In light of pi guy posting the clear proof that there were death threats on vgchartz against an entire group of Americans who make up roughly 45% of the US citizenry in a given year, I think we need to go back to his fellow moderator Shadow1980s's "hold your ground" moment earlier in this thread and take stalk of what we're seeing happen here:

1. The original post in this discussion was about a legitimate concern, now echoed by others, that the moderators here are heavy-handed towards right-of-center (or just center) users while giving hall passes galore to those on the left and even far left (see also, below: supporter Leynos).
2. Shadow1980s made it clear that expressing views which are orthodox doctrine for major religious groups (Christians, Jews, Muslims) on the nature of human sexuality will get one banned here on the forum.  To wit, from earlier today: "This was the user deliberately misgendering a game dev"
3. Shadow1980s continues to give similar woke-sympathetic arguments for why others got banned here, before ending with: "This isn't 4Chan, GAF, or any of the other places where it's cool to go around openly hating on marginalized groups. Not one bit of that flies here. We will shut that shit down, no exceptions." (emphasis added)
4. And then we have this...
   
   
   
   Leynos is still posting as of 12 hours ago from the time of my post here.  There have been numerous radical left wing activists, including many alphabet activists, who have murdered Americans from young Christian school kids in Tennessee to conservative activist Charlie Kirk in September 2025.
   
   In other words, a reasonable person would conclude that conservatives, Christians and others who Shadow1980s likes to attack here are indeed, to use the vgchartz's rules, marginalized insofar as Leynos both felt comfortable to post what he did, and none of the moderators banned him for death threats.
   
   
5. So, as others have pointed out, the rules as not clear as Shadow is saying, both in definition and in enforcement consistency...in fact, when I read him stating that you can get banned here for calling someone who says they're a girl a guy, but pi-guy frets about a death threat from a still-active user with "I don't know what the right answer should have been", we have a problem that goes way beyond the typical "rules for thee, but not for me" hypocrisy many of us on the outside have come to expect from the modern Left (see also: Paris, as it burns today)
   

So my questions to both Shadow and pi-guy are:

1. Do we need to get the FBI involved at this point?  Seriously.  
We've had way too many cases of posts threatening to kill people like us in online forums by these activists who follow through with their murderous hatred for those who don't think like they do and no one did anything about it in recent US history.

2. If you're going to host political discussions here either in the politics area or elsewhere, have you taken reasonable steps - such as having a legitimately conservative moderator or two - to balance your own policing and ensure that the rules are enforced in a balanced and defendable manner?  It looks like there are some well-spoken candidates earlier in this thread you could bring on to ensure this doesn't happen again.

---

I'm grateful that pi-guy had the integrity to post the link to the original threats and think that Shadow, in particular, owes us an explanation the next time he's online as to when Leynos will be banned given his other stated banning activity in the last year and what he will personally do to curb the culture he has helped foster here.

If this doesn't get resolved justly and swiftly, I don't it would be unreasonable for someone to pass this situation onto the FBI tips line.  It's that serious.

Great post, just exactly right.  I will be curious if the mods bother with a reply.  

To borrow a phase, this is the smoking gun.  Everyone wanted a concrete example of rampant favoritism, here it is folks.

Wait... has anyone actually been banned for anti-rap sentiments? Or anything even vaguely similar? If you have to come up with hypothetical exxamples to show there's a problem, it makes it seem like there actually isn't one.

The point wasn't to show that someone has been banned for anti-rap sentiments or something vaguely similar. The point was to give an example of how many bans work by applying the rules in an unfair and open-ended manner. If you want actual examples of how the rules are applied in an unfair and open ended manner I bet you'll get to see them if a mod responds to my quote of their 4 example bans. Or I could dredge up old bans of my own and show how loosely written rules are applied to ban me. Or let's just look at perma-banned members that were long-time users and see how a "history" of bad posting habits led to the perma-ban. And of course the "history" of bans and moderations will have rules applied loosly or mods assuming they can read the mind of said user. 

