Exchange with "Reader" RE ML "Censorship"

[joe emersberger]

FROM READER
Good, thoughtful review [of Newspeak], but you should be aware that you misspell Steven Poole as "Stephen Pool" throughout.

What do you make of this "censorship" thing?:

http://dissident93.wordpress.com/2010/01/04/medialens-embarrassing-archive-08/

Reader

JOE REPLIES

Thanks Reader.

Can't believe I misspelled that name. I will correct it asap on my website. not sure how soon Znet will be able to make a correction.

I read through that article you forwarded me by Shone. It isn't very coherent in my opinion. He scatters so many complaints and grievances throughout that even a reader like myself, who was a first hand witness to what he was talking about, has a hard time following him.
Clarity aside, here are some thoughts about the "censorship thing".

1) Please note that the Eds have quite frequently deleted posts which they considered abusive towards their most hostile critics - for example Ollie Kamm,but also other corporate journalists. They try hard to keep the board civil for philosophical reasons and because thoughtful people are generally repelled by incivility. In the UK, there are also, unfortunately, good legal reasons for being careful about what you allow to be posted. Ollie Kamm, and his employer - The Times - have used legal threats against Medialens. Some critics of Medialens (Kamm Aaronovitch) have also used remarks posted on the message board to misrepresent what the Eds, and most of the regular posters, believe.

2) I was sorry to see Daniel Simspon banned from the message board when it happened years ago. Daniel seemed to want to argue with every syllable the Eds wrote, and I recall that he had become somewhat uncivil, but I still respected much of what he had to say. However, please note that he remained free to post in the forum until very recently. Most recently, my opinion of Daniel's writing plummeted when he accused Chomsky of lying about the infamous Emma Brockes "interview" in the Guardian - an article so dishonest that the Guardian retracted it. I asked Daniel to justify his accusation and he replied that Chomsky had "lied" in a personal correspondence with him by referring to the Brockes article as a "compete fabrication". I hope you can see why someone who relentlessly attempts to justify an absurd accusation like this would not make a positive contribution to the message board.

3) Unlike the typical online comments section in newspapers, or many blogs, it is very easy on the Medialens message board to "get noticed". A post by the Eds is no more prominent than a post by anyone else. While the IBC debate was at its most intense, it was quite clear how the message board forces the Eds to engage with critics to an extent media pundits, and even many bloggers, could never imagine. IBC was not willing to host the debate on their website for obvious reasons, and that makes their supporters complaints about medialens "censorship" quite silly in my view. I don't know what kind of traffic IBC gets on their site, but I'm willing to bet that if they had hosted the debate IBC would have received - at the very least - a comparable number of readers as Medialens - and thereby have avoided Medialens "censorship" altogether. Why didn't they?

Joe

READER REPLIES
Thanks for your sending me your thoughts. I agree with 1 & 2, but I think
the author made a fair case that posts attacking Simpson and others were as bad as, or worse than, those made by Simpson even at his most peeved. I can't say that I agree with your last sentence in 2. I don't think you can dismiss the enitre output of a person based on the fact that you find one of his positions absurd (however correct you may be on this one issue). I understand loyalty to great figures like Chomsky, but I think things should be taken issue by issue, argument by argument.

I agree the article wasn't too coherent, the author jumps about from one point to an unrelated one (eg IBC and not-IBC).

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on your last points in 3. I thought
the author was right to dismiss the idea that one shouldn't criticise
censorship if you don't host a debate yourself. Imagine where that thinking would lead. ML allowed serious accusations to be made on their board, so they should allow those to be freely addressed there. It seems irrelevant to me whether IBC hosted a message board at the same time, since that's not where the allegations against them were being raised. It's a bit like saying that if a TV channel makes some serious allegation against you, then unless you have your own TV channel to defend yourself, you shouldn't complain about not being given time to put your views across on the channel which accused you. There's the implication that one would have to get a message board for the sole purpose of defending oneself against criticisms made on other message boards. My guess is that if IBC had had a message board, it would have been completely unused before Medialens took up their issue.

