Where Everybody Knows You're Numb

Psych Lit · Guru

RE: free speech in the cyber age

Nightowlhoot3 · Guru

Anonymous wrote:

nesea wrote:
Dear Amazon,
I am disheartened to learn that amazon has chosen to de-list GLBT literature, while leaving many other sexually explicit books listed. Had I known that it is amazons policy to discriminate based upon sexual preference or ID I would never have purchased a Kindle. As it stands, unless amazon comes to their senses and practices equality in how it lists and ranks it's inventory I will no longer be an amazon consumer. I will also make a point of advising everyone I know to forgo amazon for online shopping.
Respectfully,
me

-- Edited by nesea on Monday 13th of April 2009 12:54:13 PM

Switching gears but, the thread has died a bit so, hope it is ok. I just learned there is a thing called Espresso. Makes a book right before your eyes. Anyone seen one? I hope Library's that are embracing the technology are finding the basements or, far removed areas the rightful place of such a thing. Sure takes the fun out of the hunt. Gator

Had not heard of it, but espresso tends to make a LOT of things appear right before my eyes. ;)

Date: Sun May 3 7:37 AM, 2009

nesea wrote:
Dear Amazon,
I am disheartened to learn that amazon has chosen to de-list GLBT literature, while leaving many other sexually explicit books listed. Had I known that it is amazons policy to discriminate based upon sexual preference or ID I would never have purchased a Kindle. As it stands, unless amazon comes to their senses and practices equality in how it lists and ranks it's inventory I will no longer be an amazon consumer. I will also make a point of advising everyone I know to forgo amazon for online shopping.
Respectfully,
me

-- Edited by nesea on Monday 13th of April 2009 12:54:13 PM

Switching gears but, the thread has died a bit so, hope it is ok. I just learned there is a thing called Espresso. Makes a book right before your eyes. Anyone seen one? I hope Library's that are embracing the technology are finding the basements or, far removed areas the rightful place of such a thing. Sure takes the fun out of the hunt. Gator

Psych Lit · Guru

nesea wrote:

Psych Lit wrote:

nesea wrote:

a good thing they answered and i love that these cyber entities can be used for good to mobilize people into action. woo and a hoo! now followup is important. is it working in full yet? yesterday i tried to get the best sellers page and it wouldnt load

finally got the time to give a look and everything I looked at in the glbt section had a rating. I do find it bothersome that there is only 289 books in the gay and lesbian section of the kindle book store when there are over 25,000 to choose from in traditional print. I wouldn't have thought the discrepancy would be so big ...

yeah i dont think it is. seems like not all are back online yet or something. maybe they are still dealing with their error? why is it that books or mags having to do with gay or lesbian relationships are adult content while het relationships are not? why is it that when you go looking on websites for gay and lesbian places its listed under the lifestyle category most of the time. is our sexuality a lifestyle while het sexuality is not? too weird.

nesea · Senior Member

Psych Lit wrote:

nesea wrote:

a good thing they answered and i love that these cyber entities can be used for good to mobilize people into action. woo and a hoo! now followup is important. is it working in full yet? yesterday i tried to get the best sellers page and it wouldnt load

finally got the time to give a look and everything I looked at in the glbt section had a rating. I do find it bothersome that there is only 289 books in the gay and lesbian section of the kindle book store when there are over 25,000 to choose from in traditional print. I wouldn't have thought the discrepancy would be so big ...

Psych Lit · Guru

nesea wrote:

and here's my response from amazon:

Hello,

This is an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error for a company that prides itself on offering complete selection.

It has been misreported that the issue was limited to Gay & Lesbian themed titles - in fact, it impacted 57,310 books in a number of broad categories such as Health, Mind & Body, Reproductive & Sexual Medicine, and Erotica. This problem impacted books not just in the United States but globally. It affected not just sales rank but also had the effect of removing the books from Amazon's main product search.

Many books have now been fixed and we're in the process of fixing the remainder as quickly as possible, and we intend to implement new measures to make this kind of accident less likely to occur in the future.

Thanks for contacting us. We hope to see you again soon.

Please let us know if this e-mail resolved your question:

If yes, click here:
http://www.amazon.com/rsvp-y?c=hyewbduf3481676983
If not, click here:
http://www.amazon.com/rsvp-n?c=hyewbduf3481676983

Please note: this e-mail was sent from an address that cannot accept incoming e-mail.

