I'm shocked to see the amount of sites highlighting IMC UK censorship issues. Surely there is no smoke without fire?
The only reason offered for this disturbing act is:
"This post contradicts the Editorial Guidelines and has been hidden from the newswire."
While items posted to the newswire are often informative and valid.. yet IMC UK seem to "hide" the truth.
Why?
I will not post the web sites highlighting these issues for fear of this article also being "hidden" (plus there's just too many to mention).
A couple of things are clear though, IMC UK are targeting an individual for "spamming" the newswire - while another group openly admit to the actions.
Something else is clear: a lot of worldwide Indymedia sites are highlighting the problem IMC UK have.
With alternative media sites (including IMC sites) - highlighting these problems on a scale which is growing week by week, how can we trust IMC UK and indeed, why are they still apart of the IMC network?
"This post contradicts the Editorial Guidelines and has been hidden from the newswire."
While items posted to the newswire are often informative and valid.. yet IMC UK seem to "hide" the truth.
Why?
I will not post the web sites highlighting these issues for fear of this article also being "hidden" (plus there's just too many to mention).
A couple of things are clear though, IMC UK are targeting an individual for "spamming" the newswire - while another group openly admit to the actions.
Something else is clear: a lot of worldwide Indymedia sites are highlighting the problem IMC UK have.
With alternative media sites (including IMC sites) - highlighting these problems on a scale which is growing week by week, how can we trust IMC UK and indeed, why are they still apart of the IMC network?
Comments
Hide the following 19 comments
Why are you surprised ?
16.04.2005 18:54
Yazer
Symapthy
16.04.2005 19:12
Lock Ness Monster
At last! Somebody speaks out!
16.04.2005 19:33
MP
Take a look for yourself
16.04.2005 19:35
All hidden articles are reported, by the volunteer admin who hides them, to the imc-uk-features e-mail list. If you are interested in the reasons for posts being hidden, look at the public archives for this list.
>While items posted to the newswire are often informative and valid.. yet IMC UK seem to >"hide" the truth.
Decisions of what to hide and not to hide are subjective. What appears to be a breach of the editorial guidelines to one person, may not appear to be so to someone else. The decisions are made publically and collectively (on the e-mail list) and the content of the front page (all postings, porn, racist shit, right wing bollocks and all, is available if you want to see it - via the "view all" link in the editorial guidelines) of IMC UK will be determined by the people who's labour is contributed to the indymedia project.
>A couple of things are clear though, IMC UK are targeting an individual for "spamming" >the newswire - while another group openly admit to the actions.
Some individuals, who regularly post articles which breach the editorial guidelines do regularly have their posts hidden. Some of these indivduals have recently taken part in a deliberate attempt to make the newswire unusable because they are unhappy with IMC UK's editorial decisions.
Please take a look at the Editorial Guidelines if you've not done so before, and please engage with the political process constructively and get involved with IMC if you want to improve it. If you really think we're an evil bunch of censoring bastards, maybe you should set up an alternative alternative media project and show us how it should be done.
Poon (one of imc uk)
hidden articles lost????
16.04.2005 21:32
"lets have some truth" 9/4/05 10.12am 308690
"and here is the news" 9/4/05 10.23am 308697
"truth vs indymedia" 9/4/05 12.30pm 308742
Please take a look at the Editorial Guidelines if you've not done so before, and please engage with the political process constructively and get involved with IMC if you want to improve it.
as the guidelines state that the posts will be hidden can you please clarify where the aboce 3 posts are hidden..
thanks
zArk
zArk
hmmmm
16.04.2005 22:45
'part of IMCUK'
i was under the impression that we could all have some input
via the
IMCUK threads by perhaps making suggestions or just writing an e-mail
isn't IMCUK for all of us anymore?????
i thought it was a collective
do i need to sign a credit agreement...giving me access to
any input to this 'Independent collective'...?
paul c
Here we go again
16.04.2005 23:44
If I hide this, as is soooo not news, some troll is going to scream censorship. Yet it isn't like it hasn't been covered and discussed *where it should be* on
FWIW I personally won't hide this post. But if there are any more of these I'll link to this comment when I do.
ekes
Part of Indymedia
17.04.2005 00:06
ekes
Well...........there are some problems
17.04.2005 00:23
HOWEVER,and here I'm speaking as a person with editor responsibilities on a differentIMC,
1) I'm not sure that IMC UK was earlier keeping to the spirit of the meaning of "hiding". We usually understood that to mean hdden from the MAIN newswire rather than hidden among a lot of other material. People should have been able to EASILY have seen what had been hidden foltered from what was not. But "letter of the law" this was OK.
