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Censorship on indymedia

Free Speech | 15.03.2003 19:39

How can you call this independant media, when in reality all it is a platform for left wing anarchists only.

I'm sick of seeing the name INDY media, when in reality this website is not independant.

How can this site claim to be an independant source of news when you censor and remove anything that isn't in-line with the left-wing anarchist ideology. It seems to me the most convincing posts from other political creeds are always removed, sometimes within minutes. This is disgraceful.

The only media this is is for the left wing only, so you should stop calling yourselves something that you blatently aren't.

You might quip back that the stories are corporate, no, barely any of the ones that have been pulled came from the corporate media. You may accuse them of racism, when your editors don't even read the posts - the rule seems to be, if its not left wing then delete it, whatever the material.

How can a proper debate be had if indymedia censors material just like the mainstream corporate media does.

This is not indymedia, it's censormedia, with all the hallmarks of the Communist secret police, libertarians? more like authoritarian communists!

Free Speech

Comments

Hide the following 14 comments

sites wonky

15.03.2003 20:59

I think they censor very much, but you do realise that the site don't work like other indymedia sites, you have to wait for about twenty minutes for the confirmation that you article has been published, hence the abundance of double treble, more, postings. when you add a comment you never know wether it's gonna show or not.... could this be your problem?

wonker


No Right Wing Propaganda Here Thanks

15.03.2003 21:23

Your only pissed off because your right wing crap doesn't appear on this site - Ha Ha!

Stuey
mail e-mail: stuey@surfanytime.co.uk
- Homepage: users.surfanytime.co.uk/stuey


Censorship?

15.03.2003 22:31

How can you talk about censorship in a medium like the internet? The only people that really have the power of censorship are governments and ISPs. Indymedia is a platform for radical independent journalists to publish their stories which otherwise don't get coverage in the mainstream. It's not a place for right-wing propaganda. If you want to read this, try another website - www.bbc.co.uk is a good start.

Dan


Well said Dan

15.03.2003 23:22

Don't forget Sky News, ITN, CNN, NBC, CBS, Fox News and all the rest of the corporate media, this site is the only place that our view can be expressed without censorship.

Stuey
mail e-mail: stuey@surfanytime.co.uk
- Homepage: users.surfanytime.co.uk/stuey


real radicalism

15.03.2003 23:27

I'm talking about REAL radicalism here, BBC is globalist/internationalist, I'm a nationalist, my views aren't represented in the main stream media therefore I demand that any articles I submit to this newswire are allowed to remain, if you delete them then you're committing censorship, and if the article adheres to your guidelines, which I'll check and state if it does or not at the top of each one I post, then you're breaking your own rules.

If you can't agree to that then you are not what you say you are merely, a conduit for left-wing anarchist articles.

ffs


Read the guidelines fascist

16.03.2003 00:36


Read the guidelines fascist

 http://uk.indymedia.org/ms.php3

Be the media


hard to judge validity

16.03.2003 04:38

Without some example to support your claim of censorship how are we supposed to take your attack seriously? I think any question of indy's politics is answered by the larger context laid out in editorial guidelines and the structure in which open publishing exists.

Thanks for the comment on the slow uptake on the site.

As for left wing anarchists only, well sometimes I wish....

RedGreenBlack


Whiny "nationalist" prannet

16.03.2003 11:56

Innit marvellous eh?

These "nationalists" (nice euphemism guys, pity everyone knows what it's a code for) really crack me up.

If you look at modern BNP/NF propaganda, the fash are always whingeing about their 'freedom of speech' being denied while espousing politics which openly fly in the face of civil rights for all and all the things which "freedom" is actually about.

Free speech is not the freedom to shout "fire" in a crowded cinema.

And as for your grubby "nationalism" - look mate, just because your parents fucked here and this is where you happened to be born, doesn't mean anything.

Politics is not like supporting your local football team - its about thought and ideas and principles, NOT my country/race right or wrong.

No platform for dickheads.

Mad Monk


'Free Speech' on the net

16.03.2003 13:35

If you want to help support free speech on the net then help with the freenet project.

 http://freenetproject.org/tiki-index.php?page=FAQ

Helping 'free speech' at it purist which IMC can never be.

Install it on any networked computer you have access to install programs on. I guess if you are reading this you have access to a networked computer, and if you can install software on You need to install Java first, if it is not allready. Only once you have done this should you moan to others about 'free speech'.

It is built in java servlets which is what coming new web solution for UK IMC, MIR, is built in for some of same reasons to protect the network from the powers that be. It is all rather clever.

What is Freenet?

Freenet is a large-scale peer-to-peer network, which pools the power of member computers around the world to create a massive virtual information store, much like a global hard drive.

The main aim of Freenet is to help preserve freedom of speech on the Internet. Because of this, Freenet functions very differently from most other peer-to-peer networks today.

To achieve this freedom, the network is built first and foremost with anonymity in mind. Without anonymity there can never be true freedom of speech as it is then open to censorship. Communications by Freenet nodes are encrypted and are "routed-through" other nodes to make it more difficult to determine who is requesting the information and what its content is.

Users contribute to the network by giving bandwidth and a portion of their hard drive (called the "data store") for storing files. Unlike other peer-to-peer file sharing networks, Freenet does not let the user control what is stored in the data store. Instead, files are kept or deleted depending on how popular they are, with the least popular being discarded to make way for newer or more popular content. Files in the data store are encrypted to reduce the likelihood of prosecution by persons wishing to censor Freenet content.