To contact us about an unrelated issue, please visit the Help section of our web site.

Best regards,

sanath kumar
Amazon.com
We're Building Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company
http://www.amazon.com/your-account

---- Original message: ----
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

a good thing they answered and i love that these cyber entities can be used for good to mobilize people into action. woo and a hoo! now followup is important. is it working in full yet? yesterday i tried to get the best sellers page and it wouldnt load

nesea · Senior Member

and here's my response from amazon:

Hello,

This is an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error for a company that prides itself on offering complete selection.

It has been misreported that the issue was limited to Gay & Lesbian themed titles - in fact, it impacted 57,310 books in a number of broad categories such as Health, Mind & Body, Reproductive & Sexual Medicine, and Erotica. This problem impacted books not just in the United States but globally. It affected not just sales rank but also had the effect of removing the books from Amazon's main product search.

Many books have now been fixed and we're in the process of fixing the remainder as quickly as possible, and we intend to implement new measures to make this kind of accident less likely to occur in the future.

Thanks for contacting us. We hope to see you again soon.

Please let us know if this e-mail resolved your question:

If yes, click here:
http://www.amazon.com/rsvp-y?c=hyewbduf3481676983
If not, click here:
http://www.amazon.com/rsvp-n?c=hyewbduf3481676983

Please note: this e-mail was sent from an address that cannot accept incoming e-mail.

To contact us about an unrelated issue, please visit the Help section of our web site.

Best regards,

sanath kumar
Amazon.com
We're Building Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company
http://www.amazon.com/your-account

---- Original message: ----
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-- Edited by nesea on Tuesday 14th of April 2009 05:47:13 AM

nesea · Senior Member

Psych Lit wrote:

i just tried to get the best seller and sales lists off the site but its not working. according to fox news the initial problem was due to hacking on the site. im wondering if thats still the case?

This doesn't say "hackers" to me ..........

Previous Entry | Next Entry

Amazon Follies

Apr. 12th, 2009 at 2:08 AM

On Amazon.com two days ago, mysteriously, the sales rankings disappeared from two newly-released high profile gay romance books: Transgressions by Erastes and False Colors by Alex Beecroft. Everybody was perplexed. Was it a glitch of some sort? The very next day HUNDREDS of gay and lesbian books simultaneously lost their sales rankings, including my book The Filly. There was buzz, Whats going on? Does Amazon have some sort of campaign to suppress the visibility of gay books? Is it just a major glitch in the system? Many of us decided to write to Amazon questioning why our rankings had disappeared. Most received evasive replies from customer service reps not versed in what was happening. As I am a publisher and have an Amazon Advantage account through which I supply Amazon with my books, I had a special way to contact them. 24 hours later I had a response:

In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude "adult" material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature.

Hence, if you have further questions, kindly write back to us.

Best regards,

Ashlyn D

Member Services

Amazon.com Advantage

Yes, it is true. Amazon admits they are indeed stripping the sales ranking indicators for what they deem to be adult material. Of course they are being hypocritical because there is a multitude of adult literature out there that is still being ranked Harold Robbins, Jackie Collins, come on! They are using categories THEY set up (gay and lesbian) to now target these books as somehow offensive.

Now in fairness I should point out that Amazon has also stopped ranking many books in the "erotica" categories as well which includes straight erotica. But that's a whole other battle that I'll leave to the erotica writers to take on.

Now I could probably convince the automatons at Amazon that The Filly is YA and therefore not adult in the least, and I could probably even convince them to reinstate my ranking. But if they are excluding books just on the basis of being gay then by all means exclude mine too because I dont want them just to reinstate the nice gay books, they need to reinstate all the gay books and if they are really going to try and exclude so-called adult material, then how come this has an Amazon ranking?

Here is a screencap of the case log from Amazon. Keep clicking on the image to make it bigger

************For everyone who has commented on my blog - Thank you very much. and everyone who has asked if they can use my name and link back to me. YES please do. Spread the word. Amazon will be beside itself in the face of all this fury!

*******UPDATE**************
Publisher's Weekly now has a story here, that an Amazon spokesperson claims this is all a glitch and they have no such new policy. My caselog is still active in my Advantage account with the response from customer service rep Ashlyn D. Also I'd like to point you to this blog of an author who received this same response from Amazon back in February. Amazon has some 'splainin' to do!

