Banned From Huffpo

Is Ariana really a Feminist?

2011-11-09T14:03:00.000-08:00

Huffpo/AOL Escalating to Physical Threats

2011-10-01T16:48:00.000-07:00

Artist-53 recently sent me an email about an exchange she had with a Huffpo User called The Green Hornet:

I thought I would share the ultimate HP/AOL reality/insult with you. I was physically threatened on HP on Sept.21pm. I immediately reported it to HP's legal dept. as soon as I saw the comment on the eve of 9/21/11, as I was watching the Troy Davis story unfold online. No reply from HP. I figured they were all busy doing the same thing, re: Troy Davis.

The next morning 9/22/11, I reported it to HP via the Contact Us link. No reply. I reported it again, and received a form letter stating that I should not use threatening words etc., because HP guidelines do not permit it.I emailed them back, stating I was the one that was threatened. Still no reply.Mean while I flagged it for abuse, but the threatening comment remained up and I posted a comment to someone that stated they also clicked the Flag as Abuse link, but HP would not post my response.

Yesterday Thurs Sept 22, I called AOL Corporate, finally as a last resort. The conversation went like this:I clearly stated the issue, read the offensive comments, she agreed it was offensive and transferred my call. After being placed on hold a few minutes, I went through the entire story again:

"Do you have an account?"
"No, though I have an AOL email account."
"Well Mam there isn't anything I can do."
"Seriously? Because this is in complete opposition to HP posting policy.Can you transfer me to someone so I can make a formal complaint?"
"I can't do that Mam, we don't have a complaint dept."
"Well can you transfer me to HR, Human Resources?"
"I can't do that Mam"
"Are you aware that there are federal laws in place that take threats over the internet very seriously?And I certainly take threats as being very serious as well."
"There's nothing I can do."
"Then that means that AOL and HP are complacent regarding threats and do not follow their own guidelines. And the threat is still up on the thread."

Click..... she hung up me.

I then called the cyber unit at Fl.'s States Attorneys Office and explained the situation. The individual thought it sounded creepy, and gave me a number to Fl. Law and Enforcement, Cyber Unit.The individual felt it was also a very strange odd comment on HP, as well as the fact I had no response from HP and that AOL hung up me.She said that if I wanted to proceed with a civil suit I could, I stated noShe took down all information,so that it would be documented in case I received any more threats. At least it would be documented. But unless it grew to more than this one time, they didn't have any recourse at the moment, but as long as this one was documented.

Below are the posts, and I do have copies of all HP form letters. The article was Bank of America Violated Whistleblower Provisions I commented on 9/15/2011 and my comment was benign, a word play on his name.

In response to his off the wall comment concerning BoA.GreenHornet also changed his avatar by the next day. From a fake black male (I enlarged using Photoshop) to I have no clue what it is.It took him a week to respond to my peyote comment. That's when I was threatened.

From RedDogBear: Here is a screen snapshot of the exchange as of today 10/1/11 it is still up.

Censored Comment on Feminism

2011-09-12T20:13:00.000-07:00

If you are new to this blog please see the Introduction.

If you have an example of censorship on The Huffington Post you would like to share please send me an email at: RedDog071@gmail.com

To sign the petition against censorship at the Huffington Post please click here.

Haven't posted any deleted comments in a while. I have mostly given up thinking anything is going to change at Huffpo and also just haven't been posting much or when I do post its shorter comments that don't get censored. I've mostly given up trying to have any serious discussions on Huffpo. Its just too frustrating when comments get censored for no reason just as you are having a good interaction with someone.

But I felt that I had to post the following example On a recent article about the new Remake of the Peckinpah movie Straw Dogs user weebils posted the following comment:

I see zero reasons for remaking this movie. It is a classic that was transforming at the time and it was hard to watch. I see some people on here posting about the female lead and how the movie was demeaning to women. I remember the times and this movie was actually a reflection of many issues that needed to be aired. It is easy to just blame men. But the fact is many women of the time did behave in childlike ways because that was expected. It is hard for many people to understand that at one time women were treated like children. Even in the sixties and seventies in the United States a husband was required to be present when a woman wanted to conduct business. A husband could do many things without the consent of his wife but it was not a two way street. Many women did use sexual or childish ways to get what they wanted Look at the antics Lucille Ball went through just to get a few extra bucks from Ricky. Look at the way he spoke to and treated her. That was on national TV and considered totally acceptable. Someone asked me once why Jackie O spoke in such a childlike voice. Again, that was considered appropriate for women. The movement was not just about liberating how men thought. It was also about liberating how women though about themselves and behaved. As I tried to reply to it the comment was deleted.

I thought this was a very thoughtful comment. I can see how some feminists might disagree but certainly that's the kind of issues that should be discussed, but no the comment was deleted. You may notice that my image has changed. It reflects that I'm spending more time blogging at richarddawkins.net where I am Red Dog

Banned for a Trig Truther Comment

2011-05-08T16:03:00.000-07:00

Here is a new example of censorship from Huffpo user nalinpalinnow:

Hi, here is my summation of my banning experience at HuffPo which I posted in comments at the Business Insider article on Palin's story about Trig's birth. Once again, no profanity, bombast, ad hominem, etc. Just a comment that rubbed someone the wrong way. My entire commenting history of 2 years deleted without recourse. I wrote politely twice asking to see the comment which they banned me for no response.

BANNED!!

I would like to share this weird experience here. I am not a particularly passionate commenter on HuffPo and more often than not I make a light joke on a puff piece. Nor do I comment every day but maybe 3 or 4 times a week. Like many here, yes I am fed up with their hypocrisy and sad excuse for a liberal newspaper, but I don't particularly boycott sources of information. For example I am quite proud of nominating C4crap for worst blog of all time which they well deserved, but it doesn't mean I won't go there and look at it.

Imagine my surprise when this comment which I attempted to post only twice last night (count 'em, once, twice, that is it) resulted in this email today:

"Your account has been suspended for possible violations of Huffington Posts Term of Use until it is possible for a senior moderator to review. A senior moderator will review your account in the next two business days and will reinstate it if possible.
If you wish to contact us about this situation, you may write to: community-support@huffingtonpost.com

Thank You,
Danielle
Moderator-In-Charge

__________________________________________________________________________________-

Here is the comment which got me banned:

AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, the far right conservative who now controls Huffington Post, also happens to be a major financial supporter to SarahPAC. Is this why “Trig Birther” threads are now disallowed on Huffington Post?

Here was the piece that was passed on by Huff Po, "Sarah Palin's Version Of Trig's Birth May Be More Troubling Than The Hoax

Read more: Business Insider Article on how Huffpo's new AOL Overlords are Conservative Republicans
______________________________________________________________________________

I have never been banned from any site on the entire world wide web, including even C4P. I've never even gotten a warning from any site ever. I used to double, triple and quadruple post links to my old blog or to palingates on HuffPo back in 2009, and never heard a thing from them about that. But an attempt to post this comment twice last night results in this. Wowser.

I really wanted to share this here so that others would know the level of censorship on this issue. Actually it is quite mind blowing to me. I don't care, because frankly I'm always a little uncomfortable that my snark and some personal opinions of mine will live on in the annals of HuffPo for all eternity, so they may be doing me a big favor if they decide to continue this ban. Whatever. I will not be writing to them about this because I just don't care to engage their silliness.

Back in Feb. Business Insider didn't seem to think that the new CEO TA would make a difference in the "progressive" slant of the rag. I beg to differ.

"Armstrong had AOL buy Huffington Post because, unlike AOL blogs, it has been able to attract a dedicated and loyal audience. If the Huffington Post does that by appealing to progressives, Armstrong is not likely to fix what is not broken. He's a capitalist with too much money on the line to do anything like that." This article goes on to talk about some of the political donations "libertarian" TA and his wife have made.

To read more: Business Insider Article on how Huffpo's new AOL Overlords are Conservative Republicans

Click here for NalinPalin's blog.

Some Articles on the AOL Purchase of Huffpo

2011-02-13T21:45:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple of interesting articles on the AOL purchase of Huffpo. Feel free to comment with your opinions or links to other articles.

The Controversial Huffington Post-AOL Merger: 7 Questions That Matter from AlterNet

AOL Buying the Huffington Post for $315 Million from TPMLivewire

Waiting for Arianna

2011-02-11T07:53:00.000-08:00

Here is a great little comic from Ted Rall on the AOL purchas of Huffpo

Censor One for the Gipper

2011-02-05T17:36:00.000-08:00

I was having an interesting discussion about the legacy of Reagan and the Berlin wall. It started with a post I wrote where I briefly described some interactions I've had with various friends from Germany, Poland, and Russia about the fall of the Berlin wall and communism in general. I've known four people, one German, two Russians, and one Polish immigrant. The Polish guy was my boss for a while and was a mostly far right wing believer who was actually contemptuous of Lek Walenska and the Solidarity movement and the others were girl friends of one kind or another. One was fairly left wing like me and the other two were moderate to conservative. The amazing thing was all these people had one thing in common, they literally LOL'd at the idea that Ronald Reagan was responsible for the fall of communism. They had been there and they knew it was due to the people of the region not some American actor who took credit for it. Here is the thread that got published with the comment from LateBloomer2 that I responded to. (Note: click "Expand Full Thread" to see the whole thread)

Here is my reply which Huffpo deemed inappropriate to post:

"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" had NO effect?"

It probably provoked a few laughs. The idea that Ronald Reagan had any moral authority to preach to the USSR about human rights is I'm sorry but just laughable.

Yes, the thugs in Eastern Europe who beat up trade unionists and other people of conscience were evil. But compared to the torture centers and death squads in Central and South America and other parts of the world that were created by US puppets the Eastern Europeans were amateurs. Where the East German or Polish secret police would beat you up the Chileans, Guetamalans, and the Central American "Freedom Fighters" would torture you to death and then kill you and anyone whose name you screamed as you were being tortured.

