Censorship Of Criticism Of Advertisers

[DegenFarang]

In the Visa section now there are two large threads about testing being done for people on ED visa's. It is obvious from the posts and many which have been deleted - that a high percentage of TV users come from one particular school. That school also happens to be a very prominent sponsor of this website. Each time a post is made which is critical of that school - even a very long post about other things that simply contains a one line criticism of that school, it is deleted and the moderators say 'this thread is about discussion of visa's and testing, discussion of language schools must be in the language forum'.

Perhaps under normal circumstances that makes sense, I don't know, but in this particular case - where the teaching people receive, the promises and assurances they were given by their school, and the changes taking place at immigration are so intertwined, I believe it is extremely relevant to the threads for the school to be discussed and criticized where appropriate.

Furthermore from an outsiders perspective, and I know I am not alone in this feeling, it appears that this school is being given special treatment due to the fact that they advertise on this forum. I did a search and cannot find a single thread anywhere on this forum dedicated to the poor teaching that takes place at this school or the unrealistic promises they advertise and make to their students and prospective students (opinions shared by many people). This is your website and you will run it how you see fit, I would just like to point out that taking actions such as this, particularly when you may be indirectly harming many of your members by not making all of the information available to them, may line your pocketbook in the short run - but it will harm your credibility and user loyalty in the long run.

I hope that you will consider my request for open and honest discussion and debate of this and other language schools in the ED Visa threads, where such discussion is relevant to the testing and extension of visa's.

Edited January 6, 2010 by DegenFarang

[DegenFarang]

A specific example: consider how it will make TV look if the very real and possible scenario occurs where it is discovered by the Thai authorities that the vast majority of students on ED visa's at this school never attend classes and even those that do are not learning to speak Thai in any meaningful way, and the MOE and/or Immigration refuses to issue new ED visa's for students of this school or extend ED visa's for current students. This would result in a fairly large fiasco which you could likely not silence without inciting a rebellion among your users, and a central piece of the discussion would center around the fact that it appears TV has had a policy to silence all complaints about this school - and thus, did not allow warnings to be heeded to those who handed their money over to them. How do you think this would impact TV's reputation?

[jazzbo]

from Forum Rules:

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[Mario2008]

Discussion of moderation is not allowed. This topic is now closed. If you have any questions, please contact a moderator or support.