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The Constitution, Right to Free Speech! This is America!

DontGetMad··3 votes·2,429 views
Freedom of speech

If you say anything true that LOL doesn't agree with you will be banned and censored.

43 Comments

GatekeeperTDS16 votes

Oh dear, not quite sure how free speech works, right?

Free speech protects you from the government, not from private entities. If you want to play in Riot's living room (or anyone's living room), you need to follow the rules. You are entitled to nothing when dealing with a private entity.

DontGetMad1 votes

You must work for them or have some type of vested interest. -37 min multiple thumbs ups. The age of the internet. You know how people feel about you guys don't you. Matter of fact don't answer. Could be a bot for all I know.

GatekeeperTDS5 votes

So...I have 5 upvotes out of the almost 200 people that have viewed this, and your first thought is...conspiracy theory?

Are you OK?

DontGetMad1 votes

Here is the retaliation to sway future viewers with the "are you ok" Me I'm perfectly fine, don't know about you though, seem to be getting under your skin a bit. If you don't have anything to do with the game and you didn't put any time into making the game, why are you so offended?

GatekeeperTDS4 votes

Who's offended? I'm legitimately concerned for your well-being.

CharDeeMcDenniz8 votes

he's not wrong though...

your right to free speech doesn't apply in someone elses house

DontGetMad1 votes

This is America's house. Wherever you are and want your company to be, that's whose house you are in. He might also be a bot, be aware that AI exist and is in action everyday.

CharDeeMcDenniz8 votes

ok, go into your nearest 4 or 5 star restaurant and start yelling racial slurs, when they try to kick you out make sure you tell them all about your free speech

and considering he and I chat in the LoL client i can guarentee he's not a bot, what a lame excuse

GatekeeperTDS3 votes

Bleep blorp...Sophisticated bot!

ModCaliCoastReplay10 votes

Text of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

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.


As many have noted, the First Amendment establishes that Congress itself may not legislate against the right to free speech. This is important as it unquestionably protects the right of citizens to avoid persecution by the government over exercising freedom of speech in civic and public arenas.

The First Amendment does not restrict the right of private entities to establish rules for safety within their own establishments, which most definitely includes the right to deny service to those who are disturbing the peace.

See also:

Text of the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.


TL:DR: The Boards program is not Congress. We absolutely do have the right to moderate problematic speech that creates an unsafe environment for our players and will continue to do so.

Almost Creative9 votes

Freedom of speech =/= Freedom from consequences

Hotarµ8 votes

"Freedom of speech =/= Freedom from consequences"

I'm so stealing this lol

CharDeeMcDenniz6 votes

where is the Randy from South Park "I thought this was America?!?!?" gif when you need it!

Pika Fox6 votes

Congratulations.... You literally dont know what freedom of speech is.

Silent Gravity5 votes

Freedom of Speech PROTECTS the rights of Riot to moderate the actions taken on their servers and forums.

The law says that Riot does not have to spend money hosting things that they do not want to host.

If you take away that protection, then you too could be forced to spend money doing things that you don't want to do.

G0blinSlay3r1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Silent Gravity,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=9PZQYQzK,comment-id=0007,timestamp=2019-09-30T03:00:04.158+0000)

Freedom of Speech PROTECTS the rights of Riot to moderate the actions taken on their servers and forums.

The law says that Riot does not have to spend money hosting things that they do not want to host.

If you take away that protection, then you too could be forced to spend money doing things that you don't want to do.

We already are it's called RP Season passes.. ect..

Sinful Succubus3 votes

tl;dr

"mah freedom of speech is being threatened and anyone who says otherwise is either a riot employee or a bot because i can never be wrong about anything!"

beep boop

I Like Teemo2 votes

most of the company is owned by china, a COMMUNIST country, they care not of your freedom anyway

TrulyBland4 votes

Um... not that it is really relevant but, why would you think Riot is European?

LordRedStone Nr11 votes

I think they're based in Ireland for tax reasons.

LordRedStone Nr14 votes

Well no, that wasn't entirely correct. Riot Games itself is american, but they have an european daughter which is based in Dublin. This is the one running EU, just like Garena, except this one is 100% owned by Riot.

