Back then, I was on a now defunct site that leaned right, and their moderation was indeed piss poor; the owners were only concerned with content that could be a legal liability. (Thankfully, I had a tight-knit community of nerds & creatives back then too.)
When they shuttered their doors and kicked us all out without warning in late 2015, it was abrupt… but it turned out to be a mixed blessing; I cannot begin to fathom how much worse it would have gotten during the dark years of 45’s reign of terror.
I’d found the front page first, and was delighted to find the big ol’ bbs
ETA: This really is an exceptional BBS. We’re allowed to type ‘fuck,’ there’s less assholic behavior than I’ve seen anywhere else, the users are intelligent and hilarious, the moderation is top notch {THANK YOU SO MUCH!}, and I adore so many of the users and authors.
ETalsoA:
I love that I’m allowed to post these, too:
yeah, when someone says “we need more money for police training” - those are the people who get that money. that’s part of why defunding remains the best strategy
another thing lexipol does is to tell cops to use death notifications to extract information about victims… especially whenever the perpetrator is an officer
It seems to me that failure to follow the legally mandatory procedure for a line-up would be a huge gift to the defence. I suppose I am simply hopelessly naive.
What jumps out at me from cases taken by The Innocence Project or others overturned because of misconduct is the numbers. Cops playing their role in the for-profit prison pipeline cast a wide net to arrest as many people as possible. The goal isn’t to solve crimes, but to get a confession - something that cannot be reversed, no matter how much evidence is found later. The next best thing is a conviction. For either one, they’ve been allowed to lie, cheat, and steal to reach those goals.
Going through the courts means revenue when the conviction includes restitution for court costs. People can spend a long time in jail waiting for cases to get through the courts if they can’t make bail. Each year wrongfully convicted people spend in jail generates more revenue for the prison owners as well as those companies that profit from cheap labor. If the innocent are finally released, many states offer no restitution and/or cannot be sued for wrongful prosecution. Add qualified immunity to the equation and it gives members of the criminal injustice system power to steal other people’s freedom, labor, and years of their lives. LEOs suffer very few consequences for all this, and are offered incentives to violate the rights of others.
This is why most feel entitled to ignore any rules or regulations that counter all the above. When we see a few headline news cases about innocent people released after years/decades in prison, they’re just a drop in the ocean compared with the number of innocent people still stuck behind bars. Too often, the reason is poverty. Either way, those running the system got their money, and the victims will never get those years back.
