[New-imc] Re: [IMC-Tech] Re: [IMC-Editorial] Warning! Aryan nations using your bandwidth!!! -from Boston IMC

[Micah Anderson]

In the US people have this ideal of freespeech that some IMCs have
held above that of equalizing the media inequalities existant in our
society. Many have felt that "Open Publishing" means "Free Speech" and
have missed the well-established history of right-wing/corporate
co-optation and abuse of such venues (ie. the IMC is not Usenet, or it
should not be). This is a nice ideal to have, until your IMC becomes a
festering pit of pornography, right-wing manifestos, nazi propaganda,
duplicate posts and commercial slithering. Many IMCs caved under this
pressure, or at least the "little green footballs" website people
claim responsibility for such destruction (they also claim Indymedia
is a project of Bill O'Reilly and is actually a Nazi project based in
Idaho, go figure). Some IMCs have matured their understanding of the
"free speech" and have developed editorial policies to return to their
IMC roots, some have great difficulty in constructing these policies,
and some have great difficulty in maintaining these policies. 

In any case, this information needs to make it out to the New IMC
process and documents so that incoming IMCs can learn from past IMCs
trials and tribulations. 

I speak only of the US, because I understand it, I will not pretend to
be presumptous of IMCs outside of the US.

micah

On Mon, 24 May 2004, Chuck0 wrote:

> nessie at sfbg.com wrote:
> 
> >This is not an isolated incident. Our enemies are using sites across the 
> >network to broadcast their propaganda. In mongering propaganda, and 
> >worse, appear even once, on even one IMC local, it discredits all 
> >Indymedia and every IMCista. It directly infringes on our ability to do 
> >authentic journalism and effective organizing. In journalism, 
> >credibility is everything. If left unchecked, this will destroy 
> >Indymedia. All the work we have done will have been for naught.
> >
> >It's been particularly bad at Vancouver-IMC. I've been harassing them 
> >about it for weeks, Before that, realizing that they might be short 
> >handed, I offered to help. I'm good at editing. I keep SF-IMC troll 
> >free. Our traffic reflects this. Quality content brings in regular 
> >traffic. Trash drives away the very people we are trying hardest to 
> >attract. Vancouver-IMC's editors didn't even have the common, human 
> >decency to answer my email until after I called them in public. They 
> >repeatedly defended their practice of permitting Nazi propaganda, and 
> >worse, to be broadcast over their bandwidth, by saying "diversity is 
> >beautiful."
> >
> >When Nazi propaganda  is published under your name and logo, people are 
> >going to assume that you, too are a Nazi sympathizer. This is a fact of 
> >life. When Vancouver-IMC publishes this crap, it hurts *all* of us, and 
> >all Indymedia. It must stop.
> >
> >It's a global problem. It needs a global solution. That requires global 
> >process. When I brought it up on the [imc-process] mailing list, I was 
> >told to go away.
> >
> >See:
> >
> >http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-process/2004-May/date.html
> >
> >Now I don't know what to do. I subbed to the [imc-editorial] list in 
> >hopes that there would be people here discussing IMC editorial policy. 
> >Instead, until this email, I saw nothing but ad spam. We could change 
> >that by beginning to discuss here this crucial issue.
> >
> >What are we going to do about Indymedia's reputation, and our own, being 
> >destroyed by misuse of our name and logo by our mortal enemies? There 
> >must be some solution. What is it?
> 
> I agree 100% with Nessie. One of my main motivations for writing my 
> popular essay, "The Sad Decline of Indymedia" 
> <http://www.infoshop.org/inews/stories.php?story=02/12/08/2553147>, was 
> to point out that inaction by IMC concerning these right wing assaults 
> was contributing to an atmosphere where Indymedia was being discredited 
> and IMCs were turned into places that were unfriendly to DIY 
> journalists. I suspect that that essay hit a chord across the network 
> because many other IMC stakeholders shared similar concerns. Many IMCs 
> took action after that essay appeared and implemented new moderation 
> policies. These efforts improved the situation, but I've always 
> suspected that the years of inaction drove away more potential IMC 
> participants than have been gained back since things were improved.
> 
> Of course, as Nessie points out, right wing disruption of IMC websites 
> is especially bad on individual sites where the moderation is lax, 
> nonexistent, or simply misguided. As Nessie explains, most people don't 
> understand the distinction between open publishing and content published 
> under the Indymedia name. Some of the smarter members of the right wing 
> understand this difference, but they exploit it by telling people that 
> Indymedia publishes anti-Semitic and hate speech. We can't control what 
> these people say about Indymedia, but we can clean up our own act so 
> that people don't get that impression when they visit our IMC sites.
> 
> This is one of many problems that the international network has to take 
> a stronger stand on. It's not necessary to hand down an edict, but 
> perhaps interested people could collaborate on a how-to document which 
> explains why it is important to keep right wing garbage off of our 
> newswires. This document could then be circulated to local IMCs to raise 
> awareness.
> 
> Chuck0
> 
> See also: 
> http://chuck.mahost.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=3&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
> 
> 
> 
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