But then again, I shouldn't even need examples because the way the rules are written in a murky, undefined manner right now, you can be banned for pretty much any post that is even slightly controversial. It's all up to the mod in queestion. And if you don't see how poorly defined rules is a problem I can't help you. 

This is a well known problem in law. Making rules that are very rigid makes them easy to skirt. I.e. if you ban a certain word people use synonyms. Making laws that are too open to interpretation make it harder to sidestep the rules but may allow too much discretion to whoever is enforcing them.

I doubt that the mods of a gaming forum, who do not actually make the rules, are going to resolve this problem.

If this actually causes a problem in practice then the rap example does not show it as nothing so benign has, to my knowledge, lead to moderation.

"And they call me an extremist for wanting to blow up AI data centers."

Posted an hour ago. I have zero idea how this isn't domestic terrorism.

Some perspective:

The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed that the First Amendment protects aggressive rhetoric, offensive language, and even calls for violence, as long as they function as political hyperbole or general advocacy rather than direct, actionable threats.

Under Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), the Supreme Court established that abstractly advocating for violence or lawlessness—even extreme statements like calling for the destruction of a group—is constitutionally protected.

There is no "hate speech" exception to the First Amendment. Rhetoric targeting a specific group with hostile or hateful language remains legally protected unless it crosses into a specific category of unprotected speech.


Unprotected speech:

A statement loses protection if a reasonable person would perceive it as a serious expression of an intent to commit unlawful violence against a specific individual or group, placing the target in reasonable fear of bodily harm or death. If the "exclamation" includes detailed targets, actionable plans, or direct intimidation, it can be prosecuted as a true threat.

Incitement: Under the Brandenburg standard, speech is unprotected if it is explicitly directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action AND is likely to incite or produce such action. A general exclamation does not qualify; there must be a high likelihood of immediate, real-world lawbreaking resulting directly from the words.

Note:

In the landmark case Counterman v. Colorado (2023), the U.S. Supreme Court established that the government cannot convict someone of making a true threat based solely on how a listener reacted or felt.

The prosecution must prove subjective recklessness. This means the speaker must have personally been aware that their words could be taken as a serious threat of violence and chose to publish them anyway. If a person is just venting, using highly charged political hyperbole, or engaging in extreme online trolling without realizing it could be perceived as a literal declaration of violence, the subjective requirement is not met.

Domestic terrorism:

Under the USA PATRIOT Act (18 U.S.C. § 2331), domestic terrorism is defined as activities that involve acts dangerous to human life that violate criminal laws, and appear intended to intimidate a civilian population or influence government policy.



First of all, the call for the destruction of data centers is about as real a threat as a call to destroy all cars. It's hyperbole rather than incitement. Second it's not domestic terrorism according to its own definition. For that, a post has to include actual specific intent and capability (e.g., "Here is the address of the local facility, here is how to bypass the fence, let's target it tonight")


But you do get on a watch list:

Leaked confidential law enforcement bulletins reveal that regional intelligence networks actively monitor public forums, memes, and blog entries targeting AI and data center expansion. Posts using phrases like "burn them down" or referencing a "jihad against AI" are flagged in threat assessments to gauge potential risks to physical infrastructure.

https://theintercept.com/2026/06/01/ai-data-center-protest-police-surveillance/



Just wishing for the destruction of data centers is protected by free speech and is far from terrorism.

Science, we have delays between instrumental runs, browsing the internet is common.  I have no idea what IT can (or can't) pick up.  But those types of comments bothered me personally and professionally.  I know it is speculation, but where I see the problem is the other versions wouldn't be allowed.  We should get rid of all democrats, we should blow up woke centers, etc.  That **** would be banned immediately.  There is a clear and obvious double standard with the mods.  Anybody who thinks otherwise is foolish, IMHO.  Either way, I found other websites that actually are fair.  I only popped by to check out the PC thread, thus I will be leaving till my next lurking session.