As just one example look up Jennifer Harbury, a US woman who married a Guatemalan national who was tortured to death. We know his story only because he married a well educated US woman but there are thousands of other victims of US disdain for human rights.

Just to be clear I'm not saying the Berlin Wall or anything done by the USSR was justified because of what the US did. I'm just saying that the idea that the US had any moral authority to critique the USSR is not supported by facts and that certainly Gorbachev (as well as the majority of educated people outside the US) knew that.

Yet Another Fed Up Huffpo User

2011-02-02T15:33:00.000-08:00

Here is an email from Huffpo user Ely who was fed up with Huffpo's censorship:

I deleted my long-time HuffPo account yesterday, after being completely fed up with what appears to me to be an increasingly censorship-prone "screening policy." I've noticed this before with the occasional screened comment, but lately I feel that it's getting out of control. Many "hot" news stories routinely have hundreds, if not thousands, of comments "pending." It's absolutely ridiculous.

Here's the straw that broke the camel's back for me.

Yesterday, Arianna posted an opinion article on Davos. The gist of at least a portion of the article is that the "economic forum" held in Davos this week is likely to have a "somber" mood, with a major focus on the growing economic disparity between the super rich and the rest of us.

My comment was this (it's from memory, but the "inflammatory" portions are definitely preserved):

"It seems ironic that you speak of Davos as a means towards solving the growing economic disparity, when Davos itself is a perfect example of that disparity. It's an ultra-exclusive, invite only, super expensive (many participants spend hundreds of thousands of dollars just to be there) party for the super-elite. The NYT recently described it as "successful people wanting to be seen with other successful people.

Do you really believe participants will be feeling "somber" about the crumbling middle class as they celebrate their record corporate profits (despite laying off half their workers)? If they actually cared, they'd invest the millions of dollars spent on the event on the people they claim to want to help, rather than on themselves."

Obviously the comment is pissed-off, but it's an honest comment that I believe should be seen as criticism - not anything worthy of censorship. There is no profanity, no incitement to violence, copyright infringement - in short, nothing that violates HP's "guiding principles" for screening comments.

I believe this comment was censored because it disagreed with Ms. Huffington's perspective on the matter. I find it ironic that she's of the progressive liberal ilk, but runs her newspaper like a dictatorship, complete with active censorship of any opinion that undermines her own.

Once I realized I had been censored, I posted another comment talking about how HP censors comments, unless they kiss the butt of the author's viewpoint or the HP's viewpoint. Obviously that comment never saw the light of day either.

That's my story. Thanks for giving those of us that are fed up with this whole thing a forum in which to vent! My guess is that you're likely to get more of these kinds of emails, because, as I said above, it appears that the censorship is getting worse, not better.

Best,
Ely

Censorship Always Derails the most Interesting Discussions

2011-01-26T19:50:00.000-08:00

I couldn't resist commenting on an article about Egypt. It didn't take long for censorship to kick in. In this case it wasn't my comment that got censored but the comment of someone I was debating with. Why his/her comment was censored I have no idea. Here is the initial thread: from a Huffpo article about the protests in Egypt

ResearchtheFacts responded to my last comment about Female Genital Mutilation with the following:

Some of the crap we have going on over here under the cloak of darkness. You have sex slavery going on utilizing children. How civilized is that? Where is your protest for the little girls being pimped out every night?

I wrote a reply to that but as I posted it I got the "You are replying to a comment that has been deleted" message. Here is the comment I tried to post:

Why do you assume that I don't condemn the US for "the crap we have going on over here"? I absolutely do. I don't claim the US is the pinnacle of civilization. In fact if you look at all my comments just on this article I believe the US has a great deal of responsibility for the tyrany in Egypt and elsewhere in the middle east. I just think its ludicrous to think that oppression is OK in any form, that just because the US has behaved abysmally that the world should look the other way when people who resist the US also act abysmally.

This is a good example of how foolish the censorship at Huffpo is. This happens to me just about every time I try to have an interesting discussion with someone. Just as we are getting to some intersting point of discussion we end up being blocked by the censorship system.

Defusing Propaganda

2011-01-16T20:27:00.000-08:00

Haven't posted anything recently but its not because HP has stopped censoring. I and others who make substantial comments on political issues have for the most part stopped commenting there. I couldn't resist commenting on an article that was trying to whip up fear of the smoking gun in form of a mushroom cloud. Although this time it wasn't Iraq it was Venezuela. Here is my comment that never made it past censorship:

Except there is no actual evidence, zero, that Venezuela has any interest in nuclear weapons. The propoganda capability of places like the Cato institute is truly amazing. Venezuala hasn't attacked anyone, they have a minimal military budget, and they comply with UN processes and treaties.

The US on the other hand has never signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, has supported other non-signatory countries such as Israel in developing nuclear weapons and supported a military overthrow of their democratically elected government of Venezuela several years ago. Yet somehow we are supposed to believe that Venezuela is the threat to world peace because they want to have peaceful nuclear power and most people in the US take that as a serious issue worth discussing rather then the obvious nonsense it is.

As Chomsky says Goebells would have envied such an amazing feat of propaganda.

Censorship Still Going On at Huffpo

2010-11-18T13:43:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted any examples of Huffpo censorship lately but just want to make clear its still pretty much as bad as ever there. I've really cut down on my commenting as a result of the censorship. What is the point of commenting if there isn't really free discourse?

Azeem Ibrahim had an interesting article about the biggest lies about Islam recently. Here is a comment I left that was never posted.

"I agree with this article but I think you left off the most important lie about Islam:

Lie Four: The main thing that motivates Islamic terrorists is their fanatic faith.

The emphasis on Islam hides the far greater issue of the countless crimes committed against the Islamic world between the end of the second world war and the present. A very short list: overthrowing a democratic, secular government in Iran and imposing a dictator who ruled through torture, shooting down an Iranian civilian aircraft and rather than apologizing giving the captain a medal, supporting Israel by regularly ignoring and vetoing UN resolutions that have backing from virtually the rest of the world, destroying a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan and depriving the region of one of the few needed sources for medicine, supporting tyranical governments that don't have the support of their people in Egypt and Saudi Arabia,...

It is issues such as these that really drive things such as the 9/11 attacks but to acknowledge that would be to acknowledge US crimes which is pretty much forbidden in the US MSM."

As usual I believe this comment was well within the bounds of Huffpo's published guidelines. I think one likely reason it wasn't published was the mild implied criticism of Israel. I've noticed quite often that even the most modest criticism of Israel -- as this was my point about UN resolutions is an incontestable fact -- prohibits comments from being published.

New Blogs

2010-10-28T12:17:00.000-07:00

Here are two new blogs that might be of interest to people:

Huffington Toast: A progressive alternative to HP Censorship

Huffington Post Anti-Science: Documenting the poor science reporting found at the Huffington Post.

Who Moderates the Moderators?

2010-10-20T19:46:00.000-07:00

Huffpo has had a community moderation system in place for a while. I think in principle the idea of community moderation has some merit. However, as practiced at Huffpo it seems we may be creating a bunch of Lord of the Flies petty tyrants. The following is just one example. User Artist-53 posted a comment about how Huffpo's advertising had a serious effect on her epilepsy and a "Community Moderator" Hoodoo X replied with a heartless comment that I doubt would have made it past JuLiA for a normal user. Here is a screen shot of the interaction: (click on the image to view it full size)

Sie müssen nie von den Nazis sprechen!

2010-10-16T09:43:00.000-07:00

This is from Huffpo User JGatsby. BTW, I agree that the Dawkins speech he links to is quite good.

I've noticed that whenever I mention Nazis or Hitler in a comment it very often gets censored, no matter how polite or relevant. I understand the need to stop people from constantly calling politicians (from either side) Nazis or making Hitler comparisons to everyone you don't like but sometimes (as in the example below) it just goes to ridiculous extremes. This comment was censored from an article on religion and morality.

"There is a fantastic article on RichardDawkins.net Its a speech Dawkins gave to a rally protesting the UK government's subsidizing the pope's visit to the UK. One of the things the pope recently mentioned is the old "Hitler was an atheist" claim. Dawkins not only points out the irony of someone who was a member of the Hitler youth making that claim he shows how historically wrong the claim is, a great read:

Ratzinger is an enemy of humanity by Richard Dawkins"

Gun Control Censorship

2010-10-16T09:30:00.000-07:00

There is a lot of censorship around gun control topics on Huffpo. Here is one of many examples. Paul Helmke had an article on the importance of considering the victims of gun violence. The following comes from user Dreamweaver2nd:

This is from SewaneeLeftist's "Activities" column. My reply to Sewanee's comment was posted briefly. First my post was deleted, but Sewanee's remained. I checked today and both were gone.

SewaneeLeftist Commented 2 days ago in Politics (October 11, 2010)
“I've been away from HuffPo for a few days, so I'm late to this, but Helmke is right as usual, top to bottom, East to West, and high (concern for gun violence victims and citizen safety from guns) to low (the specious mind-boggling arguments for great...”

Paul Helmke: Make Concerns of Gun Violence Victims a Priority
Elected officials must consider the awesome responsibility of the jobs they've been entrusted to do. Talk to victims, survivors, and law enforcement about the all too pervasive and underreported trage...

DreamWeaver2nd 0 minute ago (7:13 PM)
425 Fans
This comment is pending approval and won't be displayed until it is approved.

It's good to see you, SewaneeLeftist:

I'd like to repeat the last paragraph from your post above -- You accurately describe, once again, the pro-gun team's tactics against other posters on HuffPost and any honest discourse. Ultimately, however, there is a responsibility in allowing intimidation and attacks on a blog.

Two men in Oregon, father and son, planted a bomb in a bank. When police attempted to defuse the bomb, it exploded killing two and critically wounding another. The killers' motivation and rage grew out of the fear-mongering lies and propaganda from NRA extremist groups, such as this one, that "Second Amendment rights will be infringed..." That hysteria, visible in words here, made manifest in violence in the communities of our nation. In allowing unfettered propaganda and attacks against honest opposition in the media and Internet sites, is there a shared responsibility?

