[Boston-editorial] flamewars

[Matthew Williams]

Well, I think we've all already agreed that Tim and I overreacted to  
Sid and Zoltar and we will hide articles with a lighter touch from now  
on.

You're right that it's not immediately obvious how our anti-hate speech  
policy derives from our mission statement or the global points of  
unity, now that I look at them in that light. I think the key word in  
our mission statement is that we are "progressive"; the relevant point  
in the points of unity is number 10, the anti-discrimination part.

We have the anti-hate speech policy for a couple of reasons. The most  
basic is that if we don't have it, neo-Nazis can take over the  
newswire. And that has happened to us, a couple years ago. The other  
reason, connected with point of unity #10, is that we want to create a  
comfortable environment for members of oppressed groups. Some of them  
may not mind the hate speech and feel fine arguing back. Many others  
might be alienated by an environment where such stuff is allowed to  
flow freely and not bother to go to a site where there's a lot of it. I  
want the website to be at least something of a "safe space", where  
people don't have to worry about that shit. Enough people deal with it  
enough in every day life that they shouldn't have to deal with it on  
our website. The tactic of arguing with anti-Semites, white  
supremacists, etc. has been tried and it doesn't really make any  
difference--they generally don't come here to engage in dialogue, only  
to harass us. This editorial policy hasn't been developed so much based  
on ideology, as on trial and error--problems come up and we revise the  
editorial policy so we can deal with them. We have found that if we  
don't hide hate speech, it just gets out of control. Also, a lot of our  
users prefer that we hide hate speech, since they feel it has no place  
on a progressive website like Boston Indy Media, and I tend to agree  
with them.

There certainly have been occasional conservatives who have come to the  
website to engage in genuine dialogue--they are not the problem. I have  
no desire to see their posts hidden--it's the trouble-makers we're  
worried about, the ones who want to disrupt the usefulness of the site  
as a resource, for both news and discussion, to the progressive  
community.

-- Matt

On Mar 14, 2005, at 12:26 PM, Jonathan D. Proulx wrote:

>
> Not sure how useful my commentary is as I don't think you know me well
> enough to judge where it's coming from, but here it is anyway.
> Appologies in advance for the rant, apparently I have issues around
> censorship :)
>
> I appreciate that editing needs to take place and I can also
> understand where individuals were coming from in there actions, so
> please none of this is meant as  personal critiques but as comments on
> policy...so disclaimers aside:
>
> Zoltar on his own will come off looking like an idiot, I say give him
> enough rope, and only point out factual errors that are easy to
> backup.  It does my heart good that he's reading this too...bet you
> think your clever joining a public list (oh I suppose that is meant
> personally....oops)
>
> Sid on the other hand has the occasional point, particularly in the
> Police Brutality article.  There seems to be an "oh no you can't say
> anything bad about the black panthers" reaction which is a bit
> absurd.  Even the strongest supporters of their goals could have
> strenuous disagreements over their methods.
>
> Based on the two threads I can see that Sid is antagonistic, but it
> seems to be a genuine disagreement and debate.  Perhaps this is
> because I haven't yet figured out how to view hidden comments?
>
> I suppose I'm a little uncomfortable with the underlying policy.
>
> Consider would you have hidden a post by Malcolm X :
>
> "When a snake bites your children, you don't go and look for the snake
> that has blood on it's jaws, any old snake will do. Any old snake will
> do!"
>
> one location that has the speach  
> http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/malcolm-x/end-police- 
> brutality.mp3
>
> now in context the "snake" can be construed as the LAPD or as white
> folk generally.  I've always taken it as a "The White Man" and found
> it a rather chilling speach.
>
> I'd rather not censor this, which means in my sense of fairness I
> could nod censor the converse (though I admit it'd have a much harder
> time of it).
>
> The clause "...or violations of either the Boston IMC's mission  
> statement
> or of the Global IMC's principles of unity , such as white
> supremacist, homophobic, sexist, etc. postings." in the editorial
> policy is a bit dangerous (infact I don't see how the ban on white  
> supremacist,
> homophobic, sexist, etc. postings is derived from the referenced
> sources).  How do we define these things?  Is it really better to
> supress rather than debate them?
>
> If it comes down to name calling that's clear and can be rulled under
> personal attacks, but should we pretend that ideas that are offensive
> to us don't exist...
>
> -Jon
>