AOL Promulgates False Advertising Deliberately

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In article <3tsl9u$7t2@newsbf02.news.aol.com>,
Cerberus <cerberus@aol.com> wrote:


[ON JULY 4th, AOL deleted all postings on the Scientology folders on AOL 
which criticized Scientology, leaving all the postings intact by paid 
salesman who collect a commission on anyone they recruit into their nut cult.]


>Can you guess which ones were deleted by the board monitor?  On July 4th,

>no less.  What a sense of timing, huh?  Might be wise to delete "America"

>from AOL.  Still, it's supposed to be a business, after all.  I don't know

>of _any_ other boards, christian, pagan or whatever, that are so routinely

>scrubbed of any dissenting opinion.  Don't they charge for this kind of

>service?  (keyword "amway") 


considering that AOL has an AUP which specifically forbids commercial use
of the system, and the cult of scientology is definitely a commercial 
organization, and indeed many if not all of the posters to the cult 
folders on AOL are FSMs who get a COMMISSION on anyone who joins the cult,
this is clearly a violation of the ASUP.


the censoring of the posts on it indicates that it is a deliberate 
policy of the AOL management to preserve these folders as COMMERCIAL 
ADVERTISEMENT boards.  


considering that the cult makes demonstrably false medical claims, and
that the 'e-meters' seized in a raid on behalf of the FDA were condemned
to be destroyed as falsely labelled, and that the organization is clearly
fraudulent and regularly issues fraudulent advertising on these boards,
including bogus testimonials and even wild claims that this vicious 
cult can cure AIDS, often by people who make a commission on their lies, 
AOL would be accessory to fraud and false advertising, as well as being 
in clear violation of its own stated policy of not allowing commercial use 
of its system.


considering further that the recent prodigy case indicates that ISPs do
indeed have liability for irresponsible and fraudulent editorial policies,
i would say that AOL is leaving itself wide-open for a lawsuit should the
cult be indeed found to be committing a vicious ponzi scheme in the name
of 'religion.'


this is another quote from cerberus:


>The supervisor of AOL Ethics & Religion boards is Jerry White,

>Sermoner1@aol.com.  I've dealt with Jerry in the past.  He's a standup guy

>doing his best to keep the discussion boards free within the guidelines

>laid down by AOL's Terms of Service (TOS).  He's pioneering how to

>reconcile free speech with a controled electronic community, and it

>frazzles him sometimes.  I've written him about this matter, and he

>basically blew me off with "we're so busy, we get so many complaints, we

>try to do our best but we're expanding so fast, etc."


if cerberus says jerry's a standup guy, he is.  so if you object to
Sermoner1@aol.com concerning this abuse of AOL, _please_ don't dis the 
dude.  thanks.
h
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