***********UPDATE #2******************
As of 8 AM this morning (April 13th) The Filly has had its ranking reinstated by Amazon. I also noticed Alex Beecroft's False Colors was reinstated as well. Many others are not, so they haven't fixed the "so-called" glitch as of yet.

*******FINAL UPDATE******************
Amazon has released a statement of apology stating that it was an "embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error" that pertained to 57,310 listings. They also say that It has been misreported that the issue was limited to Gay & Lesbian themed titles. So it's over. Amazon admits they goofed, and I, for one, shall give them the benefit of the doubt and say I do not believe that there was any malicious intent. Case closed

-- Edited by nesea on Tuesday 14th of April 2009 04:14:52 AM

Psych Lit · Guru

i just tried to get the best seller and sales lists off the site but its not working. according to fox news the initial problem was due to hacking on the site. im wondering if thats still the case?

Psych Lit · Guru

Anonymous wrote:

nesea wrote:

Speaking of free speech .... this prompted me to write a letter of my own, although it's not as well written as the letter in the article I felt compelled.
April 12, 2009 6:30 PM PDT
Amazon criticized for deranking 'adult' books
Amazon.com recently delisted from its sales ranking system gay and lesbian book titles that it deemed "adult," raising the ire of some who characterize the move as online censorship.
Author Mark R. Probst wrote on his blog Sunday that he noticed the chang

thanks for posting this. i hadnt heard this before today but apparently its been going on for some time. kudos to those who tweet and write letters or blog when these things happen because thats what makes corporations rethink. amazons 3 explanations for what happened may or may not be factual but its good to know that they are in the process of 'fixing" this.

Date: Mon Apr 13 6:56 PM, 2009

nesea wrote:

Speaking of free speech .... this prompted me to write a letter of my own, although it's not as well written as the letter in the article I felt compelled.
April 12, 2009 6:30 PM PDT
Amazon criticized for deranking 'adult' books
Amazon.com recently delisted from its sales ranking system gay and lesbian book titles that it deemed "adult," raising the ire of some who characterize the move as online censorship.
Author Mark R. Probst wrote on his blog Sunday that he noticed the change a few days ago:

On Amazon.com two days ago, mysteriously, the sales rankings disappeared from two newly-released high profile gay romance books: "Transgressions" by Erastes and "False Colors" by Alex Beecroft. Everybody was perplexed. Was it a glitch of some sort? The very next day HUNDREDS of gay and lesbian books simultaneously lost their sales rankings, including my book "The Filly." There was buzz, What's going on? Does Amazon have some sort of campaign to suppress the visibility of gay books?

Probst, the author of a novel with gay characters in the Old West, said he was perplexed by the move and used his status as a publisher to contact Amazon for an explanation. He said he received the following response from an Amazon Advantage service representative:

In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude "adult" material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature.
Of course, being delisted from the rankings doesn't mean that the book giant has stopped selling the title; it just means that the title won't show up with a public sales ranking or in the best-seller lists--often a factor in how shoppers make their purchases.
An Amazon representative characterized the move as a mistake but declined to elaborate.
"Essentially, there's a glitch in our system and it's being fixed," Amazon spokesperson Patty Smith told CNET News.
Certainly, one could make an argument that deranking titles with "adult" themes would make a reasonable policy for a site that attracts a wide range of the Internet population. But as demonstrated by an online petition that has already attracted more than 4,000 signatures, the policy appears to be biased against books with gay, lesbian, and transgendered characters.
Here's a sampling of books titles that the petition's backers noted are still ranked in the listing system (all notes and descriptions on the titles are supplied by the petition supporters):

"Playboy: The Complete Centerfolds" by Chronicle Books (pictures of over 600 naked women)
Rosemary Rogers' "Sweet Savage Love" (explicit heterosexual romance)
Kathleen Woodiwiss' "The Wolf and the Dove" (explicit heterosexual romance)
Bertrice Smal's "Skye o'Malley," (which are all explicit heterosexual romances)
Alan Moore's "Lost Girls" (which is a very explicit sexual graphic novel)

The petition supporters note that the following titles with gay and lesbian themes are no longer ranked on Amazon:

Radclyffe Hill's classic novel about lesbians in Victorian times, The Well of Loneliness, and which contains not one sentence of sexual description;
Mark R. Probst's YA novel "The Filly" about a young man in the wild West discovering that he's gay (gay romance, no sex);
Charlie Cochrane's "Lessons in Love" (gay romance with no sex)
"The Dictionary of Homophobia: A Global History of Gay & Lesbian Experience," edited by Louis-George Tin (non-fiction, history and social issues)
"Homophobia: A History" by Bryan Fone (nonfiction, focus on history and the forms prejudice against homosexuality has taken over the years)

The move has raised the ire of heterosexuals, including Kassia Krozser, who wrote an open letter to the online retailer:

Somehow, the brain trust of your company has decided to protect the "entire" Amazon customer base by restricting access to content that someone (who?) decided was offensive. In your zeal to protect me from myself, of course, you managed to leave content that I find singularly repulsive online (really, exploring the human condition is bad, but Mein Kampf is just fine?).

As a heterosexual, happily married adult female, I am deeply offended by this decision. As a customer, I am angered enough to take my business elsewhere, and I'd like a refund on my Kindle since, despite reports that your database sweep was not complete, you have decided to limit my ability to purchase books -- from literary classics like Lady Chatterley's Lover to newesque titles like Tipping The Velvet and Running With Scissors.

It's unclear what--if any--impact this backlash will have on Amazon, but certainly many are troubled (and should be) that the bookseller is apparently trying to make certain books harder to find.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here is my letter:

Dear Amazon,
I am disheartened to learn that amazon has chosen to de-list GLBT literature, while leaving many other sexually explicit books listed. Had I known that it is amazons policy to discriminate based upon sexual preference or ID I would never have purchased a Kindle. As it stands, unless amazon comes to their senses and practices equality in how it lists and ranks it's inventory I will no longer be an amazon consumer. I will also make a point of advising everyone I know to forgo amazon for online shopping.
Respectfully,
me

-- Edited by nesea on Monday 13th of April 2009 12:54:13 PM

Great for you:) I have never used them but, I went and, looked at the top 100 bestsellers and, it looked like a recomendation list from Glen Beck. Even some Bortz has mentioned. But, A lot Glen Beck has. I get sleepy some days when I have a long drive and, listen to be irritated awake. And, you know about keeping your enemies closer. Anyway, the list is very, very conservative. Gator

nesea · Senior Member

Speaking of free speech .... this prompted me to write a letter of my own, although it's not as well written as the letter in the article I felt compelled.

April 12, 2009 6:30 PM PDT

Amazon criticized for deranking 'adult' books

Amazon.com recently delisted from its sales ranking system gay and lesbian book titles that it deemed "adult," raising the ire of some who characterize the move as online censorship.

Author Mark R. Probst wrote on his blog Sunday that he noticed the change a few days ago:

On Amazon.com two days ago, mysteriously, the sales rankings disappeared from two newly-released high profile gay romance books: "Transgressions" by Erastes and "False Colors" by Alex Beecroft. Everybody was perplexed. Was it a glitch of some sort? The very next day HUNDREDS of gay and lesbian books simultaneously lost their sales rankings, including my book "The Filly." There was buzz, What's going on? Does Amazon have some sort of campaign to suppress the visibility of gay books?

Probst, the author of a novel with gay characters in the Old West, said he was perplexed by the move and used his status as a publisher to contact Amazon for an explanation. He said he received the following response from an Amazon Advantage service representative:

In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude "adult" material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature.
Of course, being delisted from the rankings doesn't mean that the book giant has stopped selling the title; it just means that the title won't show up with a public sales ranking or in the best-seller lists--often a factor in how shoppers make their purchases.
An Amazon representative characterized the move as a mistake but declined to elaborate.
"Essentially, there's a glitch in our system and it's being fixed," Amazon spokesperson Patty Smith told CNET News.
Certainly, one could make an argument that deranking titles with "adult" themes would make a reasonable policy for a site that attracts a wide range of the Internet population. But as demonstrated by an online petition that has already attracted more than 4,000 signatures, the policy appears to be biased against books with gay, lesbian, and transgendered characters.
Here's a sampling of books titles that the petition's backers noted are still ranked in the listing system (all notes and descriptions on the titles are supplied by the petition supporters):