I'm sympathetic to ML on the overall point of censorship, because they are going to be attacked from various people, and it is easy to disrupt a board, despite the point made in the article. But I think ML should apply their censorship more openly (not difficult to do). It's an important subject, not one to dismiss, because we're saying that this is a viable alternative to the msm, so we should be presenting an example. I think addrssing articles like this should be seen as an opportuntiy for open debate. The fact that it's buried under the carpet just reinforces the points attacking ML, imo.

Reader

JOE REPLIES
I don't dismiss Daniel's entire output based on his absurd accusation against Chomsky. However, I would not want him making and tenaciously defending such nonsense, about anyone, not just Chomsky - on a board that I ran or on the ML board.

Your analogy of a TV station telling me to open my own station misses the point - unless I am as wealthy as Bill Gates - some one with ample means to counter distortions against him - even by opening his own media outlets or buying up other people's. In the case of IBC debating ML you had two opponents of roughly equal resources. In fact, my bet is IBC is better funded. it is beyond dispute that IBC is regarded much more favourably by the corporate press which, in and of itself, is a major advantage in terms of attracting attention to its site.

Not at all sure a message board on IBC would have gone unused prior to the debate with ML. However the debate with ML went on for several months - at least as I recall. If there were key facts and arguments that ML were suppressing on its board then IBC could easily have exposed this. I followed the debate very closely. Too often it degenerated into lenghty complaints and counter complaints about who was being uncivil. However, as I recall the substantive points were exhaustively covered. I am quite sure they are still archived in the ML forum.

I'm not sure "censorhip" is a good word considering the amount of criticism allowed on ML. I would be reluctant to say an outlet engages in "censorship" because its policy is not to publish anything by anyone. Like you, I do not agree with every editorial decisions that the Eds have made, but I bear in mind that, as a reader, I am not responsible for moderating the board. I have more liberty to pick and choose what I read. If I had to read every post by Daniel Simpson, for example, I might very well have lost patience with him at the same time the EDs did.

READER REPLIES

Apologies if I misinterpreted your remarks re Daniel Simpson. You'd written:

"I hope you can see why someone who relentlessly attempts to justify an
absurd accusation like this would not make a positive contribution to the
message board."

To me that implies that you are judging at least his entire +future+ output, effectively saying that the risk of him posting something unacceptable on +any+ subject outweighs the chance he'll post something worthwhile. That's the problem with banning people.

My point about TV channels wasn't about funding, but about different types of media. It could equally apply to cheap media, such as printing one's own xeroxed pamphlet. The point is to allow redress of accusations in the originating media source. This is generally expected in traditional media where there's any pretense of openness and accountability (although as we both know, it's usually +just+ a pretense). But I don't see why it shouldn't be expected in web forums.

I guess for the rest it's probably best to agree to disagree, otherwise
we'll end up in one of those forever back-and-forth discussions. I
appreciate your time & thoughts on the matter.

Reader

JOE REPLIES

Reader,
I agree with you completely when you write that
Medialens, or anyone else, should "allow redress of accusations in the originating media source. " I would include in that criticism, not just accustaions.

However, ML did that. See some of the debate below that is still archived in the ML forum. The debate was prominently held on the message board for months. If you skim the links below you'llfind it was very exhaustive. Some IBC supporters thought that STILL wasn't good enough. Hence the question as to why IBC, in that case, did [not] host the debate on their own forum.

http://www.medialens.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1610&highlight=&sid=21626f575a078d2a4b4864e1bd02ec7b

http://www.medialens.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1515&highlight=

http://www.medialens.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1653&highlight=

As for Simpson, yes, I basically feel that the risk of him making outlandish accusations, and tenaciously defending them on the board, outweighs the value of any sensible things he would write - which others woudl write anyway. It may seem nit picky but that is not the same as saying I dismiss (as in consider worthless or strongly disagree) with most of what he writes. However, I certainly would not trust his use of source material the way I would trust others who have shown far greater care (i.e. not made ridiculous accusations).