The network can be used in a number of different ways and isn't restricted to just sharing files like other peer-to-peer networks. It acts more like an Internet within an Internet. For example Freenet can be used for:

* Publishing websites or 'freesites'
* Communicating via message boards
* Playing simple turn-based games like Chess
* File sharing

There are a number of applications that run on top of Freenet. These range from making publishing freesites easier to being able to communicate with others via message boards.

sb
- Homepage: http://www.freenetproject.org


misunderstanding

16.03.2003 14:40

there is a real misunderstanding among the average anarchist block-head about the meaning of modern nationalism. Advocating that the races, which are distinct and unique in their own right, have their own traditions and cultures, are encouraged to remain seperate and unique, is what nationalism is. It is not geo-political, it is BIO-political. It is simply what comes to natural to most people until they are brainwashed by vested interest media and governments, which advocate either "internationalism" based on false equality myths, or globalism based on greed and profiteering.

Real nationalists do not hate other races, in fact, we wish to preserve the world as a diverse place rather than destroy every race through mixing.

facts


Facts's "facts" are crap

16.03.2003 15:34

NOT being the "average anarchist blockhead", I'd like to point out to our separatist chum that he is talking total bollocks.

The idea of separate cultures and traditions is NOT biological, as any idiot can see - it is sociological, as it is society which raises children with a national identity, a particular language and set of assumptions.

A new born baby is a blank canvas. If you took a 3-hour old baby in Tanzania, whisked him to Germany and raised him to adulthood, he would speak German, wear cheap Reebok trainers and enjoy lager and pig-based food products.

Do you really think that if a German kid, a British kid, a Thai kid and an American were raised from birth on a desert island they would grow up to conform to their particular national stereotypes?

Diversity and internationalism are NOT mutually exclusive, prannet. Any attempt to keep races separate is just a pathetic attempt to prevent the HUMAN RACE from developing.

Do you really think that British people are the same people they were 150 years ago? Or that those people were the same as Elizabethans? Or that those people were the same as the hairy-arsed woad-smeared Anglo-Saxons?

I pity you if you do. Politics based on phony notions of some fixed biological "destiny" are rubbish, they're what the Nazis based their theories of racial supremacy on and they are NOT, I repeat NOT scientifically viable, unless you count Dr Mengele.

Basically people who are "proud" of their race are inadequate people who have done little personally to be proud of - losers who might as well go around being "proud" of their shoe size for all the meaning it has.

I'm British - I like being British. I like our attitude, our moaning, our love of cakes and drug abuse. But I'm not "proud" of it. I admire the French's "don't give a shit" attitude or the Spanish love of food, drink and sleep just as much.

And I'm not such a loser that I fear cultural mixing. The so-called "British character" exists precisely because of that.

Brits are a mongrel race. That's a fact. If it wasn't for racial/cultural mixing we woudn't exist.

racist politics is racist politics, now matter how people try to dress it up.

"I'm not a racist, but I do believe that races have separate cultures and should stay separate."

"I'm not a chiropodist, but I do make a living treating diseases of the feet."

If the cap fits...

Mad Monk


long upload times

16.03.2003 16:02

wonker - you can avoid these:
Make sure Indy is saved on your favourites list
After hitting the Publish button,wait til the progress bar gets 'stuck' about halfway across, which is usually pretty quick
Go to your Favourites and download Indymedia a second time
- go to Newswire if it's a new article you've published or to the article in question if it's a comment, and Presto! your piece should already be there

dh


.

16.03.2003 16:03

So where does the culture come from then duhh, it comes from the people!

uhh


Censorship...???

17.03.2003 09:54

As someone who opens the IMC uk site 20 -30 times a day I have seen several articles pulled from the wire, I have also had my [rapid] responses and comments to these pieces pulled, I have even had a few of my own comments specifically pulled.
I am not at all bothered by this, because:
..the articles pulled [that I have noticed] have ALL repeat ALL had violent hatred and degrading attacks on individuals or groups, depending on the particular stupidity of the writer (ranging from religion, skin color, sexual orientation etc boring etc)
.. my comments although marvellously funny, devistatingly destructive and impossibly uplifting were therefor irrelivant
.. everytime I have had a comment pulled I have asked for an explanation and EVERYTIME I have recieved a polite email that outlines the IMC policy (sometimes I get carried away with the need to fight fascism, a response I am sure that most of you can sympathise with and do battle with yourselves).
If you want to call this censorship, fine call it censorship.
In the long run it is the most stable, most useful, most ethical response to have some kind of COLLECTIVE means of monitoring and maintaining ethos.
Being someone who used to wait on tenderhooks for the latest green anarchist, resurgence, new internationalist etc etc to come out so that I could catch up on what was happening around the world, the advent of the internet was a potential massive increase in infomation flow.
IMC goes a long way to justifiying my excitement, there is simply more info here that ANYONE of us can follow. Specialise.
If there are those worried about censorship on IMC sites, then go and have a look at the IMC Palestine site, which is constantly bombarded with the most degrading purile and pointless spammmers, the database is under constant hack attack, the physical infrastructure is one raid away from its end and the Palestinian staff are, I should imagine going on present and repeated attacks on independent Palestinian journalists, under great personal stress.
They need are support and efforts.
Do not be lured into sympathising with pointless right wing attacks on the integrity of this [our] site ... when has there ever been a rightwing publication that believed in truth and democracy?
Also, race is a myth - a construction of the human mind reinforced by socialogical demands for nationalism (ie the need for fascists to divide and conquer).

jackslucid
mail e-mail: jackslucid@hotmail.com


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