The Observation Deck

The stories posted on cleveland.com or tv stations do not show mortally wounded minors.

Rick,

The YouTube video that you published depicts the CHILD. All of the children that were hit are under the age of 18! I draw the line at showing videos or pictures of mutilated children on the Deck.

What if that was your child or your underage sister? It's WRONG!!! They're minors.

Exploiting children in any way is wrong. The LO has long standing policy of not exploiting children and standing against those who do.

The Plain Dealer ‘s author did not publish the mutilated children. They published a picture of the child when she was alive and well. The family provided the picture that was nice memory, not some wannabe schmuck that thinks he’s some hot shot videographer who gets a cheap thrill out of human tragedy.

Bill Grulich

Suzanne Metelko wrote:Rick,

you've just been Bill Called. An LO phenomenon that only happens to a select few. I get Bill Called too. And so does Bill Call - go figure!

All you did was answer a question and next thing you know you're under attack. Does the attack have anything to do with the thread or your post - nope! It's always personal, always meant to intimidate and to divert attention from the topic.

John asked for an atrribution and you provided it. Thanks.

Suzanne

Yes, I want to know who posts videos of children lying dead or wounded on the street.

Evidently, were some horrible accident to happen to your grandchild, you would be perfectly fine knowing that YouTube has a record of it forever.

I'm surprised to find you defending this.

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dl meckes wrote:

Suzanne Metelko wrote:
John asked for an atrribution and you provided it. Thanks.

Suzanne

I'm surprised to find you defending this.

What I defended was free speech. I'm surprised to find you don't.

I do not and will not defend posting videos of minor children lying dead or hurt on Lakewood sidewalks on a discussion board.

The views expressed in any posts on the Observation Deck are the views of the person posting them. The Lakewood Observer does not approve of individual posts nor is the Lakewood Observer responsible for the content in any post.
This forum is maintained, solely to provide an arena for discussion, without approval, editing or censorship by the Lakewood Observer " As I sit here reading this thread I am amazed how quickly this discussion devolved into name calling and finger pointing. The quote above is from the bottom of this page and as I understand it this is an open forum which is different from the edited "news section" of the print or electronic editions of the Lakewood Observer.
While the video, which is of poor quality, is shocking , a link to it was posted in an OPEN forum. How can you attack the man who posted a link, for following your own guidelines?!
The problem with an open forum like the Deck is when people get caught up in the moment and hit the send key. It is a flaw built in by default unless someone is going to act as an advisor and monitor and approve each and every response. I would hate to see that happen. And this bickering is NOT unique to the Deck. Every open forum on the WWW has it, and while we may disagree with what others have to say or post or link we as individuals are all responsible for the overall tone of the discussion in a thread. Be mindful of what you post and brace yourself for the fall out and be mindful of your response. As someone once told me.."Once you put it out on the web...it’s there forever."

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While the administrators and moderators of this forum will attempt to remove or edit any generally objectionable material as quickly as possible, it is impossible to review every message.

Rick, I was not the only person offended.

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Yes, that is quoted directly from the Deck TOS.

If you have read the Constitution recently, citizens are protected from the GOVERNMENT restricting free speech.

This is not a government entity.

I would suggest, if you want to post videos of hurt or fatally injured minors, that you do it elsewhere.

Rick

However, like it or not, that movie falls under the "protected speech" umbrella.

The First Amendment protections for Freedom of Speech deals only with governmental impignments. The LO is not connected with any governmental body and as part of the user's agreement, all participants agree that items deemed objectionable are subject to being deleted.

It doesn't happen with a great deal of frequency, but on rare ocassions, it has been necessary for board moderators to remove a post that is offensive.

Jeff

the video in question was a first-hand account of a breaking news story. It was neither mocking or making light of the terrible events of Saturday evening. Last time I read my dictionary that qualifies as citizen journalism to me. What that video shows is the real effects of drunk driving. Instead of being censored that video should be SHOWN in every school during prom season, that would bring home the horrors of drunk driving to students who have younger brothers, sisters and cousins more than a smashed up car in the front yard of the school. Many of the films and photos taken of the survivors of the Holocost made those horrors real to millions of people who want to believe to Holocost didn't exist. Video cameras running in Tienneman Square showing the tank running down protesters brought Communist oppression and terror home in a way that the sanitized word never could. Although, I must agree with others on here that Rick has been a chicken little of sorts telling us the sky is falling for well over a year on the Deck, he still has the same free speech rights as anyone else and I think taking that video down is just plain censorship. Lets go out and spend as much time fighting drunk driving as we are spend attacking each other.

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Greg Morley wrote:The views expressed in any posts on the Observation Deck are the views of the person posting them. The Lakewood Observer does not approve of individual posts nor is the Lakewood Observer responsible for the content in any post.
This forum is maintained, solely to provide an arena for discussion, without approval, editing or censorship by the Lakewood Observer "

(my emphasis added)

Condolences to the Family, a tragic event

This is going off on a tangent, but, the blurb at the bottom indicates that all content is copyrighted by the Lakewood Observer. If there was ever a legal scenario - libel, etc etc, and the offending material is copyrighted by the LO, would the site administrators somehow be held liable?