Too right, but as an open publishing forum, anyone can publish what they like. It's the responsibility of the IMC collective to take down racist, homophobic, sexist, etc, statements from the newswire. If you see an offensive article, report it to IMC at their contact address (link on the left-hand column). They are usually able to take it off within a few hours. If you are dissatisfied with this, then why not join the IMC collective and help them stop Nazi posts from appearing here?

The problem is that on some issues theres a blurring of the lines between BNP viewpoints and some left wing views. Sometimes its hard to tell whos who.

Sorry dude, but freedom of speech means letting people have their say whether you agree with it or not. If you can't handle that, then you're a fascist yourself, I'm afraid...

Hi
hey why not give a platform to nazis..after all many 'progressive' postings on IM are peppered with sexist and homophobic terminology and no one says anything...so why not tolerate *all* forms of discrimation not just those shared by Nazis and middle class white 'anti-racists' alike?

Look jem, i'll put this as politelly as i can.

IMC-UK does not give platform to fascists, and in fact, if you bother to look at this site's Editorial Guidelines (link on top of the main page), you'll see clearly that we state that fascist, racist, sexist and homophobic postings will be hidden

Now, the people involved in this project here the UK are all volunteers. We are not sitting in a trendy office, paid nicelly by the hour and waiting for our private pensions to sort us out in the future. We are activists, media enthusiats, artists, designers, politically conscious people that have other jobs, responsabilities and projects alongside to indymedia-uk.

We do spend LOTS of our free time to make sure this project goes ahead. We do help implement Open Publishing becaue we think it's one of the best ways to give voice to those that are normally ignored or misrepresented by mainstream and corporate media.

Whilst we believe that Open Publishing is, at present, a revolutionary tool to create a truly independent, grass-roots media, we are also very aware that it has some downfalls, one of which, is to potentially give space for the racist/fascist venom to be published. That is why the few people involved in this project ARE DOING our best to PREVENT this from being the case.

We DO monitor the newswire as often as we can; the fact is that WE ARE doing it daily, more than once a day, but it is IMPOSSIBLE for us alone to be on the case 24/7. So, i think that instead of accusing imc-uk,you'd be much more helpful helping monitor the newswire as dan says.

With your outrageous title "Does Indy media give a platform to the facists???"(that by the way reminds me very much the style of the Daily Mail or The Sun)you are in fact accusing
the people that ARE working VERY hard to keep this project running. These people ARE anti-fascist (amongs many other things)

But i know jem,it is obviously easier to talk crap in a posting to this site, than actually geting involved and helping run Indymedia.

DON'T HATE THE MEDIA, BE THE MEDIA!!

Let's get this straight. The BNP have free speech. They're free, by law, to hold meetings, sell their papers, and stick offensive leaflets through our doors.

But that doesn't mean Indymedia have to publish BNP articles. Forcing the Indymedia collective to publish stuff against their will isn't free speech; in fact it's an attack on their freedom.

By the way, anyone notice that the BNP believe so deeply in free speech that they carry placards saying 'ban the ANL'?

The Nazis have enough free speech - in parliament, the press and on the internet. Racial hatred is an epidemic in this country and a great vote-winner. Why can't the left have its own little media platform, without having to be condemned for being fascist whenever it refuses to share space with Nazis? Why the fuck should I have to tolerate racism, nationalism, sexism and homophobia and any other politics of exclusion, when I am already marginalised for resisting?

The fact is that Nazis are not welcome here, their opinions are not welcome and their offensive comments are not welcome - we want our own non-hierarchical media for our views, not a place for the repetition of racist lies. Indymedia is the voice of the resistance and the oppressed, not a free-for-all for any spotty-arsed Hitler obsessive to publish their rants. So let's help Indymedia purge this Nazi venom from the website, instead of engaging in this fatuous argument about free speech.

IMCistas: You're doing a great job - keep it up!

Too right! The BNP and NF, whether they recognise
it or not are part of his reactionary political-social
system. This is OUR media, the media for those
who want to create alternatives and want to participate
in a global movement against capitalism. This
IMO, is why INDYmedia is independent, independent
of racists, fascists, capitalist scum. Something
which has to be defended.

Also you can't talk about freespeech when the BNP
if they get to power will destroy the whole concept
the same way as they will destroy parliamentary
democracy when it threatens them. Look at Mussolini
and Hitler, both of them were elected into power.
Lets not involve ourselves with these concepts,
they only work against us.

Ok Ok, facist comments perhaps should be taken down. But then you must be carefull how you define what is a facist article. Do you mean all articles that blantently follow a belief that ethnic engineering is the answer, or do you define 'facist' articles as anything that remotely appears right wing? Therefore removing all opposition to the leftist issues discussed on IMC.
Without opposition then the discussion will hardly be exciting or progressive will it?
And just because the BNP would censor the media should they ever get into power does NOT mean that that gives us the right to do the same to them, beacuse what have we become if we follow that path?
Exactly.

... and you will find abundant postings by Nazis of every hue.

Well, this article was posted just after an article, which is removed now, and has been congratulating the BNP to the seat they won in this election somewhere.
It is truely justified to post then a critique here. I see no problem with that.
One thing is that fascists more and more try to hijack lefty views, tactics, tools and opinions for their politics.
See:
 http://www.graswurzel.net/275/nazi.shtml
Translation and Summary:
That resulted in Noam Chomsky's article printed in fascist/neonazi newspapers (National Zeitung NaZe), or Arundhati Roys (Junge Freiheit), or Immanuel Wallerstein.
Rachel Giora, prof at the university of Tel Aviv was interviewed by NaZe after she has signed the appeal "Urgent Warning: The Israeli Government May be Contemplating Crimes against Humanity" in "The Guardian" end of Septmeber. More or less the same happened to Abraham B.Jehoschua.

Karic: We have enough debate within the left, which is so split that it's a wonder we can agree on anything. We don't need the politics of prejudice in Indymedia. IMC is a tool for revolutionary resistence. It is a non-hierarchical medium where people can share their news and experience. It's not a debating forum for fascists (those who preach prejudice, exclusion, nationalism and authoritarianism). There are other places to debate this, not here. Indymedia's editorial guidelines are quite clear about this. If you don't like it, go and argue with fascists in any newsgroup or maybe go to a BNP meeting and air your high morals and libertarianism there - I wish you luck.