2) I consider the current situation unacceptable. If you want to tell me "it hasn't been deleted" you are quibbling. Inviting us to "see" the offending material if we wish to judge for oursleves (I like to spot check to see what sorts of things other sites consider worthy of hiding) but then overlaying with a distracting background almost the same gray scale value as the text is cheating on the meaning of "can still be seen". Yes I CAN see it (in a totally darkened room so contrast is at the max, reading VERY slowly, trying to make out letter by letter). WHY?
Mike
e-mail:
stepbystpefarm mtdata.com
ignorant as the world watches
17.04.2005 01:02
you're a complete laughing stock indymedia uk.
the sad thing is, it's not even funny.
dan
Oh come off it!
17.04.2005 01:52
I think that some times what gets hidden on indymedia UK is of variable quality. Some of it is obvious spam, or porn, or disinformation, or racist and sexist attacks and so on. Sometimes it's what people call conspiracy theory, from tinfoil hats to alien implants. Other times it's obvious that it's commercial advertsising, or is a single line with like ten words just giving an opinion (eg the tories are crap!).
I know for one that I am grateful to indymedia people for getting rid of a lot of this shite from the newswire so I can look at it and see people reporting their own news and not reproduced texts and rubbish. I also know that sometimes there's differences in what should be hidden and the interpretation of guidelines. I'd rather that fluid state of constant discussion about these matters, which is part and parcel of an ongoing experiment of collaborative media.
As to saying there are lots of websites "too numerous to mention" that are dealing with posts hidden from the newsire - well that's obvious bullshit and in my opinion grounds for hiding this post anyway. There is as far as I know one website that does list some of the hidden posts (but only a few of them and not all the ones that are racist, sexist etc etc
Pete
So what forums are those then Dan?
17.04.2005 02:05
Which alternative media forums do you frequent that are apparently full of people laughing at indymedia UK (ahead of their forthcoming G8 coverage)?
And all over the world too?!
Well, we're waiting...
info requested
solution
17.04.2005 07:35
1. put a link on the front page to view hidden posts, then you can't be accused of burying them.
2. change the backdrop of the hidden posts so we can actually read them.
3. actually state which part of the guidelines has been breached when hiding the post, as some of them don't seem th contradict the guidelines.
Karl
YHBT. YHL. HAND.
17.04.2005 09:29
yawn chorus
This post should be hidden
17.04.2005 10:50
Its misleading and infactual :
"a lot of worldwide Indymedia sites are highlighting the problem IMC UK have."
- not true at all
"With alternative media sites (including IMC sites) - highlighting these problems on a scale which is growing week by week, how can we trust IMC UK and indeed, why are they still apart of the IMC network?"
-not true
The only traces are the same posts posted to italy indymedia yesterday.
PS
“YHBT. YHL. HAND.”
“You Have Been Trolled. You Have Lost. Have A Nice Day”.
hide this disinfos
baffled
17.04.2005 10:57
"lets have some truth" 9/4/05 10.12am 308690
"and here is the news" 9/4/05 10.23am 308697
"truth vs indymedia" 9/4/05 12.30pm 308742
cannot be found in the hidden articles section.
where are they?
zArk
indy claim to be a free speech site - and are not
17.04.2005 12:55
Rock on you frauds!!!
Maddox
Homepage:
http://maddox.xmission.com/
No Pete
17.04.2005 13:13
1) Provide a link immediately under the front page newswire by which people can, if they so wish view the articles hidden by the editors. This leads to a place where they may be seen easily, not buried among a huge quantity of unhidden articles and you don't need to know any "tricks" to see them.
2) Some (few) sites have the standard that if an editor doeshide something, who the editor is and why the article was hidden is given.
IMHO this is very useful. It seems that sites doing this sort of thing are LESS troubled by postings of material whcih is objectionable beciase the trolls can't scream "why was my article censored?" --- it beiong clear to all who want to look what the "why" was. Some very few sites (ours among them) also include and make available in the hidden page articels where the posting process never got completed. Again this saves much bitching and moaning "why didn't my articel appear?" because it's plain to all that the idiot never went beyond the "preview" stage -- never actually hit the OK, post it.
Mike
e-mail:
stepbystepfarm mtdata.com
NOT free speech
17.04.2005 14:33
There was a big debate years ago, with a lot of tensions between some of the US websites that were more dedicated to free speech and some of the european sites that disliked this idea, esp for example germany which has had a big problem with proper nazi facist postings. IMC sites are run by collectives that can decide their own policies underneath the broad principles of the IMC network.
no platform for fascists!