[Seattle-editorial] Fwd: SF Indymedia Banned from Google News Over Israel/Palestine Controversy

[Jeremy G Kahn]

I agree with Sheri that we shouldn't wait for permissions from authors 
who have made it clear that they want it distributed.

Anonymous publishing means we can publish ourselves. I have (more than 
once) posted calls-for-help etc from the ACLU, and others, when its gone 
out to their general email list.

We should do the same for Gekked.

--jeremy

Sheri Herndon wrote:

>hi judy and editorial team,
>
>i've checked the sf newswire and i can't find the story.   gekked is from the imc-sf collective and this has been a story that has been percolating for months.  many of us have been 'following' it from the sidelines.  so this is now finally "news".
>
>i like the policy of having features linked to actual stories because it allows the comment feature to come into play and that is critical.  so i have no problem with that.  
>
>personally, i don't think we need a policy for contacting "authors" directly when it is clear they have made their statements public and are asking for greater distribution of the story.  if we started doing that, we might run into strange complications like waiting for people to get back to us in order for us to "publish" what is already out in the public domaine.  
>
>so yes post to the newswire (not sure about asking authors to do that as well) but i have a problem with developing a policy for contacting people and asking them to post their materials and/or ask permission to do so.  i don't think that's necessary.
>
>peace,
>sheri
>
>
>
>  
>
>>Yes, I think it is a possible feature idea.  But we now have a policy 
>>that stories should be posted to the Seattle newswire so that we can 
>>write up or pull a couple of paragraphs to link to them.  I am a little 
>>hesitant to take someone's writing and post it to the newswire without 
>>them knowing about it, so am cc'ing the author to do that and let us 
>>know when it is posted.
>>
>>Thanks!
>>Judy
>>    
>>
>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>From: Sheri Herndon [mailto:sheri at speakeasy.org]
>>>Sent: Wednesday, September 3, 2003 03:33 PM
>>>To: 'Seattle Editorial'
>>>Subject: [Seattle-editorial] 	Fwd: SF Indymedia Banned from Google 
>>>      
>>>
>>News Over Israel/Palestine	Controversy
>>    
>>
>>>possible story?
>>>
>>>====== Forwarded Message ======
>>>Date: 9/3/03 12:43 AM
>>>Received: 9/3/03 7:43 AM
>>>From: gekked at blackflag.net
>>>To: cuibono at rcip.com
>>>
>>>Please e-mail Google News (contact info below) and let them know what
>>>you think about this!
>>>
>>>GOOGLE NEWS BANS SAN FRANCISCO INDYMEDIA OVER ISRAEL/PALESTINE
>>>CONTROVERSY, ANTI-ARAB SLURS LIKE "RAGHEAD" ARE ALLOWED
>>>
>>>Around March 13 of this year, I discovered that San Francisco IMC
>>>was no longer being indexed by Google News. I wrote to them asking
>>>why, and a week later they replied that they only index sites which
>>>have editorial review. I explained to them that, while we accept all
>>>article submissions, we have an active editorial team that reviews
>>>articles for our Local/Global section. Volunteer programmers coded
>>>a new SF-IMC webpage exclusively for Google which allowed them to
>>>index only our reviewed articles.
>>>
>>>On May 13, Google News again removed us from the index. According to
>>>Marissa Mayer, product manager for Google News, this action was
>>>taken because a few articles indexed included the term "zionazi,"
>>>which they consider a "degrading hateful slur."
>>>
>>>SF-IMC replied to Google News through email and even had a conference
>>>call with them, explaining that we have an editorial policy that
>>>specifically excludes hate speech, and that we agree "zionazi"
>>>could be considered hate speech.
>>>
>>>In addition, we asked for details on how their search engine
>>>spidered this article at all, since our editorial team had not
>>>reviewed it and it shouldn't have been spidered by them. Around
>>>the same time, SF-IMC received anonymous emails from people
>>>claiming that they will "make sure" we are kicked out of Google
>>>News.
>>>
>>>It was at this point that we stopped hearing back from Google
>>>News at all. We emailed and called them for weeks but got
>>>absolutely no reply.
>>>
>>>Worse still, Google News seems to be a lot less vigilant when it
>>>comes to racist hate speech directed at Arabs and Muslims. For
>>>instance, at any time you can search for "islamofascist" at Google
>>>News and get a handful of results.
>>>
>>>Even more disturbing, on September 2, I searched for "green beret
>>>iraq" which returned an article written by a soldier in Iraq that
>>>refers to "ragheads" throughout:
>>>
>>>"Instead of being sitting ducks for the ragheads we now are going
>>>after the worthless pieces of fecal matter."
>>>(http://bigjweb.com/artman/publish/article_696.shtml)
>>>
>>>"Ragheads" and "islamofascists" is journalism according to Google
>>>News?
>>>
>>>I believe that Google News needs to take responsibility for their
>>>seemingly one-sided tolerance of what is and is not "hate speech,"
>>>acknowledge that Indymedia sites have active editorial teams who
>>>provide hours of volunteer labor to ensure that quality information
>>>is getting out, and work with IMCs around the world to get this
>>>information into Google News.
>>>
>>>If Google News is nothing more than right-wing and corporate
>>>media, they aren't providing a worthwhile service. Indymedia
>>>is a global phenomenon with active groups in the US, Middle
>>>East, South America, Europe, Canada, Africa and Asia, all working to
>>>produce journalism that is otherwise censored or untouched by
>>>multinational corporate media.
>>>
>>>I invite Google News to again contact SF-IMC at sf at indymedia.org so
>>>that we can work out this difference.
>>>
>>>If you feel the same way, please contact Google News:
>>>news-feedback at google.com (general contact)
>>>
>>>Please cc: your letters to sf at indymedia.org
>>>
>>>Written by gek, sf-imc, gekked at blackflag.net
>>>
>>>--- please forward widely ---
>>>
>>>====== End Forwarded Message ======
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>Seattle-editorial mailing list
>>>Seattle-editorial at lists.indymedia.org
>>>http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/seattle-editorial
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>
>>    
>>
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