"Playboy: The Complete Centerfolds" by Chronicle Books (pictures of over 600 naked women)
Rosemary Rogers' "Sweet Savage Love" (explicit heterosexual romance)
Kathleen Woodiwiss' "The Wolf and the Dove" (explicit heterosexual romance)
Bertrice Smal's "Skye o'Malley," (which are all explicit heterosexual romances)
Alan Moore's "Lost Girls" (which is a very explicit sexual graphic novel)

The petition supporters note that the following titles with gay and lesbian themes are no longer ranked on Amazon:

Radclyffe Hill's classic novel about lesbians in Victorian times, The Well of Loneliness, and which contains not one sentence of sexual description;
Mark R. Probst's YA novel "The Filly" about a young man in the wild West discovering that he's gay (gay romance, no sex);
Charlie Cochrane's "Lessons in Love" (gay romance with no sex)
"The Dictionary of Homophobia: A Global History of Gay & Lesbian Experience," edited by Louis-George Tin (non-fiction, history and social issues)
"Homophobia: A History" by Bryan Fone (nonfiction, focus on history and the forms prejudice against homosexuality has taken over the years)

The move has raised the ire of heterosexuals, including Kassia Krozser, who wrote an open letter to the online retailer:

Somehow, the brain trust of your company has decided to protect the "entire" Amazon customer base by restricting access to content that someone (who?) decided was offensive. In your zeal to protect me from myself, of course, you managed to leave content that I find singularly repulsive online (really, exploring the human condition is bad, but Mein Kampf is just fine?).

As a heterosexual, happily married adult female, I am deeply offended by this decision. As a customer, I am angered enough to take my business elsewhere, and I'd like a refund on my Kindle since, despite reports that your database sweep was not complete, you have decided to limit my ability to purchase books -- from literary classics like Lady Chatterley's Lover to newesque titles like Tipping The Velvet and Running With Scissors.

It's unclear what--if any--impact this backlash will have on Amazon, but certainly many are troubled (and should be) that the bookseller is apparently trying to make certain books harder to find.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here is my letter:

Dear Amazon,
I am disheartened to learn that amazon has chosen to de-list GLBT literature, while leaving many other sexually explicit books listed. Had I known that it is amazons policy to discriminate based upon sexual preference or ID I would never have purchased a Kindle. As it stands, unless amazon comes to their senses and practices equality in how it lists and ranks it's inventory I will no longer be an amazon consumer. I will also make a point of advising everyone I know to forgo amazon for online shopping.

Respectfully,
me

-- Edited by nesea on Monday 13th of April 2009 12:54:13 PM

nesea · Senior Member

Psych Lit wrote:

Does the "campaign" ever end or have we entered into a time when these things all run together. how difficult to govern with these kinds of distractions under the best of circumstances but when there are so many problems i cant help but want people to just stfu realize that they have lost, do it gracefully, and stop getting in the way. i know thats not going to happen any time soon but i can hope, cant i?
Obama's Effort at Online Transparency Stymied by Internet Trolls

It's amazing isn't it .. the internet at its worst. The mentality of "if you don't agree with me I will do whatever I can to cause trouble and disrupt your efforts" ... and the worst part is this can't even be put off to "kids acting out" .. I bet you more than a fair number of those trolling were of voting age.

Psych Lit · Guru

Does the "campaign" ever end or have we entered into a time when these things all run together. how difficult to govern with these kinds of distractions under the best of circumstances but when there are so many problems i cant help but want people to just stfu realize that they have lost, do it gracefully, and stop getting in the way. i know thats not going to happen any time soon but i can hope, cant i?

Obama's Effort at Online Transparency Stymied by Internet Trolls

President Obama's pledge to provide open dialogue on his Web site is being tested by Internet trolls -- gangs of activists who try to derail discussions -- and now the White House faces unique challenges as it tries to manage the posts without infringing on the right to free speech.

By James Osborne

FOXNews.com

Monday, April 13, 2009

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President Obama's pledge to open the White House up to the public through online forums faces an irksome challenge: a plague of Internet "trolls" -- troublemakers who work to derail cyber-conversations through harassing and inflammatory posts.

The problem became immediately apparent last month when Obama held an online "town hall" forum on the economy and invited the public to post questions on the White House Web site.

