Indymedia is NOT opposed to free speech.

However, the indymedia web site is not a free speech website. It is a web site for news and reports, as detailed in the mission statement and editorial guidelines. Anything that is hidden from the front page can still be viewed through the view all posts page.

There are plenty of websites for general discussion such as enrager.net.

...

I guess people who are new to Indymedia might not know that some of the crap that is posted to this site is hidden (not deleted), good stuff is never hidden, all hidden stuff is still available and all decisions about hiding are reported and discussed on an open email list, imc-uk-features.

Also if people want to read the context the quote above was ripped from then see this thread:

 http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-uk-features/2004-July/thread.html#96

One quick correction to the post immediately preceding this one - sometimes we do hide good stuff, not by accident, but because there is a genuine disagreement over what contravenes an editorial guideline. We also try to keep the quality up to some extent, there's a lot of stuff posted that is simply too incoherent to decide what it is saying, and some stuff is posted that contains inaccurate information, so we hide those too. We make a lot of mistakes, and we rely on the readers of the site to let us know that (everyone is indymedia!). If you have a problem with something being hidden, please let us know by emailing us at imc-uk-features AT lists.indymedia.org. Keep in mind that we are constantly bombarded by people telling us we're not publishing enough racist material for their liking, berated by Trotskyists who are angry that we aren't really interested their party line, and dealing with people who are genuinely outraged that we believe that incoherent rants about "chemtrails" (a secret global military conspiracy involving military aircraft seeding the sky with aluminum oxide to change the climate) are inaccurate and should be hidden.

So, if you do mail the list, please try to be polite, calm, and reasonable, because although you might not know it we may already have been getting nasty emails from some weirdo for the past week - you'll probably get a better response if you're chilled out. We often engage in extended debates with people about the editorial policy, we disagree amongst ourselves, and often one member of imc-uk will unhide something because they think it should go back onto the wire. Personally I think that although we don't get it right *every time*, our overall motion is toward something good, because we keep getting more content published and more visitors to the site. So somebody out there likes what we are doing.

Lastly, we are just a bunch of people trying to make media and help others make media. There aren't very many of us. We would be pleased if people would show up at our meetings and offer to help out, or just send us a nice email once in a while so that we know we're doing OK (if we are). You can always email us at imc-uk-contact AT lists.indymedia.org if you want to get in touch and offer to help out, let us know where you are and we can let you know how to get in contact with the collective in your city. If there isn't one, consider starting one! You can email us about this, set up a time to meet and talk about it, get some people together, and feel the joy and pain by becoming an imcista!

Don't hate the media, be the media!

How many times will these 'shock horror' reports of indymedia censorship keep popping up in the newswire? When will these people cease to be horrified and instead read the editorial guidelines?

INDYMEDIA IS NOT A FREE SPEECH SITE!!!!!!

(shocker)

THE EDITORIAL GUIDELINES (which people might consider reading before posting)
CLEARLY SPELL OUT THAT
CERTAIN POSTS ARE NOT ACCEPTABLE

The Indymedia newswire is not a place for commerical adverts, porn, race hate,
sexism or a platform for political parties.

simple

IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT - TOUGH SHIT!