Winger AARP Host censors "sucks" when used to describe a Republican

[cactusrose]

The AARP moderating team has a track record of making up rules
on the spot and selectively enforcing rules against non-winger
posters in order to demoralize them. These are the same
moderators who allowed a far-righter to use the handle
"mofo" for weeks even though they reportedly was
told what it means. The same moderators who allow far-righters
to pretty much say what they want to say - including terms
which unlike "sucks" are purely sexual and
degrading.

http://community.aarp.org/n/pfx/forum.aspx?nav=messages&tsn=1518&tid=28536&webtag=rp-issues

From:AARPHost (p-1575309752)  
 
 
 Jun-29, 2006 9:56 AM 
 28536.1519 
Reply to 28536.1518 
 
 
To:TxGrandpa 
 (1519 of 1549) 
 
 
 
 
No, you are not reading this wrong. Yes, folks use it in
everyday conversation to mean bad or lousy outcomes. But it
can also be used within it's sexual context and that is the
problem. In order to prevent the second situation, you also
have to block the first. The technology doesn't distinguish
between contexts, it only looks for the word.

And we know that our community members can come up with
another word to mean the same thing which won't be on the
filth filter list. 
 

[NoAmericanTaliban]

Welcome to DU - What do you expect from a buch of uptight old farts

[cactusrose]

3. The overwhelming majority of posters on the AARP are not right-wingers

This is why the board has been targeted by the far-right for takeover.

AARP does not do its own moderating. This is contracted out to a company called PRC in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. (Do a Google for "AARP PRC contract".) PRC provides moderation services to a number of boards. The far-right appears to be moving its people into moderating jobs in order to take over as much of the Internet as it can and control what people are allowed to say and learn on the Internet.

But they're getting a big surprise on the AARP board. A lot of the posters are standing up to them and going public about what they're doing.

All the responsibility can't be placed on PRC for the moderation. Somebody at AARP allows them to keep getting away with what they're doing.

A few of the moderators do try to be fair, but most are not. They are blatantly far-right though they claim not to be. But actions speak louder than words.

They know they can't get away with banning all non-winger posters at one time. Not to mention that their advertisers wouldn't keep advertising on the board if its size suddenly was reduced by at least 3/4s. So what they're doing is banning a few at a time on trumped up charges, making an example out of them, and engaging in various tactics designed to demoralize non-far-right posters into not posting anything too critical of Bush and his cronies.

BTW, one thing that the non-winger posters did a couple of weeks ago to protest the unfair banning of a non-winger was to observe a 24-hour postout. We refused to post on the board for that day. Anyone who wandered onto the AARP board that day could have thought they had ended up on the Free Republic board. The wingers were going wild and the moderators weren't reigning them in no matter what they said or did. BTW, in order to have an excuse to ban this guy, the moderators had to go back several months to find an excuse to ban him. His real crime was that he was getting the best of a winger in a debate. They also didn't like the fact that he told a winger who claims to be a government employee (at a high pay grade) that he was posting on government time.

[NoAmericanTaliban]

4. Thanks for the info. Very helpful.

The wingers are trying to control & censor every aspect of our lives from what we read in libraries to movies, tv, & radio. Now they are I'm glad you pointed out that they are doing this for AARP & that blog sites need to be aware of this trend. One of the reasons a minority of wingers controls the country is through their ability to control the message.

It used to be the rule of thumb that as folks got older they became more conservative, but now AARP is a villian for the wingers, eventhough they went along with Bush's bogus drug bill.

[NoAmericanTaliban]

1. self - delete

some reason my message posted twice ??

[cactusrose]

2. AARP digs himself in deeper by trying to rationalize what he did

The AARP Host has a track record of trying to
"explain" his poor decisions and unfair moderation.
This time is no different.

http://community.aarp.org/n/pfx/forum.aspx?nav=messages&tsn=1538&tid=28536&webtag=rp-issues

From:AARPHost (p-1575309752)  
 
 
 Jun-29, 2006 7:35 PM 
 28536.1544 
Reply to 28536.1522 
 
 
To:Old Fart (oldfart28) 
 (1544 of 1549) 
 
 
 
 
You wrote: 
Please consider these facts:

1.  Up to this point, the board has been using this word(s)
since the beginning of time.

Checking with our previous filth filter shows that this is not
the case. As posted earlier today, the word in contention here
was part of the filth filter prior to the upgraded message
board. 

AARP Community Host
***************************
 
BUT it wasn't.  Consider a search of the AARP board:

http://community.aarp.org/n/pfx/forum.aspx?nav=search&webtag=rp-issues&showSearchForm=y

Search Results You searched for ... sucks 
Results ... 298 messages,   1 - 50 displayed 

That search goes back to at least 2003 so obviously the word
"sucks" was not a part of the filth filter prior to
the recent changeover in board software a few weeks ago.

This is just one more example of the AARP moderators pulling
things out of thin air in order to try to cover their butts.
In short, on more than one occasion they have been known to
lie

There are some words which are on the AARP filth list. For
example, the word tit in the expression tit-for-tat
automatically will be ####ed out by the autocensor. So was the
word "hell" and the use of "he!!". 
However, there are plenty of words that surprisingly are not.
For example the word "whore". The reason some words
are not on the autocensor is so the moderators selectively can
censor for the words.  For example, if moderators don't like
something that is said about Bush or Republicans, they will
selectively censor and censor the entire post with the excuse
that a "filthy" word was used. If they don't think
they can get away with censoring the entire post (because in
the past the poster has fought back), they will censor only
the word.  But later on they will use the censoring of one
word as an excuse for banning the poster from the board.
 
BTW, most of the posters on the AARP board refer to the
autocensor as the autocensor. It speaks volumes that the
moderator refers to it as a "filth filter".