Quote:
I'd mention their deep commitment to silencing any disagreement, but that goes on all day, every day (especially here at HP) so it's nothing new. It's notable only in the continuing proof that in discourse they follow the same tactics that lead them to bring guns into restaurants, political rallies, coffee houses, schools, and banks -- intimidation and the threat of violence are always efficacious in the absence of fact, logic, history, or support for the social contract

Southern Bubba's Blog

2010-10-06T18:42:00.000-07:00

Here is an email from Southern Bubba who also has a new blog: http://potusforaday.blogspot.com/

Banned SouthernBubba here. Just want all of you to know that I am without a doubt the most technologically deficient member of the group. Fair warning, I will probably ask questions and make suggestions that are patently ridiculous from the get-go, so I apologize in advance for any aggravation that I may cause. I am a late comer to the cyber universe and do not have a very steep learning curve and do not know many of the rules of "cyber etiquette", but you will find me a 110%, die hard defender of the 1st Amendment/Constitution and a red hot hater of the hypocrites that are running HP and nearly every other site in the blogosphere.

What we are contending with is "privatized censorship" through the use of a public institution (the internet) and the battle is going to be long and hard and not for the faint hearted. We will all have to learn to bite our tongues from time to time and endure opinions that would make us want to gag or puke or fight, all for the greater good. And make no mistake about it, this is for the greater good of this Nation and the future generations that will never know the great pride that our Founding Fathers took in creating a new nation and the true patriotism that our ancestors experienced by knowing that giving their very lives in the defense of the PRINCIPLES of the Constitution was a price not too great to pay for their future generations. Guess what! We are those future generations! It is time to man/woman up and prove that they did not fight, die, and struggle for words that have been a beacon to the world for over 200 years in vain, because we saw fit to cave in to our own weaknesses for elitism, juvenile thinking, laziness or a thousand other excuses that never crossed their minds.

To contact Southern Bubba email him at: kenw_1@netzero.net

From the Radical Secularist: HP protests gaining traction

2010-10-06T12:12:00.000-07:00

The following idea is from HP User The Martin Gak The Radical Secularist:

So it is apparent that the question of censorship and deletion at the Huffington Post has been gaining some traction. So much so that the site has been forced to address the issue: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-clark-estes/huffpost-community-moderator_b_740009.html

The column is somewhat informative though it places the brunt of the responsibility on the Community Moderators and defends the Badge system. Yet, most of the people that have been banned have been the object of actions by the site moderators and not by community moderators, who only have power to delete comments but not to ban
users.

The strange irony is that the people who are addressed by this column cannot respond because they have been banned from the site. Yet, it seems imperative to take the opportunity to respond. So here is the idea: open a new account, copy and paste the following message to the comment window of

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-clark-estes/huffpost-community-moderator_b_740009.html

and invite anyone who is still in the HP to post to do the same. Most likely it will be deleted so repeated and sustained efforts to post will be necessary. If we succeed, we can 1. get the message across, 2. draw some attention to the policy. Here is the message:

"In order to defend its editorial line, the HuffPo has censored individuals who openly criticize their content, their choice of bloggers, the political positions expressed in the work and the credentials of the writers. Stories on these matters, if anyone would like to know, can be found at http://bannedfromhuffpo.blogspot.com/.

The HP response to repeated criticism has been to delete comments and then to eliminate profiles normally without explanation. The fact is that HP is hardly a space for open deliberation but rather the platform for a section of the Democratic Party. It has a penchant for peddling new age products and has been widely criticized for letting on people that play fast and loose with science, religion, etc.If you dont believe me I dare you to repost this message."

Please keep count of the amount of times your message was posted and erased and report back here if you are so kind. There is a way in which enslaved or exiled speech can be emancipated and freed.

Martin Gak
TheRadicalSecularist.com

More 9/11 Censorship

2010-10-04T18:46:00.000-07:00

The following is from an email I received from a Huffpo user who was banned. I don't agree with a lot of what he says such as praising Ahmadinejad or calling people "Zionist Jews" but he has some interesting questions for Huffpo on the hypocrisy of their censorship policy so I thought it would be interesting to post his email:

I have been banned, just recently..Not sure why, tho maybe a post to do with 9-11 did it..But here is my letter to Huff post. I note that Huff Post had itself been banned in China, so they are in no position to ban others and maintain any sort of moral high ground.

Note also that President Ahmadinejad's little truth session at the UN on 9-11, has forced Huff Post to break its own rule about airing Conspiracy theories and esp 9-11 ! LOL

The comments are instructive...,most mock Ahmadinejad. Yet if you go to a site like youtube, a much freer site, and its comments on his speech or interview with Larry King,...you get a very different set of views..most endorse Ahmadinejad, find him perceptive calm, a rational. Its as if this set of persons had been wiped off the face of Ariannas earth. Youtube comments are unmoderated...aka not censored. So it give us a better index of public opinion than HP. Since most of the permitted comments echo the official HP line.. how is this different to ,say, soviet times Pravda?

Its attitude to 911 truth pretty much exposes Huff Post as anything but an investigative journalism site. Its posting the atrocious and racist bilge of Ben Cohen and Bernard Levy should alert people that HP is not what they think it is.

amazingly a commentator of the above post got this thru: 'In any healthy society, free and open debate should be allowed. That's what our constitution provides. We also have to follow the money, as in Watergate and Iran/Contra'

So if you're reading this Arianna, why is HP behaving as if free and open debate is poison?

regards
Brian

Here is Brian's email to Huffpo:

Hello Huff Post,

Recently i went to your site to read an article and maybe post some comments..But when i came to do so, i found this waiting for me:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Post a comment
Sorry, but you have been banned from commenting.

--------------------------------------------------

I don't know where that came from, as there was no indication why the ban was instituted. However, I had been or was commenting on a piece by the Ben Cohen which went:

'With tiresome predictability, the Iranian tyrant Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is again in New York for the United Nations General Assembly. And again, he is performing to type. Rambling, inchoate speeches about the decline of capitalism, facile equations of the Iran's judicial system with that of the United States, ranting about Israel - of course! - and a televised sit down with Charlie Rose. And Larry King.' Etc

I was astonished by the invective in that rant, and why you had actually published it. So here is what i wrote:

'With tiresome predictability, the Iranian tyrant Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is again in New York for the United Nations General Assembly''

and with tiresome predictability the Zionist's slander a democratically elected leader of a independent state...But that's because he is not a sevant of either Washnigton or tel Aviv.

'Rambling, inchoate speeches about the decline of capitalism'

Giving excellent speeches about the corruption of a system that has impoverished even american citziens let alone the third world.

'facile equations of the Iran's judicial system with that of the United States,

the US judicial system which incarcerates on th basis of race and which has imprisoned the Cuban 5 for the past decade on trumoped up charges.

'To protest is to recognize the futility of dialogue with Ahmadinejad, a man who, when it comes to lying, enviably blends classical totalitarianism with postmodern spin'

When it comes to lying, be cant resist trying to outdo Goebbels with the Big Lie...iran is not a totalitarian state...if it was it would have the support of the US which has a history of backing totalitarian states etc.

============

Now ive been doing some research on Huff Post and ive discovered that Your blog has been engaged in extensive banning and censoring of commentators. Here is a sample:

http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/blogspotting/archives/2005/09/huffingtonpost.html

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/07/banned_from_huffpo_yet_another_reason_wh.php

http://assimilatedpress.blogspot.com/2007/01/huffington-post-censures-investigative.html

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/t/r/truthseeker77/2010/03/see-the-video-banned-by-youtub.php

Each of the persons posting here is disgusted by the very brazen and unethical way they had their commenting privileges banned, or comments censored..with no word as to why. Esp as we see Huffington post allows some truly disgusting persons like Ben Cohen and Bernard Levy (both zionist jews with an agenda), the later of whom is engaged in an ongoing attack against Iran, now using the case of a Iranian woman, Sakineh, accused of murdering her husband, to inflame a mob to back Israels demand the US and its accomplice NATO(aka EU) to attack Iran.Is his what HP wants? More war? Doesn't this violate your policies?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bernardhenri-levy/sakinehs-attorney-speaks_b_682721.html

But whats really interesting and ironic , is that Huffington Post itself complained of being banned in China:

'You may have followed the ongoing controversy about the Chinese government blocking foreign journalists' access to certain Internet sites during the Beijing Olympics. Most of the attention has centered on the censoring of the sites of Amnesty International, BBC News and the Falun Gong religious group. Under pressure, the Chinese Communist Party has lifted the bans on Amnesty and BBC News, but one site has continued to be totally blocked: Huffingtonpost.com.

In Beijing, we can get Drudge; we can get Common Dreams; we can get Raw Story and Truthout. But Huffington Post: censored completely.
...
Twenty-nine years later, in terms of human rights, I don't think that too much has changed. I still have a great affection for the Chinese people, but even today, one never knows who is listening.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-wallechinsky/huffington-post-still-ban_b_116635.html

http://www.nationalreview.com/media-blog/33098/huffington-post-still-banned-beijing/tom-gross

http://willyloman.wordpress.com/2008/12/16/banned-at-huffpo/

How can Huffington Post rebuke China for banning them, when HP has banned me and so many others for what is clearly political reasons? Read the above grievances...most if not all accuse HP of banning them for their political opinons.
But note that HP is accusing two of the US official enemies of HR violations , censorship and anything else they can come up with. SO is HP acting as an unpaid PR agent of the US government? Perhaps HP hopes no one will make the connection.After all its only the Chinese who institute bans.

Ive also learned HP has censored journalist Max Blumenthal:
http://maxblumenthal.com/2009/06/censored-by-the-huffington-post-imprisoned-by-the-past-why-i-made-feeling-the-hate-in-jerusalem/

the reason?
'Within a few hours, I received an email from a Huffington Post administrator informing me he had scrubbed my video from the site. “I don’t see that it has any real news value,” the administrator told me'

Or was because it expose the racist nature of israel?

