Russia Defense .net forum shut down by hosting company

[Zhuge Liang]

Can't Russia set up something similar. I dislike all these ongoing bans against the Russians whether its overt line this or covert. The west shouldn't be at war with them.

RDF was not banned for being pro-Russian but for hate speech (prominent users hosting incitement to murder/genocide, racial hatred and Holocaust denial), with the admin willfully tolerating it and refusing to moderate. Geopolitical sympathies had nothing to do with the ban.

 

[poetess]

RDF was not banned for being pro-Russian but for hate speech (prominent users hosting incitement to murder/genocide, racial hatred and Holocaust denial), with the admin willfully tolerating it and refusing to moderate. Geopolitical sympathies had nothing to do with the ban.

Fair enough. Why were those posts and posters not banned? Why remove the entire forum?

 

[Zhuge Liang]

Fair enough. Why were those posts and posters not banned? Why remove the entire forum?

The admin refused to remove them. Forumotion itself does not moderate forums (that's admin's job), when they're facing a defiant admin hosting TOS violations, they remove the forum.

I myself hold rather heterodox geopolitical opinions - but there is a difference between "the west is bad/wrong/deluded" and "Pakis are s*bhuman tr*sh"/"Running those r*ts [i.e. immigrants to Europe] to the sea is the right thing to do"/"Ukrainians should be exterminated" - and a pretty massive difference I guess.

Like I said, creating a new Forumotion forums takes 5 min. and is completely free but the admins need to follow Forumotion TOS. Forum rules like the ones here or on Sinodefence are ok but some things (all sorts of hateful BS) must be off limits, even on Reddit there are tons of subreddits that trash the US and West every day for breakfast, lunch and dinner and nobody shuts them down so you can definitely be anti western and survive fine.

 

[LarsFrost]

Thanks. Maybe Biggazza knows something? I was really surprised they shut down that forum. It was one of the best in terms of the quality of discussion. I hope GarryB brings the RussiaDefence forum back at a new address. But I can't find a way to contact anyone—I've only come across you and Biggazza. I don't get what kind of moron at Forumotion banned it; the forum had survived for so many years.

I just messaged Biggazza the link to this thread and asked him if he has heard anything

 

[LarsFrost]

RDF was not banned for being pro-Russian but for hate speech (prominent users hosting incitement to murder/genocide, racial hatred and Holocaust denial), with the admin willfully tolerating it and refusing to moderate. Geopolitical sympathies had nothing to do with the ban.

How would you know ? were you a member ?

And you are totally over inflating the racial hate thing. One Serbian member went a little overboard sometimes and was temporarily banned. Many members were temporarily and permanently banned. The forum was up and running for 15 years.

I was banned for months for not using the quote function right. To say that RDF wasn't moderated is ridiculous.

 

[LarsFrost]

Fair enough. Why were those posts and posters not banned? Why remove the entire forum?

Tons of posters were banned.

The admin was libertarian and didn't just insta ban everyone who said anything a little edgy. And he doesn't know why the forum was shut down. He just thinks he does.

The admin also allowed a lot of Russia bashers to post. It was not an anti Ukraine echo chamber. Far from it.

 

[Zhuge Liang]

How would you know ? were you a member ?

And you are totally over inflating the racial hate thing. One Serbian member went a little overboard sometimes and was temporarily banned. Many members were temporarily and permanently banned.

I was banned for months for not using the quote function right. To say that RDF wasn't moderated is ridiculous.

Yes, I was a member.

That "going a little overboard" (read: at least 3 separate posts calling for extermination of the population of Ukraine) wasn't the reason of his ban on the forum, he was banned for insults at other members. (And there were several other users posting hateful crap.)

And yeah, people were getting banned but only for insulting other forum members and for technicalities like quote button misuse. Nobody got banned for racism or incitement to violence.

The relevant part of Forumotion TOS is: https://www.forumotion.com/terms-of-service

Prohibited content and behaviour​

By using the services offered by forumotion.com, the User agrees to use them in accordance with the purpose for which they were designed, and not to use the products and services to – in particular – encourage, promote or present in a favorable light:

• Hacking, spamming, and attacks against networks and/or servers, phishing, malware, intrusion into the network of forumotion.com and third parties,
• Content of a sexual, obscene, pornographic nature,
• Violent, defamatory, discriminatory content, incitement to racial hatred, crimes against humanity,
• The sharing, hosting, distribution or piracy of works and content protected by copyright and intellectual property, or any infringing practice,
• The sale, exchange or donation of products subject to special legislation, medicinal products subject to medical prescription or not, narcotic drugs and other illicit substances,
• Credit card fraud, or deceptive practices,
• Violations of the rights and interests of minors,
• Any behaviour contrary to the laws in force, affecting the rights of third parties, or prejudicial to them

forumotion.com is a free service that does everything possible to offer a quality service at the cutting edge of technology. Except as permitted by the credits management, it is strictly prohibited to remove, hide, or make unreadable by any means whatsoever the mandatory notices and copyrights appearing on the Forums (including in the toolbar and footer of the forum), as well as sponsored content or advertisements. These items can only be removed through credits management.


forumotion.com reserves the right to delete forums, messages or users that make use of the services that are manifestly illegal or contrary to these Terms, without prior notice. As such, forums containing text, links, images, animations, videos, classified ads or content of any other nature considered contrary to these Terms may be deleted without prior notice.


Activities contrary to the laws and regulations in force may be reported to the competent authorities and may give rise to legal action.

Anyone who creates a Forumotion forum automatically agrees to these the moment the forum is created.

RDF was nice as a forum but it had a wrong moderation policy.