Don't mean to drag on debate, just want to make sure my meaning was clear.
Best,
Joe

READER REPLIES
Again I think we'll have to agree to disagree here. Yes, Medialens allow
some redress, but the test is whether they allow the most +challenging+
forms of redress (ie when the argument isn't going their way, which is when the deletions start to appear). We now see, in hindsight, for example, that a lot of what they claimed about IBC was factually wrong, but this isn't acceptable material for the MLMB. And do you think that their deletion of a link to Daniel Simpson's article (and their immediate banning of the person who posted it, assuming Shone's claim is accurate) helps to convey the impression that they allow fair redress in these matters?

No need to respond on this point (I think I've probably already taken up
enough of your time, for which I'm grateful).

Reader

READER EMAILS AGAIN

Not sure whether your MLMB remark was a reference to our correspondence:

"Incredibly, ML's best moments, in terms of allowing open debate with
critics, namely the extended and exhaustice (sic) debate with with (sic)
IBC, is now cited by some as evidence of ML "censorship" "

...but I'll address it anyway. I think the claim of censorship related to
the conditions of the "debate", namely that all but one of the people
presenting a view opposing ML's had been banned. Yet you refer to it as an "open debate".

Loyalty is a wonderful thing, but please don't let it compromise your
honesty (I'd wondered if the double sic within your comment was an
indication that you didn't quite believe your own words). Many people
reading your words will realise they don't ring true, although given the
nature of the MLMB at present, I doubt that anyone is likely to contradict
you on this point.

Reader

JOE REPLIES
do you post on the message board or forum?.
If you have facts and arguments you think are not being addressed why not summarize them and post them on the message board or in the forum?
"Double sic" is an indication that I often type to fast when posting on board.
I have no incentive to be dishonest and would not make that accusation of people without string evidence.
We disagree about ML's editorial policy. People can and often do disagree without lying.

READER REPLIES
I haven't posted since Stephen Soldz was badly treated for having the wrong opinion (I recall the eds said something to the effect that establishment propaganda had eroded his mind).

Perhaps you're sincere in thinking the debate over IBC was "open" and
"exhaustive", but I find it difficult to believe - you seem too intelligent.
Frankly, if you +have+ managed to convince yourself that "open",
"exhaustive" debate results from banning all but one of the people with an
opposing viewpoint, then I kind of wonder about your whole approach to
democracy, free speech, etc.

Perhaps you can tell me where any of the alleged Medialens errors listed in this ZNet article were openly and exhaustively debated:
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/22309

Reader

JOE REPLIES

Reader,

I sent you links showing you how exhaustive that debate was. Did you read them? Did you participate in the debate at that time?
The debate with IBC was prominently held on the message board for months, dwarfing what corporate outlets, or even many blogs would allow.

If you feel there are points that have not been answered why not post them in the forum?

I'd gladly post our exchange about in the forum if you have no objection.
By the way, I recall and participated in the last bit of debate with Soldz on the message board. To even say that "in effect" the Eds claimed his mind was eroded is quite a distortion.
Joe

READER REPLIES
I saw the links you posted. They confirm my recollections - that the banning of all but two IBC defenders (later just one) was reflected in the forum. And you think this constitutes an "open", "exhaustive" debate? It's a "debate" of sorts, but clearly neither "open" nor "exhaustive".

To repeat: where were ANY of these alleged Medialens errors openly and
exhaustively debated?: http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/22309

The exact wording of the Soldz "propaganda erosion" quote (from DE, March 17, 2009):

"And by the way, I think a similar question needs to be asked of Soldz's
comment about the fact that the occupation 'may have deposed a dictator' - ie, presenting that as a positive. That for me was a classic example of an independent mind showing the signs of what might be called propaganda weathering and erosion."

So, not a "distortion" by me - a perfectly accurate account.

Reader

READER EMAILS AGAIN
I'll try to pre-empt your reply with this, my last email.

I think your point is that the IBC debate has been +voluminous+. Which is true, but voluminous doesn't mean "open" and "exhaustive".

By DEFINITION, a debate cannot be "open" if all but one of the people with an opposing view are prevented from participating in it.

By DEFINITION, a debate cannot be "exhaustive" if fundamental,
well-documented (eg at ZNet) errors have not been addressed.

You wrote that the debate on IBC represented Medialens's "best moments". So, censoring nearly all the opposition and failing to respond to claims of serious errors constitutes their best? I'd hate to see their worst.