Some points on HP policy:
Imaware you have set limits on what can be discussed...just as they do in China.
'We also do not allow the promotion and propagation of conspiracy theories, including those about 9/11. '
Promotion? Not allowing promotion is censorship. By keeping any investigation of 9-11 out of your pages, you ensure the public is left with the official conspiracy theory'

well, youve allowed the discussion of 'conspiracies' before..remember former contributor Jesse Ventura:
'

It’s worth noting that HuffPost already ran an excerpt from another chapter of American Conspiracies, about the US “war on drugs,” and they had no problem with that subject. But this one is, as we all know, taboo. Clearly, even to question the official story of 9/11 is to engage in “conspiracy theories” (as if the official story is not itself a “conspiracy theory,” and a preposterous one at that).

http://www.kocosports.com/absolutenm/anmviewer.asp?a=32691

But significantly, by shutting down debate on 9-11 or any 'conspiracy' you are assuming the official theory is correct, and it should not be debated.You are acting not as a journalist but as an unpaid State Censor....

and: 'As such, we do not allow hate speech, nor do we allow speech that advocates or supports hatred or unlawful violence. We do not allow racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, or other intolerance. Likewise, threats of violence or threats to anyone or any group's personal safety are not acceptable. We also do not allow false claims or misleading implications that any individual or group perpetuates hate or unlawful violence'

and yet as i showed at the beginning, you posted Ben Cohens very libelous rant against president Ahmadinejad of Iran. Which i would read as hate speech.
Would you post it if the person libeled was president Obama?

So why is HP behaving in a manner that loses it good will with that segment of the public who should be its backbone? Do you really think you can disguise your actions with a few chosen policy statements?

its not as if Huff Post is not aware that banning is bad

here a ban is lifted because Facebook censors;

SO why does Huff Post BAN?

Huffpo Censors Thailand Via Amsterdam

2010-10-02T15:49:00.000-07:00

I received an interesting email from yet another Huffpo user named Scuter who was banned recently. Like a lot of us Scuter was until recently a loyal Huffpo user who liked the site quite a bit. He posted several comments on the article by Robert Amsterdam titled Thailand Sets a Poor Example to Burma.

The situation in Thailand is complex and even though I've spent a few hours trying to understand it I feel as if I've just scratched the surface. However, what is clear to me is that Scuter's comments were perfectly appropriate. He pointed out a clear bias that Mr. Amsterdam has which was not brought out in the article. He also pointed out errors and bias in Mr. Amsterdam's article and as he makes clear below did so in a way that was clearly in compliance with Huffpo's comment guidelines.

Here is a screen snapshot of one of his comments:

Scuter had 5 comments in a row deleted. Not one of them contained a single untrue word. Some of them contained only links to external news articles that provided a needed contrary perspective to Mr. Amsterdam's article. For example, an Amnesty International report on Thaksin's extra-judicial killings or a link to a NY Times article quoting Human Rights Watch Asia Director saying the 3000 extra-judicial killings under Thaksin were "appalling".

Here are some other links that Scuter tried to include in his comments but were censored. The descriptions for the links come from Scuter:

TIME.com article (05/05/10) which paints a far more accurate picture of the extended crisis, as it unfolded. The protesters were remarkably convincing as hijackers holding Bangkok CBD hostage to their ever-increasingly irrational ransom demands. Over a very long period of time.

TIME.com article (05/14/10) documenting the 'peaceful' protesters (armed with Molotov cocktails, smoke bombs and rifles) as they provoked and then attacked the soldiers who were tasked with returning the CBD to Bangkok's 20 million residents, who had long since tired of watching the government agree to the protesters demands, only for the protesters to reject the generous concessions.

Youtube footage of Red Shirt core leaders (the group that Mr. Amsterdam portrayed as peaceful victims of government repression) ordering their followers to resort to violence and terror in chilling speeches filmed months before the 'peaceful' protesters set fire to Bangkok:

(0:48 sec) Red Shirt core leader Arisaman screaming for the tens of thousands of Red Shirts to bring petrol to Bangkok to burn the city down.

(0:31 sec) Red Shirt core leader Nattawut telling the massive crowd to "burn the country down" and he would take full responsibility.

(1:20 min) Arisaman outlining detailed instructions to the Red Shirts heading to Bangkok to each bring 1 litre of gas to "bargain" with, and if the government doesn't listen, to use the petrol to make them "disappear from this world".

Reply to Comment from Walkfly

2010-09-22T16:26:00.000-07:00

Walkfly left a comment on the Introduction page. Its an argument I frequently hear so I thought it would be worthwhile to post the comment in its entirety and my response. The original comment is in normal font prefaced by WF: and my reply is in italics prefaced by RDB:.

WF: I just want you all to know... you don't have guaranteed freedom of speech on any website. If you look in the Constitution, it clearly states that CONGRESS shall pass no law barring the freedom of speech.

RDB: I don't think I've every stated that Huffpo is violating my first amendment rights. Of course they have a right to moderate. I've never denied that. On the contrary if you look at various posts such as the discussion on Crooks and Liars you will see that I absolutely acknowledge and support their right to moderate. I don't want to see spam or personal attacks or comments that are totally irrelevant. My criticism is not THAT they censor. Its THE WAY they censor. That they censor comments that show errors by their bloggers. Or that take political views too outside the main stream. Or that are arbitrarily censored because their AI moderation system erroneously censors them even though they are perfectly in line with the moderation policies.

WF: That doesn't mean a communication firm/website won't. Huffington Post has every right to censor their own boards if they want to create a clean and respectable environment for their posts. I suggest your read their Terms of Services Agreement before complaining.

RDB: I have read their Services Agreement and that is why I have this blog. They routinely censor posts that are clearly acceptable by their published standards.

WF: Besides... are expletives really necessary for discussion and comment?

RDB: I completely agree. I almost never use expletives and if the only posts that were censored were ones with expletives I would have no problem.

WF: I'm not saying it's a good thing, but it's pointless to be upset about it -- they're a media outlet and they have their own agenda. If you want to speak out, speak out (on your own site), which is clearly what this whole thing's about.

RDB: I am speaking out on my own site. The reason this is important to me is that I've been a Huffpo user since the beginning and it bothers me that what was once a great site is being corrupted by the corporate mind set.

WF: This is why the net neutrality debate is so scary: If we allow an oligarchy of corporations to control the wireless web (which is the total future of the web), then we will essentially be allowing them not only ban certain content, but paint the picture of truth as the mobile majority sees it. This is Orwellian. Outrageous.

RDB: I agree losing Net Neutrality is scary. I think what is happening on Huffpo is an example of what will happen on the entire Internet times 1000 without Net Neutrality. So we are making an attempt to fight it now, to fight the corporatization of the Internet, while we still have a chance. You seem to agree with that sentiment so why don't you join us?

The Radical Secularist

2010-09-21T21:42:00.000-07:00

Here is an excellent blog entry from The Radical Secularist. As you can see he has also run into some of the most outrageous censors on Huffpo: Chopra and Lanza.

Avada Kedavra -- Huffpo Kills a Harmless Comment

2010-09-18T18:47:00.000-07:00

The following is from Huffpo User Hermione Granger:

Here is an amazing example. There is an article on Huffpo about how Senate Candidate Christine O'Donnell admitted on Bill Mahr's old Politically Incorrect program that she dabbled with witchcraft. I thought the following comment might be kind of amusing given my Huffpo user ID (well at least amusing to my fellow Harry Potter fanatics). I never imagined this could be censored. I typed it in twice just to make sure and both times it never appeared:

I knew she looked familiar. I saw her on a date with Malfoy, or come to think of it perhaps it was Luna Lovegood, which would raise possibilities that would freak her supporters out even more than witchcraft.

Lest you think its just the suggestion that she might be a Lesbian, there were many comments that came right out and said she was. I honestly can't imagine why this comment was never published. The only thing I can think of is it may be another example of JuLiA detecting sarcasm, which apparently is no longer allowed at the site.

Links to Huffpo Censorship on the Web

2010-09-17T20:01:00.000-07:00

The following is a list of some of the many articles, blogs, etc. that discuss censorship on the Huffington Post. Thanks to an anonymous commenter and James Ballard for leaving many of these links in comments on this blog. If you know of more please add them as a comment or send me an email at: RedDog071@gmail.com Also, please remember to spread the word. Discuss Huffpo censorship and leave links to this blog and the petition at your favorite sites.

* An Alternative Petition against Huffpo Censorship by James Ballard on the Thom Harman blog.

* Discussion of Huffington Post Censorship on Amazon.com

* A very interesting Blog story about the Huffington Post censoring school librarians

* Discussion on Digg.com about censorship on the Huffington Post

* An article on newsvine.com about how Censorship is Alive and Well on the Huffington Post

* Comment on Crooks and Liars Open Thread about this blog and the petition

* One of my posts on The Daily Kos about Huffpo Censorship

Thanks to another anonymous for more links in the comment below. I made them links up here so you can just click rather than have to copy and paste the URL.

* MuzzledAtTheHuffingtonPost blog Warning: this one is kind of R Rated. Don't link to if you have kids looking over your shoulder or you are easily offended.

* Too Hot to Handle? Censorship at the Huffington Post! Blog entry at Open.Salon.com about Huffington Post Censorship.

* Huffington Post Sucks... and Digg Doesn't Know it

* Huffington Post Censorship Nazis from the web site America Doomed

* Huffington Post Censorship: Ariana Can't have it Both Ways article on Enviroweb

* Huffington Post Censors Jesse Ventura

* Huffington Post is Afraid of Its Own Readers from ScienceBlog

* Huffington Post Should be Called Censorship Central

* Huffington Post Censors are Big Fat Idiots

* Censorship and The Huffington Post

* I Resigned from the Huffington Post This is an especially interesting one if it is what it seems to be. Its a post from Sander Hicks who is one very cool guy IMO. Publisher, muckraker and punk rocker. He starred in Horns and Halos, a great documentary about James Hatfield the guy who tried to publish a biography on George W. Bush and ended up committing suicide. It is one of my all time cult favorites.