I remembered it's from Dublin from the TOS I read, but obviously the EU company would handle legal stuff for me, an EUW player.

DontGetMad1 votes

If you have servers in a certain country then who has the final say? Doesn't matter where HQ is a country will shut you down if they care so, like I stated "this" is America!

TrulyBland5 votes

Yes. America. The land of many freedoms!

Like freedom of speech, which shields you from censorship by the government. Or the freedom to deny somebody a service, when they've shown themselves to be harmful for your business. Or the freedom to determine what people are or are not allowed to publish via a medium you provide.

But I guess other peoples' rights are never as important as your own... not that any of your rights are infringed to begin with, of course.

TrulyBland2 votes

Huh... was unaware of the fact that they're an Irish Ltd. Wasn't even particularly easy to find info on that. I'd still argue it makes only limited (no pun intended) sense to call them European, though, when their official headquarter is nevertheless in LA.

I Like Teemo1 votes

shit u right, whoops i forgot europe only makes good games

Inkling Commando2 votes

username checks out

DontGetMad1 votes

Funny how Riot is quick to jump on anti Riot comments with thumbs up post and the ones who go against Riot have all these thumbs downs in -30 min. Suspicious if you ask me. You guys either are employed by them or some type of chat bots. The community IE the people who made you are sick of your sensoring. Also the gov't has control over any company in America so in the end you are in their house. Freedom of speech.

Eedat10 votes

Jesus dude you are delusional. As others have stated, freedom of speech protects you from criminal punishment from the government with some exceptions. It does not in any way extend into private domain. Businesses are fully within their right to decide what is or is not acceptable on their platform or in their property. This does not in any way, shape, or form infringe upon your constitutional rights.

For example, if you walked into a store and starting screaming at other customers, you would be asked to leave. If you refused, the police would come and force you to leave. If you think this is illegal because muh free speech, you would be wrong and quite frankly not very intelligent.

DontGetMad1 votes

Don't bring Jesus into this he has nothing to do with it. Do you want to live in Riot world where the word "shiz" is banned but wtf isn't? If so that's you. Sorry for offending another Riot worker. Take your lunch break, people aren't them when they are hungry.

Eedat9 votes

Sorry but us robots don't take lunch breaks as we are unable to eat. Beep boop

DontGetMad1 votes

I'm making an truthful comment against a probably billion dollar company, you don't think that I'm not expecting hostile retaliation in the comment section about how you guys are infringing on freedom of speech in AMERICA no matter where you are based out of. Your servers are here so you have to follow our rules. You already ban people for talking so why wouldn't you use your massive power to character assassinate. This is who you are at the root a powerful company who's lost their way.

rujitra6 votes

No, you really aren't.

The 1st Amendment states, literally at it's very beginning, Congress shall pass no law. Has Congress passed a law that states you cannot speak here? No. And the police will not arrest/fine you for breaking this non-existent law.

However, nothing anywhere in the Constitution says anything about what private individuals are allowed to do on their private property. If I don't like how you're speaking? I'm free to kick you out of my house, restaurant, etc.

Bettnachleger1 votes

Your servers are here so you have to follow our rules.

Nope, EU Servers are located in the Netherlands (I think, too lazy to google)

The Kombinator1 votes

They do censor.

And they have the RIGHT TO DO IT. Also people love it, because it's popular to be an oversensitive ****h.

https://i.imgur.com/i9Bnk9W.jpg

Kei1431 votes

You really shouldn't use wikipedia as a credible source of information.

Modi1 votes

{quoted}

You really shouldn't use wikipedia as a credible source of information.

There's nothing wrong with using Wikipedia. What is wrong is the OP's understanding of what the First Amendment guarantees. While it may not be credible enough for a research paper, we are not writing a paper here.

As other people have said, many times before, the OP is conflating the idea of "free speech" with the idea of "consequence free speech".

Kei1431 votes

But I can go into that wiki page right now and change that information to say that the 1st amendment allows you to freely enter people's homes and take stuff, if that goes unreported, it would stay like that for a long time and people will use that thinking it is credible information when it really isn't.

