Open-posting on Indymedia ((( i )))

"möchtegerne indy" writes in this discussion:

nämlich genau die leute, die open-posting am liebsten aussschalten wollen, sind es meist, die mit open -posting kaum umgehen künnen.

(rough translation: namely exactly the people who would like to have open-posting switched off are those who can't handle open-posting)



Yes, a lot of people cannot handle open-posting: Indy.at is flooded with tons of crap articles with stuff that absolutely nobody is interested in and which has virtually no political relevance (except for the people who read Indymedia). Several anarchist, marxist, communist, left-liberal, whatever splinter groups fight each other, insulting each other and blame each other to be antisemitic or supporting Imperialism or whatever. During these "discussions", a lot of people shout for moderations, which is nothing more than censorship.



But IMHO, the major problem of Indymedia is not that people want to have open-posting removed and replaced by some censorship system. The greatest problem is open-posting itself. FAQ question #10 on Indy.at describes what is done with fascistic, racistic, antisemitic, homophobic, sexistic, whatever articles: they get hidden, and a special page has to be visited so that these articles can be reached again. The problem I see in this rule is that it biased against fascistic, racistic, antisemitic, ... articles, and such a system shouldn't really call itself "open posting" or "open publishing". Yes, "open to everything", except for articles with the content mentioned before. Don't misunderstand, I oppose these kinds of articles, too, but censoring away certain content is not what I would call "an open system". It is not freedom of speech. My understanding of freedom of speech is that everybody should be allowed to say what they want to say, even if discriminates against somebody or groups of people, or if it infringes the society's ethical rules.



The way Indymedia handles freedom of speech reminds me of the George W. Bush's (in)famous saying "there are limits to free speech", when some comedian made jokes about him during the 2000 president election campaign.