* Blog entry on City-Data.com on Huffington Post Censorship

* Badgefree forum Censorship on The Huffington Post

* Arianna is a Big Dumb Banana Wonderful Blog entry from "a mean old lady with a trashmouth and an attitude"

* The Radical Secularist has several interesting examples and comments on Huffpo Censorship.

* Southern Bubba's Blog

The Perfect Republican

2010-09-16T19:46:00.000-07:00

A Huffpo contributor named Jim Garrison caught my eye tonight with an article titled Clinton the "Perfect Republican" With Obama Soon to follow? I must admit because he has the same name as the New Orleans D.A. who tried to investigate the JFK assassination. However, its not the same guy. Not by a long shot. This Jim Garrison had a column asserting that progressives were now regretting that they didn't nominate Hillary Clinton because she would have been such a wonderful progressive president. Yes, he really said that. My reply below was never posted. I suspect it was screened out by the JuLiA software as too emotional or sarcastic:

"Not nominating Hillary was decision we may come to regret for what we believed so passionately about Obama has not come to pass. "

Please give me a break. Are you seriously claiming that Ms. Clinton would have been some glorious progressive? How soon we forget:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-hamsher/hillary-clinton-slams-mov_b_97511.html

As for "what we believed so passionately about Obama" it doesn't matter how passionately you believe something that doesn't make it true. Obama never campaigned as a progressive. He was always honest about being a middle of the road democrat. He has been amazingly consistent for a modern US president in doing what he said he would do. Its not his fault if some progressives had fantasies about what they dreamed he would do.

I wish we could have elected Dennis Kucinich or some other real progressive but I live in the real world. Obama was the best we could hope for and given that he inherited a country broken by 8 years of the most corrupt and incompetent president in history I think he has done an amazing job so far.

But by all means liberals keep on whining and you will get a congress controlled by people who want to force women to have their r@pist's babies and eliminate social security.

JuLiA -- The Out of Control Bot has a Name

2010-09-15T16:25:00.000-07:00

For a long time we've known that The Huffington Post uses an AI system to filter their comments. As far as I can tell, this system screens comments and if a comment doesn't make it past the system it is deleted. We have a few examples of this arbitrary censorship, for example the Out of Control Bot Example. Now thanks to a new member of the group named Kevin I have some information on the technology that Huffpo uses. It is called JuLiA and is a product of a company called Adaptive Semantics.

Here is the really interesting thing. Adaptive Semantics is now owned by a big corporation. The thing that makes mandates. Guess who? Yup, The Huffington Post has purchased Adaptive Semantics.

Now isn't it interesting that nowhere on Huffpo have we ever seen a word about Adaptive Semantics or JuLiA? I just did some searches to make sure and nothing. Allow me to put my tin foil hat for a minute. Doesn't it seem a little ominous that The Huffington Post is utilizing its users as guinea pigs for a new technology that they own and plan to sell to others for controlling dissent on the web? Its funny to read some of the articles on this. People are giddy over the fact that machines can auotomate censorhip. One article on inventorspot.com put it this way: "Today's blogger will eventually become tomorrow's dinosaur where content will not only be curated by machines but composed and developed by them. While it may sound like a bleak future, I'm sure there will be more elevated pursuits man will have in managing this 'assembly-line' automated landscape."

Some Thoughts on Censorship from A Huffpo User

2010-09-15T05:29:00.000-07:00

Some interesting thoughts on Censorship conveyed via Email by a Huffpo User with some knowledge of the internals at Huffpo:

"Here's the thing, badges are allocated on the basis of merit, merit is judged by numbers. Random or false deletion based on ideology that varies from mod to mod skews these numbers and reduce the integrity of the system in a way that is amplified beyond each single post removed. For example: pundit badges are allocated on the basis of replies, deleting a post can affect this not only for the poster but for other posters who converse in the thread leading to a sort of silent censorship."

Silent or Badge censorship is the fifth kind of censorship. Those conforming to whatever strangely mutated guidelines result from a combination of miscreant bots, moderation problems and flags gone wild due to the number of alts/socks are given a higher degree of input and interactivity than others.

The pundit badge is particularly bad in this regard. Based on the number of replies to posts it allows the user to rack up incredible amounts of replies that are not deleted ensuring a sort of incumbent advantage over other speakers. It also rewards trollery as folks tend to respond to blatant falsities with corrections more often than to factual posts with affirmations.

The bots are a nuisance I think this is due more to the management style of Arianna than anything else I have been around her online ventures for years and don't believe she's evil. I think she is very well intentioned but sort of ditzy and more a starter than a finisher. Her choice of staff at times is spot on, at other times lacking and I think the IT guys have sold her a bill of goods.

I'm wondering if the moderation problems (HP mods not community mods) stems from lack of oversight and maybe some sort of quota system, perhaps unofficial where mods are expected to show some work for their time. There may be a hint to this sort of policy in the badge FAQ where they urge users to "step up their flagging game" to earn a higher level badge. The lack of oversight may result in deletions for ideological reasons by true believers, the randomness may be several mods with differing ideologies and no firm guidelines working simultaneously.

Add the well known problems caused by socks/alts everywhere on the web and you have HP, a really good thing compromised by lack of focus.

I have been around Arianna's online presence throughout all their incarnations and may have an idea or two about how to effect policy change there in a positive manner. I would really like to see the trend of sound bite trollery and rebuttal caused by seemingly random deletions of long well thought out posts reversed an HP live up to it's potential.

Tips for Preserving Your Anonymity

2010-09-14T08:05:00.000-07:00

I often have discussions with people about how much The Huffington Post does or doesn't know about user identities. One issue that comes up a lot is does the Huffington Post ban you based on your IP address or some other way than your User ID? I came across a very useful little tool regarding IP addresses thanks to Nancy's input and wanted to post it here.

For starters whatismyip.com is a very useful site for seeing what your IP address is.

There is also a nice section of the whatismyip site that has advice for how to get a different IP address. Essentially booting your computer and router should do it but you can find more extensive tips here.

Another way Huffpo and other sites can track you is by leaving cookies. Cookies are the way sites store information about you so you don't have to re-enter it every time. If using Firefox you can delete Cookies by going to Firefox>Preferences>Privacy then click on "remove individual cookies". Then type in "huffingtonpost.com" and remove all the cookies from the Huffington Post. You can find and remove them using similar options in other browsers.

Notes:
1)I don't recommend removing cookies except as a last resort if you want to do everything possible to make sure the Huffington Post can't identify you. If you remove cookies you may have to re-enter things such as connections between your Huffpo and Facebook accounts.

2) In the past I was skeptical that Huffpo would actually ban people based on their IP address but I've come to realize i was wrong. They even say as much in their FAQ section and reports from various users confirm that this is the case. Sorry for doubting you.

3) There was a longer section originally here about using a tool called Tor which I copied from a comment left on this blog. It has been removed at the request of the author.

Iconoclast1's "Scandalous" Comment

2010-09-13T21:02:00.000-07:00

Tonight seems to be a busy night for the censors. Here is a comment from Iconoclast1:

I have been banned from commenting on the Huffington Post because of the following scandalous, obscenity-laced (not really, just being sarcastic) post:

"For a little perspective on which political party is better for the stock market and the economy, here are the latest results for returns on the S&P 500 index (and its predecessor, the S&P 90 index) from March 4, 1929 to present:

40 years of Republican administrations - $10,000 grew to $10,506 (a cumulative index gain of 5.1%)
41.5 years of Democratic administrations - $10,000 grew to $412,430 (a cumulative index gain of 4,024.3%)

These figures do not include transaction costs, taxes, or dividends.
Gains under Democrats have been 789 times the index gains under Republicans.

Since Obama became president, the increase in the S&P 500 index to present is 37.2%, which is more than 7 times the increase in the index over the last 40 years of Republican administrations.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=^GSPC&a=0&b=3&c=1950&d=8&e=5&f=2010&g=d&z=66&y=396

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/10/14/opinion/20081014_OPCHART.html

At first, I posted a very similar comment without the links. When that was inexplicably deleted, I posted the version above. That was deleted also. I did this several times on the same thread, posting comments with slightly different wording. Each time it was deleted. I'm not one to back down when I'm right, so I posted similar comments to other relevant threads. By now I was adding warnings to others about the fact that my comment was being repeatedly deleted for reasons unknown.

Of course, I don't know what was going on behind the scenes. I doubt that the first deletion or two was automatic or had anything to do with key words. I suspect that my initial comments were deleted by a community moderator who found the facts in my post too disturbing. Eventually, the initial post was reinstated, but the other versions were not. I suspect that some prima donna on duty as moderator didn't like the sound of my warnings to others. I didn't use the word censorship or any inappropriate language, but I don't think they liked the fact that I kept posting similar comments (none were identical)and warning others about the deletions of unknown origin. I sent an e-mail to complain, but that was 10 or so days ago and I have received no response.

I liked HP because I thought they had a more intelligent group of commenters than CNN.com, for example, but I never liked the idea of community moderators or, as others have mentioned here, all of the alternate characters people had to use to have their comments post when they wanted to use certain sensitive key words.

I think the lesson is that the moderators don't like anything that smacks of criticism of HP. If they want to effectively put duct tape on your mouth for no reason, then you just have to take it. Or else. When you think about it, that is one of the worst forms of censorship, the silencing of dissent.

Iconoclast1

Note to Iconoclast1: For some reason the Blogger system thought your comment was Spam. Not sure why. I think its an error in their software. I didn't even turn on Spam detection. But that is why your comment didn't show up for a while. Sorry for the problem... Red Dog

Additional follow up note: I contacted Google and their support guy was a total dick. I told him I wanted to turn the spam filter off and that it wasn't working and... well the details aren't worth going into, I'll just leave it at the Google support guy was a total dick... Red Dog

Up against the Wall

2010-09-13T19:35:00.000-07:00

Here is an email from Huffpo user "2706 N8thst". I think he expresses the frustration a lot of us feel. For the record I also love the Jefferson Airplane song and the whole album its from: Volunteers.

