How does the separate site from Indymedia, undeservedly named Indymedia Scotland, come to be just as controlled an outlet as the regular media? How does its agenda come to include censoring ill-treatment in a health project and not wanting to expose it? Nor to expose the silence on it by regular media who portrayed as good the place where it happens?

By sneaking control into its site, that is how.

When you go to Indymedia Scotland's front page, you see a block of articles of much the same type - all monolithically about militancy on economic issues, the cuts and anti-workfare, just like a socialist street newspaper. Does that make you think, okay very good I agree with all that, they must be worth trusting? The health issue they have recently chosen silence on, and chosen to reject a story on that got exposure through through Indymedia UK despite them, actually was a story involving work exploitation and a type of workfare approach too. The story called "media featuring a garden work health project ignore ill-treatment there. "

"Independent Media Center is a network of collectively run media outlets for the creation of radical, accurate, and passionate tellings of the truth." So that tells you they admit a bias towards what counts as radical. Then they say "We work out of a love and inspiration for people who continue to work for a better world" - Hushing up vulnerable peeps' ill-treatment, rejecting the media service of exposing it, is supposed to work for a better world.

Their newswire page tells you "The newswire shows the most recent news stories that have not been promoted to the front page and may not have been reviewed or edited. " That's right, edited!!!!! and what was that about "reviewed", giving you some qualms about their site's freedom?

They have a groups page,s described as listing "political groups, campaigns and locations in Scotland supported by Indymedia Scotland." So they select who they support. Nearly all the groups listed are hard left anarchist. If you take anarchists literally at their face value you would think they would not stand for censorship and gagging rules around what news the site shall cover. We have known since the 1880s not to take anarchists literally at face value.

You can't just post straight onto their site like you can onto Indymedia UK. You have to create an account or log in. The giveaway link on their site is in the side column on their "information" page - "editorial policy". "Indymedia Scotland Editors will hide and may delete text, images, audio, or videos which are ..." It includes the usual stuff like racist, but also it includes:

* Authoritarian, fascist, or capitalist in nature.
* Postings by individuals or groups who have a pattern of behaviour that regularly leads to any the above mentioned discouraged postings.

Firstly, how can you have an uncontrolled independent media that controls its output not to include anything deemed capitalist !!!! You just need to see that line to see a cult-like site that only wants to trumpet its own worldview, as surely as any capitalist newspapers do. Secondly, is it capitalist to want to expose a hidden away ill-treatment of working peeps in a vulnerable position?

Even comments are under a sinister standard of honesty: "Comments must meet the editorial policy. Long discussions and debates should consider moving to internet forums more suited to the task."

As editors they discuss and vote on which articles to "promote", according to quality, how capitalist is that? and meeting policy, how free is that? As for announcements and events, they must, ever so must, meet the editorial policy.
In no way is such a site any sort of free media. In its structures for mainstream democracy Scotland is more advanced and reformed than the rest of Britain, but in Indymedia it is more repressed and manipulated. Indymedia Scotland is a taken over scandal of control that has sneaked into place while through its name it held onto trust.

Scotland needs a section in Indymedia UK like its other geographic sections, simply bypassing the controlled entity that bears its name for Scotland and stopping counting it as an indy outlet. This is a cautionary experience around watching which way all the now growing number of separate Indymedias will go. It suggetss that constant caring vigilance is needed to ensure each of the indy outlets will remain that.