Those questions, in turn, were voted on by users to determine which ones the president would answer.

Three and a half million people participated in the event, but the "trolls" had their way: Following a coordinated campaign by marijuana advocates to vote their topic to the top of the list, questions on the future of the U.S. dollar and the rising unemployment rate were superseded by questions about legalizing pot as an economic remedy.

The president himself had a good laugh about the volume of marijuana-related questions, saying, "I don't know what this says about the online audience -- we want to make sure that it was answered. The answer is, no, I don't think that is a good strategy to grow our economy."

But the die was cast. Through a perfectly legal "underground" campaign, a relatively insignificant question had risen to the top.

For the White House, the question was not so much how to answer it -- but what to do about it, and how to prevent it in the future.

Unlike privately run Web sites, whose managers are free to remove nettlesome material, the White House finds itself searching for a way to combat these disruptive users without infringing on their right to free speech and inciting cries of censorship.

In 1997, the Supreme Court ruled that freedom-of-speech laws apply to the Internet after the American Civil Liberties Union sued the government over a federal law that would have criminalized the online transmission of obscene or explicit content.

"The law is well established, which doesn't mean government actors aren't going to try to restrict speech on the Internet, and that has happened," said Aden Fine, an attorney with the ACLU. "Restricting speech on the Internet is something we all need to be concerned about."

With all eyes on its cyber-presence, the White House will have to tread carefully.

Government institutions have the right to remove obscenities or limit comments to a specific subject area, but they are limited in their ability to remove comments that are merely repetitive or disruptive, said John Morris, legal counsel to the Center for Democracy and Technology.

"If the comment is on topic, they won't be able to remove that without raising some constitutional issues," he said. "Say they did a forum on national security issues, and activists say Guantanamo needs to be closed next month and not next year, and they flood the forum.

"It's on topic and they're not violating obscenity rules," explained Morris. "The government would have a difficult time pulling it down."

Ever since the first Usenet group was created in 1979, Web administrators have been contending with "trolls."

In 1998 Judith Donath, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, chronicled various cases, including one where a troll logged on to a brides' forum and assumed the persona of an upper-crust matron, admonishing other users for supposed breaches of etiquette such as using a laser printer for their invitations rather than an engraver.

"Responding to a troll is very tempting, especially since these posts are designed to incite," Donath wrote. "Yet this is where the troll can cause the most harm, by diverting the discussion off the newsgroup topic and into a heated argument.

"Trolling is a game about identity deception, albeit one that is played without the consent of most of the players."

But scrubbing trolls' comments from a site presents a whole new challenge. And considering the increasing role online discussion board and forums play in people's lives, many don't consider it a laughing matter.

While Obama's marijuana advocates wouldn't technically be considered trolls, who are defined by their lack of definitive positions and a simple desire for disorder, these special-interest groups do muddle the president's message and related discourse.

How the White House will handle those and other disturbances in the future poses a conundrum.

Methodologies to control online discussion boards and forums are wide-ranging -- including everything from filters that keep out spam and obscenities, to more advanced software that analyzes language for an overly negative or harassing tone that a Web administrator might choose to flag.

Many sites allow users to assess the value of other posts and determine their prominence in the forum, in effect creating an online democracy.

But even that can prove problematic, as evidenced by Obama's first online Q&A last month.

Daniel Ha, CEO and founder of the Web site management company Disqus, said he was generally impressed with the White House's online savvy, but that there was still work to be done.

"Content submitted by other people is really hard to -- I don't want to say control, but maintain and set a quality to," Ha said. "A lot of the issues they're going to have to address as they go along. [An online forum] is just a medium. It's the same as if they held a rally in the park and people started making noise. That problem is going to exist no matter where you do it."

Morris said he didn't see any legal issues with using software to manage the forum, as long as the software was "viewpoint neutral."

"If you have software that looks at repetitive and harassing comments, regardless of the content, that's something the government can do," he said.

A White House spokesman did not respond to specific questions about what online tools they were using, only saying, "we are continuing to explore ways to use the Internet to increase the American people's access to the government and to engage with them about the challenges facing our country."

"People were informed that this was a community-moderated system, and people should remember that even though they may not like the viewpoint behind someone's question, everyone has a right to their opinion."

No announcement has been made on the date of the next White House online forum.