Today must have been "ban-everything day" at Hufpo. It started this morning when a troll was commenting on politics, as usual, and I responded saying that I thought this person really wanted to join progressives but was too afraid to let go of their right-wing ties to come over to all the "cool" people at Hufpo, otherwise, why would they bother to comment if they didn't want to be there? There was nothing evil, profane, snarky about it; it was an actual "plea" to jump ship and join the progressive side...but the moderator thought differently.

It was deleted immediately and all other attempts to post, regardless of content never appeared.

I got frustrated and finally wrote something I that I knew would goat the moderator...I said,

"Whomever is moderating, you are not doing your job correctly as you are censoring! We know who you are...and we are who we are, and we are very proud of ourselves...UP AGAINST THE WALL!"

The last line is from a well known Grace Slick protest song called "We should be together" where right before the chorus, she slows down and sings..."everything you say we are, we are, and we are very proud of ourselves" until she screams..."up against the wall, up against the wall mother fu*kers...tear down the wall..." ect.

It probably meant nothing to the moderator (it made me feel good to write it), but whomever was, censorship reigned allowing all kinds of obnoxious comments from the hard right, things like "suck on it dems" ect., vile commentary with no responses allowed. I posted the petition address later in the day as often as possible.

Those Wonderful Huffpo Headlines

2010-09-12T07:06:00.000-07:00

Besides censoring user comments another Huffington Post practice is to use outrageously misleading headlines to lure people to read their articles. There was a particularly egregious example this morning in the technology section. An article with the headline Russia Uses Microsoft To Suppress Dissent. To me that headline implies Russia is either using some feature of Microsoft technology or is in some way working with Microsoft the company to suppress dissent. It turns out according to the article that:

one of the authorities' newest tactics for quelling dissent: confiscating computers under the pretext of searching for pirated Microsoft software.

I posted the following comment which never appeared:

Huffpo have you no shame? Come on this headline was outrageous even for you. It implied that Russia was somehow exploiting Microsoft software or teaming with the company to suppress dissent. Would it kill you to have added "as a pretext" or some other clarifying words to the headline?

New Tool for Recording Censored Comments

2010-09-11T19:05:00.001-07:00

Several people have emailed me in the past about how to record your comments on the Huffington Post so that you don't loose them if they are censored. I've created a new blog: Huffington Post Free Speech that does this. This blog isn't meant so much to be read. Its more of an archive. Every time I comment on Huffpo I click a box below the comment that says Post to Blogger. When I do that the comment is automatically added to the Free Speech Blog. The good news is that each comment is added to the blog and stays there in full even if it never gets posted on Huffpo or if it is posted and then censored later. I've had examples of each and verified that it works. I've also figured out how to link any other Huffpo user to the Free Speech blog. It is much more convenient then remembering to save your comments to a text file or other source. Just click the box and you have a guaranteed copy of the comment. So far I've done this with one other user but I'm happy to set it up for anyone else. It takes just a few minutes. Please email me at reddog071@gmail.com if you are interested.

9/11 -- Huffpo Censors Both Sides of the Debate

2010-09-11T19:05:00.000-07:00

Several users in the past have given examples of comments supporting the 9/11 Truth Movement being censored. Here is an opposite example. I replied to the following comment on the article 9/11: 'Flashlight Worthy' Recommends 9 Unforgettable Books About September 11 I was replying to a comment suggesting a book by David Ray Griffith. The following comment was screened out and never appeared:

I read it. I was ready to be convinced. I believe in conspiracies: JFK, MLK, Operation Gladio, Northwoods, I'm a big conspiracy guy. But I also believe in reason and the scientific method. Griffith's book was full of shoddy reasoning. Again and again he points out some fact where the government screwed up and says "this proves that it must have been a conspiracy" He ignores other equally likely theories such as incompetence. He assumes that every time the Government lies it means there is a conspiracy, ignoring that the Bush administration lied just out of habit not to mention to cover their @ss.

Don't Dump on the Stars -- Even if they like to get dumped on

2010-09-09T18:54:00.000-07:00

There was a very positive review of the new Joaquin Phoenix film I'm Still Here by Hellin Kay on Huffpo today. I have to admit that I haven't seen the movie and never will but I like to read reviews, especially reviews that rip bad films. I posted the following comment:

You have got to be kidding me. A movie that consists of a self involved jerk being rude to people, doing drugs, and generally making an @ss of himself? No thanks.

If you read some of the more critical reviews I was being polite compared to the stuff they wrote. I mean I didn't even mention the scene of the guy crapping on Mr. Phoenix's face. Yet this comment was deemed too offensive for The Huffington Post and was deleted.

It was clear that The Huffington Post deleted my comment and not the author of the article because I also found her blog and posted a comment which she allowed to be published.

Petition to The Economist

2010-09-08T13:08:00.000-07:00

The following is a Twitter petition for a very worthy cause, similar to the Huffington Post Censorship issue. Please click here to view and sign.

Banned From Huffpo's Greatest Hits

2010-09-08T10:13:00.000-07:00

This blog has been up for several months now and we've collected a lot of examples of Huffpo Censorship. Very many for a new reader to slog through them all so I thought I would put some links here to some of the examples that I think are the most interesting. Here they are in chronological order starting from the oldest:

* Introduction. Most have read this already but if not please check it out. I describe the reasons I think this is important and the types of censorship I've seen on the Huffington Post.

* The Mandate is From the Corporation. An interesting email dialogue I had with Huffpo's Senior Moderator.

* The Out of Control Bot Example. One of my favorites. An example showing the ridiculous arbitrary nature of Huffpo's filtering software.

* Ariana's Mandatory cult Meetings. Some very compelling deleted comments by user ScienceFTW regarding Ms. Huffington's interest in new age cults and her pressure on the Huffington Post staff to share that interest. Contains some interesting links to external articles on Huffpo and Ms. Huffington.

* Dr. Lanza Reinvents B.F. Skinner. Robert Lanza is one of the worst when it comes to deleting comments that are polite, on topic but just show him out to be wrong. This one is really blatant. He completely mis-represents the work of B.F. Skinner and deleted a comment that pointed this out.

* 9/11 Censorship. An article about a Jesse Ventura article on 9/11 that was censored from Huffpo.

* Blatant Political Censorship on Wycliff Jean. This example illustrates how The Huffington Post is moving away from the progressive community. A comment that discussed an issue that has been mostly censored in the MSM -- the US sponsored coup that removed Aristide from Haiti -- was censored from an article on Wycliff Jean after being up for over a day.

* Don't Diss the Corporations. Another blatant political example from user WMholt.

* Remembering Hume Sceptic and Carl IV. Huffpo had a nice article remembering two users who passed on. However, in the article they essentially stated that apx. 20% of the comments of one of these users -- who even they complimented as a model polite user -- were censored.

* Censoring sarcasm makes Rob S. Happy! One of the most bizarre examples. The senior moderator at Huffpo: Rob S., describes in an email to a user how happy he is that the Huffpo AI system can detect and delete sarcasm.

* Interesting Input from a Huffpo Blogger. An interesting comment left by an anonymous blogger at Huffpo about their editorial process.

* A6 Intruder. An example of a perfectly reasonable comment from the right that I tried to reply to but that was deleted as I typed.

* James Baldwin can't get passed Huffpo Censorship. A wonderful experiment by IzzyIdol where she simply typed in text from a classic book and Huffpo censored it. Please make sure to read the comments on this article, she provides even more examples.

Tales from the Net

2010-09-07T13:54:00.000-07:00

Tales from the Net is a blog describing various experiences in social networking. The authors are going to collect these stories into a book. They've expressed some interest in our work here and have a new article describing our blog and petition.

9/11 Censorship Discussion on C&L

2010-09-05T11:54:00.000-07:00

I left a comment on the Crooks and Liars Open Thread last night regarding the Huffington Post petition (I'm MikeD on Crooks and Liars). It started a whole discussion about 9/11 censorship which ironically ended up having the moderator censor many comments. You can see the thread and the spots where comments were deleted by the link above or just click here.

I wanted to also share here my final comment from that thread because I think it gets to an important issue. I'm not at all opposed to some form of moderation at the Huffington Post but rather to the extreme, arbitrary, unexplained censorship currently practiced. Here is that comment:

So I thought it was kind of Ironic that my initial comment about censorship at the Huffington Post resulted in a bunch of comments that got deleted here. But I want to make a point about how that censorship is qualitatively different than what I'm complaining about at Huffpo. The censorship here was based on a clear, public, well defined policy. They don't want to go down the 9/11 Truth Movement rabbit hole at C&L. Now personally, I don't agree with that policy. I think its better to let people talk and air the issues even if it results in huge threads.

But, and here is the big but, I completely respect the right of C&L to make and enforce that decision. What is going on at the Huffington Post is nothing like that. When comments get censored they won't tell you why. The censorship is completely arbitrary. By changing a word here or there that in no way alters the meaning of the comment it can change whether it gets moderated or not. Comments that are perfectly polite and on topic are censored because they point out fundamental errors in the author's article. For example Depak Chopra's understanding of physics or Robert Lanza's representation of his research in psychology. That is the kind of arbitrary pointless censorship we are complaining about.

Petition to the Huffington Post

2010-09-03T08:38:00.000-07:00

I've created a petition to send to the Huffington Post on the censorship issue. To see and sign the petition click here.

