Indymedia UK increases its level of CENSORSHIP
. | 26.01.2005 13:09 | Indymedia
If you look in the full newswire there are hidden posts which are rightly hidden because they are advertising, hateful or just plain nonsense.
However, there are also some perfectly relevant articles which have been hidden for no apparent reason. Two examples of these are an article about a Territorial Army soldier who has publicly quit the TA in protest against the occupation of Iraq, and an interview with 7 Iraqis who describe what they think about the forthcoming election.
It is true that both of those articles were pasted from another website. However, Indymedia has always had plenty of articles on it pasted from other websites. Recently someone posted a Guardian article about the impending trial of various policemen indicted in the brutality in Genoa 2001. This article was (rightly, in my opinion) not hidden.
Anyway, I'm just wondering if any Indymedia people would care to comment on why they've been hiding articles which do not seem to be in need of being hidden.
Don't get me wrong, you're doing a brilliant job keeping this valuable web resource up and running. But I am concerned about all this censorship.
It may be that you do not consider some of these articles to be pure "news" - as they contain analysis. BUT, "analysis" is one of the topics which can be selected on the list of topics when you publish an article - so presumably analysis is legitimate posting material.
Anyway, please do comment on this. Even if you hide **this** article, please at least comment.
PS I've read the editorial guidelines but I'm still confused about why certain articles have been hidden so I'd appreciate if you comment further than simply referring me to the editorial guidelines.
cheers.
However, there are also some perfectly relevant articles which have been hidden for no apparent reason. Two examples of these are an article about a Territorial Army soldier who has publicly quit the TA in protest against the occupation of Iraq, and an interview with 7 Iraqis who describe what they think about the forthcoming election.
It is true that both of those articles were pasted from another website. However, Indymedia has always had plenty of articles on it pasted from other websites. Recently someone posted a Guardian article about the impending trial of various policemen indicted in the brutality in Genoa 2001. This article was (rightly, in my opinion) not hidden.
Anyway, I'm just wondering if any Indymedia people would care to comment on why they've been hiding articles which do not seem to be in need of being hidden.
Don't get me wrong, you're doing a brilliant job keeping this valuable web resource up and running. But I am concerned about all this censorship.
It may be that you do not consider some of these articles to be pure "news" - as they contain analysis. BUT, "analysis" is one of the topics which can be selected on the list of topics when you publish an article - so presumably analysis is legitimate posting material.
Anyway, please do comment on this. Even if you hide **this** article, please at least comment.
PS I've read the editorial guidelines but I'm still confused about why certain articles have been hidden so I'd appreciate if you comment further than simply referring me to the editorial guidelines.
cheers.
.
Comments
Hide the following 3 comments
Censorship
26.01.2005 19:35
Indymedia's response to accusations of censorship is to... er... as you say increase its level of censorship. Not just by censoring more articles but by making the hidden articles even harder to read even if the uninitiated manage to find them by putting a dark background behind the text.
It ought to be suggested that those Indymedia moderators who are not responsible for this latest clampdown start to question what is going on. If you do not find this activity questionable, you, like everybody else, are being manipulated by some anonymous element(s) within Indymedia. Hiding information is censorship. Censorship is mind control. Mind control is fascism.
Anonymous
It's not censorship
26.01.2005 20:53
All discussions about this happen on a open email list with open archives, imc-uk-features, you can fine this list, together with the other internal email lists here:
People running this site are fed up with the amount of reposts from the corporate media -- this isn't what this site is for, it's for original reports that can't be found elsewhere.
If you want a site full of coporate reposted why don't you set up your own web site for this?
IMC'er
Learn to write!
26.01.2005 21:22
I won't suggest it, though.
Anonymous