that rule sounds fine. The problem, in my view, is when someone shares accusations and evidence against another poster. This becomes particularly troublesome when I'd been trying to resolve the problems between the poster who PMed me and the poster she was accusing. I basically let her know that this was a problem and she told me that she hadn't said anything that she wouldn't say publicly. I told her I was relieved, as it would make my job of picking out what to say in public easier.

Well, she changed her tune once I did start talking about what she revealed in the PMs in public. It looks like she also reported my posts and long story short, it's what led to my ban.

So basically, here's my stance on PM privacy- it's fine, so long as it's not blocking important information from being revealed to relevant parties.

Edited January 4 by Scott75

[John Stone]

It's likely essential to understand the nature, PURPOSE, and consequences of information being shared to ensure compliance with privacy laws.

Your ban likely had more to do with the online platform protecting itself from legal exposure? 

By a like token the 'she' might be setting u up and is considering legal action. 

Any hint at coercion could lead u to a very bad place ............ especially if she has  legal, personal and financial leverage. 

 

[Scott75]

1 hour ago, John Stone said:

It's likely essential to understand the nature, PURPOSE, and consequences of information being shared to ensure compliance with privacy laws.

Your ban likely had more to do with the online platform protecting itself from legal exposure? 

By a like token the 'she' might be setting u up and is considering legal action. 

Any hint at coercion could lead u to a very bad place ............ especially if she has  legal, personal and financial leverage. 

All I really know is that it didn't make sense to me, from an ethical perspective. It was especially vexxing because I had been trying to make peace between what are essentially 2 warring factions in the forum- the woman who PMed me and the woman who she'd been talking about were nominally the leaders of their respective factions. Anyway, looks like it'll all be over soon.

[herbie]

Websites are the private space of the person that pays the bill for them and if you're not a paid employee or paying a fee to access the site you have no "legal rights" at all.
You can permanently be banned because the admin doesn't like your face if they so wish. You got off easy compared to others even if I have no idea why you or others were censured.

IMHO there are too many permanent bans and not enough warnings and suspensions on this site. On others those are listed so users see why and for how long, but this is not my site, so that's just opinion.

[User]

On 1/4/2026 at 5:18 AM, Scott75 said:

So basically, here's my stance on PM privacy- it's fine, so long as it's not blocking important information from being revealed to relevant parties.

I was on a forum like this a long time ago and got in trouble once like this, because the person was lying about the conversation and so I posted exactly what they said.

I think it is a stupid rule. If you send someone something, it is between you and that person, unless either of you want to share it. Any agreements to keep private are between you, and can be voided by either party based on the circumstances. 

That is my take. 

[Scott75]

21 hours ago, herbie said:

Websites are the private space of the person that pays the bill for them and if you're not a paid employee or paying a fee to access the site you have no "legal rights" at all.
You can permanently be banned because the admin doesn't like your face if they so wish. You got off easy compared to others even if I have no idea why you or others were censured.

IMHO there are too many permanent bans and not enough warnings and suspensions on this site. On others those are listed so users see why and for how long, but this is not my site, so that's just opinion.

Agreed, it can be a rough online world out there, but everyone draws their lines in the sand somewhere and I decided after that week ban that that was my line.

48 minutes ago, User said:

I was on a forum like this a long time ago and got in trouble once like this, because the person was lying about the conversation and so I posted exactly what they said.

I think it is a stupid rule. If you send someone something, it is between you and that person, unless either of you want to share it. Any agreements to keep private are between you, and can be voided by either party based on the circumstances. 

That is my take. 

Agreed. Sending someone a PM shouldn't essentially classify any information you put in it. It just leads to people abusing this type of rule, to the point that they'll say things in PMs that they wouldn't say otherwise, knowing that if you ever reveal what was said, you can get in trouble.

[CrakHoBarbie]

On 1/9/2026 at 10:09 AM, Scott75 said:

Agreed, it can be a rough online world out there, but everyone draws their lines in the sand somewhere and I decided after that week ban that that was my line.

Agreed. Sending someone a PM shouldn't essentially classify any information you put in it. It just leads to people abusing this type of rule, to the point that they'll say things in PMs that they wouldn't say otherwise, knowing that if you ever reveal what was said, you can get in trouble.

Ok, 1st, you didnt get "banned".

You got "suspended ".

Big difference. 

Now, if what they sent you in a pm broke the forums terms of service,  then its not allowed, and thats why you got dinged.

It may not of had so much to do with, that you shared a pm. It was probably more about posting what they said in that pm on the public forum.

And dont get so butt hurt over one suspension.

 

[Scott75]

9 hours ago, CrakHoBarbie said:

Ok, 1st, you didnt get "banned".

You got "suspended ".

Big difference.

The forum I was referring to called it a 1 week ban, I'm just using their language. Feel free to take a look at the Admin's post for yourself if you like:

https://justplainpolitics.com/threads/scott-has-been-banned-for-rule-2-violation.242275/

  

10 hours ago, CrakHoBarbie said:

Now, if what they sent you in a pm broke the forums terms of service,  then its not allowed, and thats why you got dinged.

It may not of had so much to do with, that you shared a pm. It was probably more about posting what they said in that pm on the public forum.

I agree, I just think that in this case, the rule stifled an important discussion. Here's the summary of what happened:

In this forum, I'd say that there are 2 main "teams", if you will. This is actually true in a lot of forums, including this one- there are those on the right and those on the left. In this particular forum, the teams had nominal leaders. I'm not saying that this was recognized by everyone, but it was recognized enough to make it a thing. The term "Team Owl" had been used for years and I just added its counterpart, "Team TOP". They're both elderly women and they both had those who were nominally on their side. So me kind of being a political hybrid, having some positions on the left and some on the right, and having gotten to know both TOP and Owl as well as some people on their respective sides, I decided I'd try to see if I could patch things up between them. Part of that involved whether or not TOP was a retired teacher. So far, so good. Then, Owl decided to send me a PM talking a bit of what we'd been talking about in forum. I was fine with that- at the time, I had no idea what this would later turn into. I responded, and she got into some things that I certainly hadn't seen her share in the forum. It made me have doubts of TOP's position. Since I was simultaneously talking about TOP's position in the forum, I felt it necessary to bring up that Owl's PMs had made me have doubts. I was also talking to Owl in PMs and had intimated that I had to say -something- of our PM conversation as it had influenced my own position. She said that there was nothing in our PMs that she hadn't or wouldn't share in the public forums and I expressed my relief, as I felt that this was basically clearing me to talk about the gist of what we'd talked about in PMs in the forums. I later found that pretty much everything we'd talked about was already known by TOP anyway.

Well, suffice it to say that despite Owl's assurance, she backtracked and decided to report on me. I later reported all of the PMs that I had had up until th at point to the Admins to show them this, but either they didn't read them or they didn't care and I got my 1 week ban. So I decided the best thing to do was to make one final post pointing out that this "no sharing PM info" rule stifled important discussions and to simply stop posting in the public forums there.