Showing posts with label Fear. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fear. Show all posts

5/20/2013

New Rules! Censorship = Fear

I wasn't collecting dolls back when people were afraid to write the words Barbie and/or Mattel. Apparently Mattel was going around suing people for using these words. Collectors started using asterisks in place of letters, eg. M*ttel and B*rbie. I don't know if that kept them safe. I can certainly understand a company's desire to protect their brand name and to make sure it was not used to market products that were not really theirs.

I have also heard of threads being deleted on the BC.Com boards for various reasons. One must pay to belong to the Barbie Collectors Club and therefore must abide by the rules of the board. Actually you have to abide by the rules of any board whether it's free or not.  It's like visiting some one's house. If they don't want you to smoke or whatever, you can't. That makes perfect sense.




But taking it even further, Integrity Toys and the owners of the W Club are so fearful of the general public that their latest directive prohibits even talking about what happens on the board. I may even get another apocalyptic letter about revealing this new rule to the public. They are claiming that talking about what happens on the W Board on blogs, other boards and in pod casts invades the privacy and denies the privilege of the members. They want to create a safe atmosphere for members to post whatever they wish and not be worried that their responses will be used somewhere else.


It would be really interesting to find a safe board of any kind where there were no arguments, no attacks, no sideways remarks, no dismissive statements. It doesn't exist. Doll collectors are very passionate - at least the vocal ones are. Apparently, the overlords at the W Club want only the cheerleaders to voice opinions. No wonder it's the same people who post all the time. Out of the possibly 1000 members (many with multiple memberships), barely 50 people ever post. A very small percentage post all the time.  In addition people have been viciously attacked off the board by one member in particular. It's not safe and it never was.

Anyone who actually believes that something they post on a board is private, is in dreamland. 


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