If you're tempted to reply, I should warn you that I probably won't read it.

Your false accusation of "quite a distortion" regarding my accurate (see
previous email) account of David Edwards' remarks about Stephen Soldz
annoyed me somewhat. It's that kind of thing (plus the deletions and mob
mentality) that puts me off posting to ML.

But thanks for your time anyway.

Reader

ANOTHER EMAIL FROM "READER"

Since you've published my previous emails on the ML forum without my consent (you'd asked, but I didn't give it), perhaps you can also publish this, expressing my disgust. I'm not sure which is worse - censorship or misuse of private correspondence.

I contacted Shone about David Edwards' comment. He replied (giving
permission to quote him):

"I've already addressed a similar point in an update (footnote 4) on my blog entry. I allow full reply from anyone I've criticised, posted directly
underneath my original blog entry if they wish. Would Medialens publish a
reply from IBC directly under their original IBC alerts, or mail it to the
recipients of those alerts? Clearly not."

http://dissident93.wordpress.com/2010/01/04/medialens-embarrassing-archive-08/

And, please - if you do publish it, at least have the courtesy to post it in
a readable format (not with inappropriate line breaks due to copying it
straight from an email - which makes it totally unreadable).

[David Edwards]

Joe sent us the exchange - I responded (below) on whether we thought it was a good idea to post the exchange here:

Hi Joe

Thanks. That's up to you. I think a lot of this is the result of confusion (sometimes wilful, sometimes well-intentioned) about the issue of free speech in the age of the internet. We, in effect, gave over our front page to fierce criticism of our work on IBC - one small aspect of our output - for weeks. What newspaper would dream of allowing anything comparable? By contrast, IBC allowed no discussion at all on its website. IBC compared our mindset to that of terrorist fanatics in the national media (on the BBC website), but we +still+ hosted their views on our site. The claim that only one person was criticising us is nonsense.

People are able to post without us checking or moderating their comments beforehand - a facility which exposes us to real risk and is all but unknown in the mainstream. FAIR, Monbiot and Pilger's websites don't even have message boards. Bob Shone doesn't allow +any+ comments on his website - and yet he accuses us of censorship! Does that mean if we didn't have a message board, there would be no censorship?

The genuine confusion surrounds the issue of free speech and activist websites. Why +can't+ we have part of our website reserved as a place where essentially like-minded media activists can gather to exchange information and ideas in working for progressive change in the media? It seems to me that in a society dominated by corporate politics, economics and media - with numerous professional groups working actively and cynically to undermine what leftists are doing - it is essential to protect a forum of that kind from disruption. And when posters have almost complete freedom on another board on the same website (although not for people who call us liars and so on), it seems to me there's not an issue.

Best wishes

David E

Here's something from Bob Shone's Dissident 93 site on the same theme. You'll notice, just below the title, as always, the words "comments closed".

DE


http://dissident93.wordpress.com/

Medialens’s embarrassing archive (part 8) – CENSORSHIP January 4, 2010
Posted by dissident93 in Medialens.

comments closed

This is the last of a series on Medialens (see also parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) – it documents their bizarre attempts to rationalise censorship.


A more honest way to censor?
Medialens recently banned at least three people from their board/forum (over the course of a few days), to the consternation of some of their followers. One of the banned, former Reuters and New York Times correspondent, Daniel Simpson, documents what happened to him. Another was banned after posting a link to Daniel’s article on the Medialens message board (it was immediately deleted by the Medialens editors, leaving no trace). A third poster, ‘Max’, was quietly disappeared after a few days of polite, on-topic (but apparently off-message) posts.1

I was banned by Medialens a long time ago (June 2006). More recently, when George Monbiot asked why I was banned, Edwards and Cromwell (the Medialens editors) replied that, “One reason is that he has repeatedly accused us of lying”. To support this (false) claim, they linked to a Media Hell page containing one of a few cases in which I accuse them of lying2 – in October 2007, over a year after they banned me.

