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I think if you intentionally deceive others into thinking you are someone else and then speak in that other person's voice you are in effect forcing that other person to say something they do not want to say.

I see this as a form of compelled speech. In our legal system compelled speech is a violation of the 1st amendment and in general considered a more serious violation than simple censorship.

Preventing someone from saying what they want is bad and infringes on free speech. Forcing someone to say something they don't want to say is even worse.

Based on these thoughts I support making intentional impersonation of another a ban-able offense. I am not talking about parody and I am not talking about mockery. I'm talking about intentional deception that leads people to believe you are some other real, non-fictional, person. I think this is the root problem behind both the recent Ivan vs Ivan issue as well as the entire BRCC thing.

I think if you intentionally deceive others into thinking you are someone else and then speak in that other person's voice you are in effect forcing that other person to say something they do not want to say. I see this as a form of compelled speech. In our legal system compelled speech is a violation of the 1st amendment and in general considered a more serious violation than simple censorship. Preventing someone from saying what they want is bad and infringes on free speech. Forcing someone to say something they don't want to say is even worse. Based on these thoughts I support making intentional impersonation of another a ban-able offense. I am not talking about parody and I am not talking about mockery. I'm talking about intentional deception that leads people to believe you are some other real, non-fictional, person. I think this is the root problem behind both the recent Ivan vs Ivan issue as well as the entire BRCC thing.

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[–] • 3 pts (edited )

I agree. Impersonating an account should be against Poal TOS. He did the same to me, substituting a capital "I" OwIchemy ... for my small 'L" Owlchemy ... . When I called him on it, he deleted the account. But before doing so he was adding comments attributed to me in threads, as well as posting content. Though my general policy is simply to ignore trolls, when they impersonate someone else, it enters an entirely different realm.

All we have on these anonymous forums is our name recognition. When someone attempts to steal that from you in a clear attempt to destroy it, there deserves to be some consequences. No ... it's not censorship in any way, shape, or form ... said individual is perfectly capable of creating a unique username like anyone else and posting to it.

I agree in full with BuddhasTorch on this ... he said it well.

Edit: here was my suggestion when we were discussing BRCC awhile back ...