IMC Silent on Censorship

Its actually a very simple situation - indymedia is a service for quality alternative *news*, not a discussion forum for personal theories about the world, there are lots of websites available for that. The newswire is getting filled up with speculative posts about various conspiracy theories.

Hiding these posts aren't censorship in the context above as they are destroying the functionality of the newswire.It's all in the editorial guidelines, very simple. Articles asking indymedia why they are 'censoring' (actually hiding - very different) are being hidden as they are 'non news' - again the site isn't a discussion forum.Every article being hidden has to be given a reason and its a transparent process. So stop blarting on about statements and lobbying and maybe start writing decent articles with about dicrepencies with official versions of important events, it will help everyone innit

The posters yesterday broke rule one for Indymedia, they pointed out the mistakes of one of the IM moderators. After that it was obvious the posts would,be removed and various comments either edited to change the meaning or removed alltogether.

If you want to have a discussion about moderation, then join the Imc-uk-features list

 http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-uk-features

The news wire is for news and posts about moderation will continue to be removed.

If you weren't following the posts yesterday that were being hidden, you won't appreciate what's going on.
I see lots of NewsWire posts that are blatant rants that do not get removed. There was a short post yesterday asking why a previous comment disagreeing with an IMC editor had been removed - this was taken off immediately, as were several others without comment from IMC.
For me, this is news (that IMC are doing this), not non-news (lots of other stuff on the NewsWire).
IMC are behaving like the corporate media this site is so fond of slagging off, and should be prepared to justify itself against the accusations that are being made.
As has been said before, how many people actually look at the hidden posts as well as the ones presented? Very few, so that's censorship as far as I am concerned. All these supposed "non-news" items could be stopped by IMC responding with a justification, plus an indication of how people can complain if this is not the preferred way.
Above all, however, the last thing they are being is transparent!!

To "How is this news?":
Are you part of IMC, able to comment on their behalf? If so, why didn't you post this yesterday, or respond to the accusations that you have been changing content on posts?
If there is a fundamental problem with IMC then this is News, and should be shared and addressed. Quickly.

The worrying part of yesterday's events was not the removal of posts (a common practice) but that comments were edited by a moderator with a view to changing the meaning.

All the events yesterday were linked to one simple event at the begining of the day, an IM moderator made a mistake and when that mistake was pointed out to him he reacted not as most people would by admiting the error and apologising but instead by throwng a little tantrum and hiding posts and deleating comments which showed his mistake.

I mentioned at the time that Indymedia is facing a credibilty issue at the moment because of its handling of the London Bombings (was it Mossad, the CIA, the British Government etc who did it) which is doubaly frustrating when it produced such excellent coverage of the events surrounding the G8 protests.

Regretfully the strength of Indymedia, its people, is also its weakness when individuals with ower abuse that power.

Do you have any proof of these claims:

What comments were edited "to change the meaning"? And by whom?

What comments and posts were deleted or hidden, and by whom?

What error should have been admitted?

Where is the proof of ftp's "views about Jews" ?

Finally, why haven't you taken this to the features list so it can be dealt with?