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Too much hot air in the blogosphere

Dusk | 19.11.2005 07:02 | Analysis

As the Indymedia newswire descends into incoherent ranting, looks like others are taking note.

One key feature of internet discussion is just how much of it consists of ignorant and intemperate saloon-bar ranting, as each blogger and respondent rambles on as if he (and it ususally us a he) is an expert on the subject and that anyone else's views count for nothing. The weblog phenomenon has done very little to raise the tone of political debate and plenty to lower it.

Dr Paul Flewers, Kings College London
The Guardian, Friday 17th November 2005

Dusk

Comments

Hide the following 6 comments

hmmm

19.11.2005 09:25

except...Indymedia isn't a blog

jjf


Look who is talking

19.11.2005 10:21

Is this the same Guardian that smeared Chomsky only for the article to be withdrawn ?
Is this the same Guardian that cheered on the Iraq invasion and never once doubted Blairs sincerity ?

Anyone who works for them shouldn't criticise anyone else for being full of hot air.

Danny


er

19.11.2005 12:21

like...that's so ....like er...cool...woah dude!

me


How enlightening...

19.11.2005 12:55

...a two-sentence letter you've copied & pasted in from the corporate press, by some bloke whose opinion must be more valid than mine since he's got a doctorate in something.

By the way, got any actual news to report, for this newswire?




Dawn


those in glass houses

19.11.2005 14:51


If bloggers have lowered the tone of politics, then what has the mindless thoughts of the experts done?

We debate in the papers about the should've, could've, would'ves but what the experts rarley do is ask the people what they think.

The debate over troops in Iraq is a classic case, where people here in the West debate over the merits of keeping troops in another country but whilst the experts debate the subject, they fail to mention that vast majority of Iraqis in Iraq say get out.

Are bloggers like Imad Khaduri, Riverbend and the Truth About Iraqis lowering the tone of politics or are they simply saying things that the experts in the West dont want to hear?

The debate is open, i think I'll start a blog!

annon


The Great Shutdown is planned- will we let it happen?

19.11.2005 18:22

Blair's High Ranking New Reich agents like Flewers will continue pushing this line up until the moment the Great Shutdown hits the Internet in the West. Think it isn't coming??? You really aren't paying attention. The software methods used to suppress political (and other) discussion on the net in non-western countries all comes from companies in the West. In reality, the censorship you currently hear about (usually in anti-Iran, anti-China propaganda posts) is merely a trial run and feasability study for the possibility of fully locking down the net, while permitting the "bread and circuses" functionality which it is assumed will prevent joe public from complaining too much.

For us, a propaganda war is being prepared:
- so-called piracy
- extremist web-sites
- violent video-games
- sexual fetish
each of the above are being used in Western nations to prepare for a massive SHUTDOWN of free internet use. Different concerns, of course, play better in different nations. We get "sexual fetish" (3 years in prison for possession of fetish images made by consenting adults in 2006). The germans get "no violence in ANY video game" for 2007/8.

The real target, of course, is the freedom to broadcast one's ideas to a mass audience. There is no point having a Mass Media (consider the saturation covereage of ONE dead policeperson), if the Internet captures the REAL audience, and refuses to follow the same agenda.

Have often have YOU collided with a Mass Media zombie, and informed them that far more is happening in the world than what the BBC tells them? You think Blair is prepared to risk his power and influence slipping away like this???

Taking down the free broadcast side of the Internet will not be easy. And, true, you can argue that governments failed to suppress other technologies in the past that increased participation in the dissemination of thoughts and ideas. However, the threats issued by depicable publications like The Guardian are VERY REAL. If the scum that runs our Mass Media can assist Blair in silencing us, it most certainly will.

twilight


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