To sign it fill out the fields on the right side of the page under the yellow banner "Sign the Petition"

If you don't want your contact info shown at the bottom of the petition uncheck (its checked by default) the box that says "Allow my signature to be seen publicly"

The petition is in two parts. A description of the problem at the top and then the Petition Text below. The petition text is a letter that gets sent automatically to the Huffington Post (community-support@huffingtonpost.com) every time someone signs. Note: you can edit or completely change the letter that gets sent when you sign so you can make it about any specific free speech issues (gun control, science section, etc.) that you like. Note: if you sign you will receive an automated email reply from the Huffington Post. Its just a form letter that is automatically sent out every time someone sends an email to that mail box.

I encourage people to share that link as much as possible to anyone that might be interested. I can also edit the petition so if you have feedback please email me at: RedDog071@gmail.com

Don't talk about Huffpo

2010-08-27T16:27:00.000-07:00

A comment from a user that violated one of the unwritten Huffpo guidelines, don't ever mention Huffpo itself or its policies around publication, editing, etc.

I was recently censored for the following comment on an artcle on Emmefinacy in Gay Men
“When did HuffPo turn into Fox News? This article is ridiculous.”
Then, once I saw it was deleted, I went back and wrote another comment:
“HuffPo removed my previous comment because I compared it to something from Fox News. Ouch. So let me re-state, this article is still misogynist.”
I'm really surprised that HuffPo considers comments like these as grounds for removal.
-Paul

James Baldwin can't get past Huffpo Censorhip

2010-08-21T06:32:00.000-07:00

Here is a comment from Izzyidol that I thought was especially interesting so I'm making it a new post:

Once I realized (and later confirmed with a moderator) they use a robot sorter and editor, decided to test the Bot. I already knew the community moderation system was a ToadyTotalitarian mess because it is that way at dKos and I recognized the symptoms.
I got mad at this stupid woman pretending to be a progressive liberal who created her own little fascist empire. I calmed down. Then I complained to a moderator. Useless. So then I decided to create a test. I call it the Huffpo Consumer Censorship/Community Moderation Test. The results were fascinating.

I posted a quotation from James Baldwin on a thread about race and language. I did not know about the Bot, but I suspected it was there. The quote comes from the introduction to the Fire Next Time, a seminal book about race relations in America. There is no better indictment of using the N word than this sentence. But James Baldwin does not make it through the censor. The problem? In the quote James Baldwin uses a word the Bot does not like at all. How can you have a reasonable discussion when things you post that are relevant and poignant are censored. Here is the quote:

"You can only be destroyed by believing that you really are what the white world calls a 'nigger.' I tell you this because I love you, and please don't you ever forget it."

Censoring Sarcasm makes Rob S. Happy!

2010-08-11T14:40:00.000-07:00

Rob S. is a Senior Moderator who often responds to complaints about censorship. He is the person who gave us the tag line "The Mandate is from the Corporation" when I asked him why a progressive blog needed to have such aggressive censorship. Here is another gem from Rob in response to Artist-53's complaint that one of her comments was censored. Apparently Rob S. is happy that their automated censorship program (the infamous bot) can now detect and pre-emptively censor sarcasm. Yes, that's right, sarcasm apparently is not appropriate for Huffington Post comments anymore and they are proud that their automatic system can detect and delete comments that may include it:

> To: artist-53@live.com
> From: comments-system@huffingtonpost.com
> Subject: Mising Comments
> Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2010 12:19:10 -0400
>
> Hello:
>
> First, please understand that 6 out of 7 comments submitted to Huffington Post are moderated by automated systems--we simply cannot afford to have people read every comment, but management thinks it's important we do our best to keep the conversation respectful. This is an imperfect solution. Automated systems catch some "bad" comments, and don't catch others--though ours are more sophisticated than most. In the case of your first comment, the system caught it and removed it, your dcomment went away because it was in reply to the first, and your third comment went away because the system recognized it as sarcastic--which actually makes me pretty happy.
>
> With all that being said, please avoid ad hominem attacks (attacks on a person rather than on their argument) and avoid emulating the people who sneak stuff through--they will eventually end up banned.
>
> Rob S.
> Senior Moderator
> Huffington Post

Don't diss the Corporations

2010-08-11T06:08:00.000-07:00

Here is a very interesting example. A comment by user wmholt that surely meets all the criteria that the Huffington Post publishes but yet says some negative things about the corporate world. This comment was up and then deleted from an article about the White House press secretary. Its these kind of examples that so clearly illustrate that the Huffington Post is turning into just another corporation. Not new media but main stream media. Note before it was deleted six people marked it as a favorite.

I don't like what Gibbs said, but in reality, the whole left vs right thing is just a distraction to keep us from rising up against the corporations and their never-ending practice of class warfare.

I watched, "Capitalism, A Love Story" last night. The corporatist politicians and the corporations are the ones taking America down. Michael Moore does a brilliant job of illustrating that fact.
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Censored comment on state budget cuts

2010-08-10T13:21:00.000-07:00

Here is a comment from artist-53 that was censore from an article on state budget cuts.

artist-53 0 minute ago (7:32 AM)
136 Fans
This comment is pending approval and won't be displayed until it is approved.

The poor, young, elderly are the hardest hit. I didn't noticed how many high ranking officials, city managers etc were stepping forward and taking a reduction in pay and benefits.

Gathering from the lists, we'll have a Country of unemployed, uneducated, toothless, poor vision, hungry, homeless, ill, individuals trying to survive in areas where services such as public transportation, school transportation,will no longer exist. ..and for those that are forced to walk long distances to school, on empty stomachs, carrying no books or supplies, because it's not in the budget, nor can the increasing number of unemployed parents pay for supplies, etc, ...

States are going out of their way to keep the upper crust from being effected, while the have nots, will not even be offered cake.

The largest segments of society has been reduced to nothing more than a population of insignificant beings. USA is a third world Country. . There is something extremely disturbing about how low we have become.

Uneducated, sick, hungry and unemployed. We're not a super power, We're not # 1, We're incapable of being human, it could have been so great. So all you pol. I blame you for this horrendous nightmare,you keep referring to as balancing the budget, as the rest simply don't matter .
USA is #1 in creating hardship and poverty.

We are one big gov. made ghetto. But the Banks and the fat cats get bailed out. We the peons, get punished . We do not matter.

Blatant Political censorship on Wycliff Jean

2010-08-09T05:31:00.000-07:00

Wycliff Jean is a rap star running for president of Haiti. He has an open letter on the Huffington Post describing why he chose to run. Although many of the comments are critical, none mention what is to me the most important question. Namely, where was Mr. Jean during the illegal ouster of President Aristide? For those who don't remember or who never heard (it was barely covered in the US media) a coup in Haiti backed by the Bush administration forced Aristide - a legitimately elected president - out of office by the threat of violence. All true progressives were outraged at this blatantly illegal act. I posted the following comment (I'm doing this from memory, I didn't bother to record this one, didn't think it could get removed)

The real question I would like to have answered is Where was Wycliff Jean during the illegal removal of president Aristide by right wing forces backed by the Bush administration?

This comment was up for well over a day and had at least two replies. I just checked this AM to find that it and all the replies were gone.

A6 Intruder

2010-08-06T16:45:00.000-07:00

Here is the kind of example that I really like. I doubt that A6Intruder and I would agree on much but I would bet one thing we do agree on (besides that the A6 is a very cool plane) is that censorship is anti-American. Here is a comment from A6Intruder that I tried replying to only to get the ominous "that comment no longer exists" message.

Interesting Input from a Huffpo Blogger

2010-08-03T11:44:00.000-07:00

Here is an interesting comment from a post below by a Huffpo blogger on some of the inner workings at the site. I thought it was worth elevating to a separate post:
I submitted a post a few months ago which was critical of anti-vaccine activists. It took eight days for HuffPo editors to approve it. Meanwhile, anti-vax posts are fast-tracked.

As an HP blogger, I am able to delete comments if they are in queue awaiting approval. I can also approve a post. But once they are approved by the HuffPo editors, I am unable to delete. I've only deleted two comments, but only because they were abusive and/or demonstrably untrue. So it is easy for an HP blogger to delete comments if he/she catches them in time.

HuffPo editors are very sensitive to criticism. I've been told to "play nice" if I expect to continue to blog there. It was clear from the context that "playing nice" means not talking about HP's appalling double standard that makes it easier to post anti-science tirades than it is to post evidence-based material. I actually had a post disallowed because I was "giving medical advice without benefit of a medical license." My crime was telling readers that vaccines prevent disease. Meanwhile anti-vax loons regular exhort readers to treat children like lab rats in a foolhardy and dangerous attempt to cure autism.

Thanks for this website. Keep up the good work.

Lanza is the King of Censorship

2010-08-03T11:32:00.000-07:00

Here is another example from yet another Huffpo Blogger Landon Ross regarding Dr. Lanza's censorship on the article Where Did the Universe Come From? New Explanation of our Origin.

My comment was censored by Lanza, because it was approved by the moderators, and remained up for considerable time. Unfortunately for Lanza, I take screenshots when dealing with the woo/anti-vax group (I have found them consistently, statistically, censorious)... I have posted the copies here...

I posted a dissenting comment under Medical Doctor Robert Lanza's recent article on Huffpost. It was approved by the moderators, praised by a few other commenters, and was thereafter deleted.

A Great Comment

2010-07-30T19:08:00.000-07:00

Here is a comment from Spection that I thought was worth elevating to a post of its own.

I have found the censorship of criticism at HuffPo to be appallingly egregious! I've had many scores of comment posts removed completely, most of which were non-personal, non-offensive scientific criticisms of the woo-ers' grotesque scientific misinformation. Let's face it: When it comes to science at least, Arianna Huffington is one of the most anti-scientific and gullible human beings alive, and she despotically censors any honest criticism of her belief system as well as any attempt to point that fact out.

But we are faced with blind dismissals from those wishing to deny the extreme censorship of comments and instead focus on merely trying to launch a science section at HuffPo, such as Landgon Ross and J. Vernon. Here is a direct quote from an email from Langdon Ross:

"While I am not going to discuss the housekeeping behind the scenes of Huffpost, I will say this... their practices seem to be entirely fair, and I have never had comments censored on any of my posts that I know of (or even so much as referenced or insinuated by my most avid critics)." [Quoted verbatim. Ellipsis in original - nothing omitted.]