(In fact they’d banned me along with several other people who had challenged their attacks on Iraq Body Count. Their “official” reason at the time was that I was “bombarding” them with posts – another demonstrably false claim.3)

Liars?
In addition to being “creative with the truth”, Medialens’s reply to Monbiot was revealing in other ways. They’ve never addressed their falsehood about IBC (mentioned in the Media Hell page they’d linked to) which I’d demonstrated was a knowing falsehood2 – nor have they denied it, apologised for it, or made any attempt to correct the damage done by it. Rather than addressing the matter of substance, they asked Monbiot: “Would you allow Shone to post this kind of thing about you on your website message board, if you had one?”

George Monbiot was probably unaware that the Medialens editors had posted at length (under the pseudonym “Woofles”) in the comments section of the Media Hell page which so offended their sensibilities. On this and a few other Media Hell pages (eg here, here and here) their arguments in the comments section are taken apart by other posters (including Daniel Simpson, aka Raoul) – something you don’t often see on the Medialens board, due to their face-saving censorship.

“Hounding and Destructive”
We banned Raoul Djukanovic/Daniel Simpson from this board for incivility and hounding. (David Edwards, Medialens forum, 12/12/09)

The problem is when the criticism becomes hounding and destructive. (Medialens’s reply to poster ‘Max’, before banning him)

The “hounding and destructive” claim seems to be Medialens’s default justification for suppressing views and removing people. I’m reminded of the reasons that police give for removing campaigners from political conferences, etc.

If you read the censored material (before it’s deleted) you usually find that it’s no more “hounding” or “destructive” than most of what’s allowed. In fact the real “hounding” seems to come from those who support the Medialens editors by demonising those who have been banned or censored. For example, Daniel Simpson was likened to an “extremely obsessive & fanatical stalker“. Medialens’s disciples lined up to label the second recently banned poster (‘Max’) a “troll” and “liar“. One wrote: “I wish you would simply p+++ off.“)

All of this was allowed to stand by the Medialens editors. Occasionally a lone voice of reason would be ignored:

Branding people who disagree with you ‘trolls’ simply promotes ‘group think’ in my view (Medialens message board, 16/12/09)

It’s curious how a lot of the people who go against ML on some subject end up being characterized as “extremely obsessive & fanatical stalkers” – it’s so automatic, it’s practically a natural law around here. (Medialens message board, 1/12/09)

Around the time that Medialens were hyperventilating about my claim that they’d lied, their supporters had coalesced into a mob to attack me: “jumped up little amateurish twerp”, “shoddy and dishonest”, “dishonest and shoddy”, “careless and dishonest”, “a bad liar”, “a troll”, “the prototroll”, “a troll and a spoiler”, “an obvious troll with a grudge”, “a evil little wanker” (by email), “pathological”, “a questionable character”, “a deeply pathetic character”, “a neo-liberal fella (or being paid for by them)”, etc.

Presumably noticing that several long threads attacking me contained about 95% “hounding” and 5% “argument”, George Monbiot intervened with a post suggesting that the Medialens faithful actually read what I’d written (in a blog entry) rather than “simply dismissing or vilifying” me.

Edwards and Cromwell apparently found it neither “hounding” nor “destructive” for someone to be vilified in this way (without being able to respond) on their message board, since they appeared to allow all the insults and character assassinations to stand (with the exception of a few words edited out).

Incidentally, the Medialens editors wrote that they were surprised to see George Monbiot “boosting [my] cause” (whatever that means). More recently, they were happy to smear Monbiot in an article that ZNet refused to publish due to a passage which “implied that a very excellent journalist, George Monbiot, was protecting corporate interests” (in the words of ZNet editor, Michael Albert, who added that “We refuse to give silly and destructive claims and formulations credibility” (posted to Medialens messageboard, 16/7/09).

“Nobody is being censored”
The Medialens editors’ peculiar logic is that they aren’t really censoring anyone because there are “any number of sites” that would host the things that they delete. They’re not suppressing free speech, they assert, because free speech is available elsewhere, and because “virtually 100% free speech is literally a click away” on one of their other forums – unless, like Daniel Simpson or those who challenge Medialens’s attacks on IBC, etc, one happens to be banned from that forum as well.

