Indymedia being used to praise Slutwalk and celebrate killing women!
Anne Bonney | 23.09.2012 19:18 | Indymedia | Policing | Repression
Referring to the article linked-to below, if the WPCs whose murder Indymedia / IMC is being used to celebrate had killed a protestor or other innocent person I'd be telling a very different story, but the background to this dispute is that someone posted an article on Indymedia (see link) which celebrates killing these women, and which links to a blog apparently put together by the same author, which also celebrates dumb shit like people ripping metal cable out of live grid transformers and chucking bricks at passing trains. IMC were asked to remove that article, but still havn't, and continue to actively censor comments criticising their actions in respect of that article. Here's the article -
https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2012/09/500333.html
There are 3 issues here. The first problem is that whenever it's pointed-out how much easier and cheaper it is for people who want to discredit radicalism to post black propaganda on Indymedia than it is for them to employ undercover agents, rather than responding to the comments, Indymedia spike most of the comments, effectively gifting the trolls an open field of play. The second problem is that Indymedia moderators also remove comments which suggest radicals engage with moderate groups on grounds those groups are "hierarchical" (which is fair to a point), but then allow violent hooligan, criminal and (ultra-hierarchical) pro-terrorist posts that ruin any chance of radical politics crossing-over out of the activist ghetto. When disaffected people tentatively explore radical politics, they come across bollocks like that, assume radicals are dangerous, stupid, irresponsible wankers, and lose interest. Hence the pitiful size of eg - all the Anarchist groups in the UK that havn't already collapsed, and the near total failure of the UK radical movement to capitalise on the biggest crisis in world capitalism for decades. If activist groups don't want to waste the public interest they attract then they have to become better organised, in becoming more organised they become more hierarchical, meaning IMC's editorial guidelines enable the moderators (who are themselves a hierarchy relative to ordinary IMC users) to successfully avoid stepping outside the radical ghetto / comfort zone by risking debate with people who don't share their views and who aren't prepared to participate in the conspiracy of silence that IMC expect their users to maintain when IMC behave in ways that are blatantly counter-productive and/or hypocritical. When confronted with such arguments, the IMC moderators approach is to keep on deleting the criticism instead of proving whether or not they're even capable of debating the problem/s. Indymedia is a very useful resource, but it's useful to all sorts of people, not just to radicals, and that there is sometimes an unconscious logic of self-defeating psychology at play, meaning IMC's style of operating helps support the radical SCENE at the expense of progressing radical POLITICS.
The 3rd problem is that in the specific case referred to (see link above) not only is Indymedia being used to connect radical politics with extreme acts of anti-social violence, Indymedia is also being used to celebrate the MURDER OF WOMEN. IMC allow this while supporting the Slutwalk campaign, one of whose central demands is not that women police officers should be "executed", but that instead the police should be encouraged to prosecute and jail rapists.
https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2012/09/500333.html There are 3 issues here. The first problem is that whenever it's pointed-out how much easier and cheaper it is for people who want to discredit radicalism to post black propaganda on Indymedia than it is for them to employ undercover agents, rather than responding to the comments, Indymedia spike most of the comments, effectively gifting the trolls an open field of play. The second problem is that Indymedia moderators also remove comments which suggest radicals engage with moderate groups on grounds those groups are "hierarchical" (which is fair to a point), but then allow violent hooligan, criminal and (ultra-hierarchical) pro-terrorist posts that ruin any chance of radical politics crossing-over out of the activist ghetto. When disaffected people tentatively explore radical politics, they come across bollocks like that, assume radicals are dangerous, stupid, irresponsible wankers, and lose interest. Hence the pitiful size of eg - all the Anarchist groups in the UK that havn't already collapsed, and the near total failure of the UK radical movement to capitalise on the biggest crisis in world capitalism for decades. If activist groups don't want to waste the public interest they attract then they have to become better organised, in becoming more organised they become more hierarchical, meaning IMC's editorial guidelines enable the moderators (who are themselves a hierarchy relative to ordinary IMC users) to successfully avoid stepping outside the radical ghetto / comfort zone by risking debate with people who don't share their views and who aren't prepared to participate in the conspiracy of silence that IMC expect their users to maintain when IMC behave in ways that are blatantly counter-productive and/or hypocritical. When confronted with such arguments, the IMC moderators approach is to keep on deleting the criticism instead of proving whether or not they're even capable of debating the problem/s. Indymedia is a very useful resource, but it's useful to all sorts of people, not just to radicals, and that there is sometimes an unconscious logic of self-defeating psychology at play, meaning IMC's style of operating helps support the radical SCENE at the expense of progressing radical POLITICS.
The 3rd problem is that in the specific case referred to (see link above) not only is Indymedia being used to connect radical politics with extreme acts of anti-social violence, Indymedia is also being used to celebrate the MURDER OF WOMEN. IMC allow this while supporting the Slutwalk campaign, one of whose central demands is not that women police officers should be "executed", but that instead the police should be encouraged to prosecute and jail rapists.
Anne Bonney