There's a reason why the wikipedia is not a recognized source when writing literature search on research papers.

rujitra1 votes

Hi, prior (and still occasional) Wikipedia contributor here.

This is parroted a lot, but in fact, any professor that looks into it will tend to allow Wikipedia. Hell, I've even had professors use and cite Wikipedia during class.

People think that Wikipedia is edited very infrequently. The "recent changes" list is public - there are hundreds, if not thousands of changes per minute. Many of these are going to be minor, but of those that aren't, many are "reverting" vandalism. There are built in tools for editors to undo vandalism - the simplest one being the undo button which is available to all - logged in or not. More established editors can apply to the administrators for the use of special programs that monitor the entirety of Wikipedia - no matter how small, niche, or "dead" the page may be - and presents the "diff" (the old and new versions with highlighted differences), then allows the editor to revert the change automatically if it is illegitimate. These programs enable the very rapid reversion of vandalism, and there are more tools even beyond these such as limiting the page edits to non-new users.

In fact, the First Amendment page is "semi-protected" - meaning that only a logged in user with at least 10 edits and a certain "tenure" (of a few days) can edit the article. You can see this by looking at the top right of the desktop page, where there is a grey lock, as well as that it says "view source" instead of "edit".

So, TLDR - sure, it may not be a recognized source in your experience, but I've read multiple scientific articles that do use it as a source - using specific versions of the page that don't contain vandalism. And even still, vandalism isn't all that common on Wikipedia, and when it does happen, it's quickly reverted back by editors who simply use programs (ex: Huggle, Twinkle) which enable fast review of all edits on the site across all pages.

Modi1 votes

{quoted}

Hi, prior (and still occasional) Wikipedia contributor here.

This is parroted a lot, but in fact, any professor that looks into it will tend to allow Wikipedia. Hell, I've even had professors use and cite Wikipedia during class.

People think that Wikipedia is edited very infrequently. The "recent changes" list is public - there are hundreds, if not thousands of changes per minute. Many of these are going to be minor, but of those that aren't, many are "reverting" vandalism. There are built in tools for editors to undo vandalism - the simplest one being the undo button which is available to all - logged in or not. More established editors can apply to the administrators for the use of special programs that monitor the entirety of Wikipedia - no matter how small, niche, or "dead" the page may be - and presents the "diff" (the old and new versions with highlighted differences), then allows the editor to revert the change automatically if it is illegitimate. These programs enable the very rapid reversion of vandalism, and there are more tools even beyond these such as limiting the page edits to non-new users.

In fact, the First Amendment page is "semi-protected" - meaning that only a logged in user with at least 10 edits and a certain "tenure" (of a few days) can edit the article. You can see this by looking at the top right of the desktop page, where there is a grey lock, as well as that it says "view source" instead of "edit".

So, TLDR - sure, it may not be a recognized source in your experience, but I've read multiple scientific articles that do use it as a source - using specific versions of the page that don't contain vandalism. And even still, vandalism isn't all that common on Wikipedia, and when it does happen, it's quickly reverted back by editors who simply use programs (ex: Huggle, Twinkle) which enable fast review of all edits on the site across all pages.

While I would not personally use WIkipedia as a source (as it is not often a great source), I have used it to find other sources & citations. I have given credit where credit was due (I have not written a research paper in over a decade). I don't cite Wikipedia itself, but I have used it as a preliminary research tool, to springboard me toward other papers & credible resources.

Wikipedia is amazing; it is an exceptional example of what we accomplish when we cooperate, collaborate, and use our collective knowledge for the good of everyone.

Modi1 votes

{quoted}

But I can go into that wiki page right now and change that information to say that the 1st amendment allows you to freely enter people's homes and take stuff, if that goes unreported, it would stay like that for a long time and people will use that thinking it is credible information when it really isn't.

There's a reason why the wikipedia is not a recognized source when writing literature search on research papers.

Yes, and I bet that two things will happen:

  1. It will be, swiftly, corrected.
  2. You may have your IP banned from editing Wikipedia.

The beauty of crowd sourced knowledge is that inconsistencies are quickly dealt with. As I stated before, this is not a research paper, this is a public message board.

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