The argument that “not-quite-free speech is available at forum B” doesn’t help if you’re being accused in forum A (of, say, “aiding and abetting in war crimes”) – especially if forum A has a much larger audience for spreading the baseless accusations. If the mass media employed Medialens’s argument to rationalise suppression of dissident views, Medialens would no doubt be outraged, with a bad case of adjectivitis.

Edwards and Cromwell have a habit of failing to think through the consequences of their own “logic”. Nobody is ever really censored, since free speech is available somewhere else? So why, one wonders, did Medialens complain bitterly when the Guardian website removed their off-topic post (which was clearly intended to “hound” a Guardian journalist over an old issue). Why weren’t Edwards and Cromwell content to take their beef to their own “B” forum, with its “virtually 100% free speech” almost guaranteed?

Another outstanding piece of Medialens reasoning is that people who have no message-boards of their own shouldn’t criticise Medialens’s censorship:

If you check the websites for FAIR, Monbiot, Pilger and many others, you’ll find they don’t have a board like this allowing messages to be posted without prior approval (or they don’t have message boards at all). Nor do critics like Kamm, Bob Shone and Mike at Media Lens Watch who accuse us of not tolerating dissent. (Medialens message board, 11/12/09)

As for “gagging” you, I guess we could claim IBC are gagging everyone by not having a comparable message board. (Medialens’s reply to a banned poster who’d defended IBC)

Or, as Edwards/Cromwell childishly replied after their censorship and general ignorance on IBC-related matters were revealed in a debate with IBC’s Josh Dougherty: “Where’s your message board, Josh?”. Perhaps Medialens’s plan is to save the planet with petty remarks based on astonishingly bad logic?

Manufacture of (bogus) consensus
As noted above, Medialens sometimes (perhaps often?) prevent people from defending themselves against accusations made on an ostensibly open, public message board (which they claim is read by thousands, including influential media folk). They offer bizarre rationalisations, but only when the censorship is exposed – otherwise it happens unnannounced; posts and posters simply disappear.

I first noticed this in 2006 after a number of people had criticised Medialens’s attacks on Iraq Body Count. Before long I realised that at least four such people had been banned (plus another, the former BBC journalist, David Fuller, who was hounded off the board by sneering, personal attacks from compassionate, respectful Medialens disciples). Criticism of Medialens on this topic eventually dwindled because only one person was left to post it – presumably Medialens realised that banning IBC’s Josh Dougherty (the lone remaining dissenter) would be bad PR for them. Confronted with mob-like animosity and remarkable ignorance, Josh eventually stopped posting, and Medialens finally had their no-dissent “consensus”.

A bogus “consensus” is a more serious matter than a biased “alert” (or blog entry, etc). In the latter case, the reader makes an allowance for individual viewpoint (or “bias”). An ostensibly “free”, “open” “consensus” is more comparable to a poll result – it’s seen as more significant than one individual’s opinion. This seems far from trivial in terms of influencing wider debate (see, for example, the Spiral of Silence communication theory). Anyone who witnessed the extension of Medialens’s bogus consensus (eg over IBC) from their message board to other, similar, forums might see a similarity to the kind of group-think encouraged by mass-media hysteria-rags. The real problem occurs when a “consensus” becomes resistant to facts. (In the Medialens/IBC context, some of the resisted facts are listed here and here).

‘New media’ censorship – stupid analogies
Medialens once gave the analogy of a “living room” for their message board. Why should they allow disruptive types into their living room, they asked. Someone pointed out that when Medialens put signs in their “living room” window accusing antiwar campaigners of “actively aiding and abetting in war crimes“, they should expect their polite “living room” ambience to be “disrupted” by demands that they remove their false accusations. (The person who pointed this out was banned at some point).

They no longer appear to use the ‘living room’ analogy. Instead they’ve opted for the ‘meeting hall’:

You couldn’t really have a climate denial fanatic at a Greenpeace meeting organising a climate change campaign endlessly insiting (sic) that the whole basis of the campaign was wrong. [...] You’d find a way to stop the disruption. (Medialens message board, 18/12/09)

Of course, “disruption” in meeting places suggests something physical: chairs kicked over, objects thrown, shouting, a concrete obstacle to proceedings, etc. One might question how this is analogous to someone simply posting a link to an article which Medialens disapprove of. (Medialens have deleted such posts and banned posters – on more than one occasion – for such harmless “disruptions”).

