[Air-l] Re: air-l posting policy

[Eszter Hargittai]

Thanks to AoIR Exec for writing up the guidelines.

I wanted to make one point about reference to the US Constitution because there have been a few posts regarding the First Amendment that I found a bit confusing.  I'm referring to this section of the guidelines:

> * While AoIR supports freedom of expression, it does not simply
> do so within the framework of the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment
> or other countries' legal frameworks. AoIR (and particularly air-l)

The US Constitution First Amendment states the following:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." 
(quoted from http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.billofrights.html )

The focus here is on: _Congress_ shall make no law - so it is the US _Government_ that will not limit freedom of speech.  There is no comment here about organizations that are not affiliated with the US Government. In so far as AoIR is not a branch of the US Government, AoIR has every right to set limits on people's expression.

Given that people do tend to misunderstand this sometimes, I understand why the Exec decided to include that bit in the guidelines.  Nonetheless, I thought perhaps it was worth clarifying.

Eszter
http://www.eszter.com
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