Note also Medialens’s use of the term “fanatic”. (They once banned someone with the “explanation” that he was “a fanatical defender of IBC“). “Fanatics” might be easy to spot in meeting halls (or at least security personnel at Labour/Tory Party conferences seem to think so, even though these “fanatics” may appear, to the rest of us, to be harmless pensioners who happen to disagree with Jack Straw, etc) – but it’s difficult to judge whether a poster to a message board is a “fanatic” if one can’t read his posts because they’ve been deleted without trace.

To delete or not to delete? As Tony Blair would say, it’s a tough decision. And as the Medialens editors do in fact say, “It’s very difficult and fraught”. Centuries of real struggle towards free speech weighed against the need to protect a web message-board from… “disruption”.

Control freaks & dogmas
I’m as optimistic about the democratic potential of “new media” as Medialens claim to be. But there’s a flip side to it – a control-freak’s delight, which Medialens seem to be taking advantage of. For example, by preventing someone from participating in a debate by secretly changing his password, while stating that he remained a “registered user” (with the false implication that he was able to participate – see footnote here). What kind of scenario in a real meeting hall would be analogous to that?

In 2002, George Monbiot wrote the following to Medialens (after being attacked by them):

Rather than offering a clear, objective analysis of why the media works the way it does, who pulls the strings, how journalists are manipulated, knowingly or otherwise, you appear to have decided instead to use your platform merely to attack those who do not accept your narrow and particular doctrine. [...] You appear to me to be confronting one form of bias and intolerance with another.

And that seems to be the main problem with Medialens. The more invested they are in a “narrow and particular doctrine”, the more likely they’ll have a protective instinct which makes censorship of “disruptions” to it seem appealing and easily rationalised.

Meanwhile, if Edwards and Cromwell are ever interested in hosting a real meeting in a real meeting place, I’d be happy to contribute some non-disruptive views. You might like to ponder how the following meeting of campaigners would play out on a Medialens-style message board:



Footnotes
1. Here and here are a few of the posts typical of the banned poster, ‘Max’, which apparently caused a “disruption” for Medialens. A lone Medialens supporter commented in favour of the banned poster, but this was ignored or quickly forgotten.

(Stop press: As I write I see that Medialens have just deleted another post. Unusually, they’ve notified the poster, David Sketchley, of the deletion – perhaps because he’s been a loyal supporter. Edwards/Cromwell explain that they’re “not keen on posts that accuse journalists of lying”. But apparently they’re happy enough to see the above banned poster, ‘Max’, accused of being a “little liar”.)

2. I don’t make such accusations lightly; this was an unambiguous, clearly documented lie. As I’ve explained in both the Media Hell page mentioned and in this ZNet article, Medialens wrote (in Oct 2007): “In the past, IBC’s response to the suggestion that violence prevents journalists from capturing many deaths has been, in effect, ‘Prove it!’” As Medialens know, IBC have always stated the exact reverse: “it is likely that many if not most civilian casualties will go unreported by the media”. How can we be sure that Medialens knew about this? Because they had quoted IBC’s statement in an earlier “alert“. (They still have not corrected their falsehood – or indeed any of the others I documented at ZNet.)

3. The Medialens editors’ “official” reason for banning me was provided in their email to me (18 June 2006). They accused me of “swamping” and “bombarding” their message board. When I’d pointed out that only 1 in 40 posts on their board was mine, and that mine were “mostly direct, concise responses to attacks on IBC”, I received no reply.

In stark contrast to the Medialens editors’ version of events, here’s one of Medialens’s supporters from that time, SueC, writing (20 June 2006) about me and the banning: “he was unfailingly courteous on the board and is a committed media activist writing excellent letters and emails to journalists and broadcasters; his only crime as far as I could see was in being a bit too good in argument”.

[joe emersberger]

"Reader" contacted me again so I updated the exchange to reflect that. It now includes a response by Shone to David's remarks above.