What good would a science section be from such people who refuse to see how common and adamantly despicable the censorship is at HuffPo? The censorship is a far more severe situation than the lack of a science section, a section that most at HuffPo would ignore anyway.

I think we need to acquire more powerful allies -- such as the MSNBC hosts and the major liberal bloggers -- then apply strong public pressure on Arianna to stop the grossly excessive censorship on her site. We should shame her for her extreme contempt of the single most fundamental of the ideals of the Enlightenment and the ideals of the liberal worldview: Free Speech!

What say you?

Anti-Abortion Rally at MLK's Grave

2010-07-30T18:04:00.000-07:00

Here is a comment from Artist-53 that was arbitrarily deleted from an article on an Anti-Abortion Rally at Martin Luther King's Grave

What an insult to all people.
Freedom Riders?
If they believed in that statement, then by definition, there should not have been a rally at all. Unless of course they're only promoting freedom for some.Exclu
ding fertile females that aren't allowed into their freedom club.

To equate abortion to pornography? And these people are the largest offenders because they slap pictures all over their bus,signs ,pamphlets and t-shirts. So they're being pompous pornographic piglets.

According to them, it's not only pornographic but a womb they claim is Dangerous as well? Well, don't blame me, it was your god that created all those uterus's , so go talk to him or her.

So a womb is a very dangerous place? Hell wait til they get a taste of the wombles world. It will really shock them.

Then to sing We Shall Over Come? Excuse me, but I think when a bus rolls into town carrying predominate number of males, school age children that were made to carry signs bearing what they've already claimed to be pornographic and older women wearing tee shirts all bearing slogans that are just that crazy, then I have to ask myself, Don't these people have anything better to do w/ their lives?

Such as stopping world hunger, or starting world peace. Those are 2 very worth while endeavors. But to do what they do from a gas guzzling bus, certainly misguided malcontents that have no business stating what any women does or doesn't do.

Arbitrary Censorship on Afghanistan Comment

2010-07-29T14:33:00.000-07:00

If you are new to this blog please see the Introduction.

If you want to join the group protesting censorship on The Huffington Post please send me an email at this address: RedDog071@gmail.com

Here is another example of just ridiculous arbitrary censorship. There is an article on a Time Magazine Cover on the Tragedy of Afghan Women. I tried to reply to the following comment but saw it had been deleted. For what reason?

Click on image to see larger view

More Examples of Lanza Censorship

2010-07-27T17:01:00.000-07:00

Here are some screen snapshots that Linda (Happy Realist) recorded of censored comments on the same Lanza article where Lanza compares himself favorably to Einstein. Linda's description of the screen shots:

Spacetime bending: The odd thing is that I posted essentially what you see days ago. Then, mysteriously the spacetime wiki link vanished. I re-posted it. I screen captured the "pending" and posted versions.

New Unposted Comment: you can clearly see it is in no way a violation of policy. But, as per "unposted comment not posted", they didn't post it. Why?

Just a clear indication of the idiocy documented here.

Click on image to see larger more readable version

An Outrageous Lanza Article

2010-07-26T09:06:00.000-07:00

If you are new to this blog please see the Introduction.

If you want to join the group protesting censorship on The Huffington Post please send me an email at this address: RedDog071@gmail.com

My Dear Fellow First-Amendment/Free-Speech Fans,

I, too, have had politely relevant but critical comments deleted from Robert Lanza's
insipid and ironically self-referential "false art" and "vain wisdom" anti-Einstein flame,
("Did Einstein Set Science Back 100 Years? We're Not As Insignificant As He Thought," posted in The Huffington Post's "Living" section on July 23, 2010 at 07:00 AM.)
I had just noted a comment (which I paraphrase as "Why bothering to imagine into existence all those readers if you delete 95% of their comments?") which had been "posted 1 hour ago" and had just hit "REPLY"
when I received the message "You are attempting to reply to a comment that has been deleted."

My understanding of policy is that expressed on their FAQ page as:
(I) The Huffington Post welcomes all users to join our community and to comment
and treats all members of the community equally.
We do not discriminate based on the person who is posting, and we never censor comments for political or ideological reasons.
We never delete an appropriate comment because we disagree with its viewpoint or ideology...

(II) We want the Huffington Post to be home to open, transparent conversations in which people connect, discuss, share ideas, and debate the issues.

(III) We are also committed to maintaining a non-toxic atmosphere.

(IV) In order to preserve a functional and civil conversation,
we do not allow trolls, trollish behavior, or stalking.

Beyond the "pending" period, as I understand it, a comment would only be deleted if
"2. Your comment violated the policy above.
We pride ourselves in providing a medium for engaging and thought-provoking stories and encourage
our users to speak their minds freely, provided comments fall within our commenting policy.
We must respect our writers and protect them from vicious and inflammatory comments.
They too are entitled to free speech- the right to share their opinions
without being subject to scathing and mean-spirited remarks."

Below is my comment that was deleted yesterday, July 23, after being up for an hour or so.
Please read and judge for yourself:

Far from "setting us back 100 years," with admirable childlike sense of wonder and true humility
Einstein said "The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible."
"Comprehensible" meant mathematical, repeatable and predictable --if only in a statistical sense.

I'm sure Lanza's characterizations of Einstein's contributions as "false art" and "vain wisdom"
are well-meant, inaccurate only in deriving from visible misunderstanding of quantum mechanics
and an excess of the fuzzy-based-on-wishful thinking I tried to discourage in my med students.

Richard Feynman's Nobel-winning Quantum Electrodynamics makes predictions as accurate
as a hairsbreadth in the width of America, yet never invokes an "observer" -- except to "select"
(retrospectively) which of all possible paths a quantum has taken in a specific observer's "reality."

Biocentricism (like Geocentricism or SpeciesCentricism/Creationism) reverses our "significance":
the Universe shaped Us, not vice versa. True, our minds DO affect our bodies far more than
we yet understand, but without lapsing into nihilistic *cynicism* (which has no place in science
nor the heart of a healer) we must still retain our healthy scientific *skepticism* as we are advised
by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins:
"Airplanes built according to scientific principles WORK, stay aloft, get you to your destination.
Airplanes built to tribal or mythological specifications, such as the dummy planes
of the cargo cults in jungle clearings or the beeswaxed wings of Icarus, DON'T.
Show me a cultural relativist at thirty thousand feet and I’ll show you a hypocrite."

When the comment was removed without explanation after a few hours (during which time another reader had become a "fan" and "replied,") I added the following comment -- which lasted only and hour of posting:

Curiouser and curiouser... Who is empowered to dismiss & delete dissent or disapproval?

About 16:30PDT today (Friday, 23 July, 2010,) I posted a comment to this article beginning with
a quote from Einstein and ending with a quote from evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins.

This comment was removed without explanation after a few hours (during which time another reader had become a "fan" and "replied.") If anyone know what happened, please reply to this comment.

Of course, like Krautman's comment on Lanza's apparent comment deletions, it, too, was deleted.

SOooo, just now (13:49PDT on Saturday, 24 July, 2010,) I re-posted the original dissent above.
before I did so the article listed "96 Comments - 1 Pending" and after "96 Comments - 2 Pending",
but now, a few minutes later at 14:04PDT on Saturday, 24 July, 2010, we see "96 Comments - 0 Pending".
As a good scientist (health physicist then instrument designer then physician[radiologist] now H.S. science teacher)
I always document my work, so a screen snapshot of my 13:49 posting is attached.

What should we do about this arrogant suppression of polite informative dissent by the man humbly self-described on his various websites as "one of the leading scientists in the world"?
(Sources:
http://www.robertlanza.com/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-lanza/#blogger_bio
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Lanza)

After Staying published for two weeks...

2010-07-23T17:02:00.001-07:00

If you are new to this blog please see the Introduction.

If you want to join the group protesting censorship on The Huffington Post please send me an email at this address: RedDog071@gmail.com

Here is a new example from J.B. where a comment disappeared after being up for two weeks.

Friday, July 23, 2010
3:45 PM CST

Another censorship on top of censorship from the same blog.

After a second posting, this entry stayed at the top of page one for nearly two weeks. Apparently no one (was allowed ?) to post after it. Today I noticed my entry was censored; guess they figured no one was paying attention.

J.B.

Channeling Erik: Conversations With My Son in the Afterlife

James Ballard 1 hour ago (5:35 PM)

78 Fans

[ 2nd posting ]
@ "JohnFromCensornati" & "kwinter"
4:35 PM CST

The cen$$oring being committed on this blog...entire threads...is pathetic and desperate. Sad, frightened little souls who can only be comforted by their own words, fairytales and self-delusion.

Such a demoralizing display of expediency on a so-called "progressive" blog.

J.B.
7/10/10

Southern Bubba

2010-07-21T17:18:00.001-07:00

The following is a comment from user Southern Bubba. I thought it was worth putting up as a seaperate post:

Southern Bubba said...

SouthernBubba here. The most ardent hater of censorship at HP or anywhere else you will ever find. Hope that you will spend time on this site and encourage others to do so. If you post regularly on HP and get censored for ridiculous reasons (and those are the only reasons for censorship), then start using using the term censormod2nit(s) every chance you get. Quite a bit of the time that term will make it through, I think because it shames some of them. Also, as often as possible, mention that posters hate HP for giving ANY poster the right to influence (don't use censor-deletion will surely follow) ANY other poster for ANY reason. Throw in the phrase Constitution/Free Speech Hater(s) in a quick post right after a pending and sometimes that will shame them into letting the original post go through. Another little trick: fan the posters that you do not like with the highest # of fans and that way when get you 'em with a zinger, there is a greater chance that more will see it.

This problem of censorship is a common crime against the Founding Fathers and does not have anything at all to do with which side of the aisle you are on. Let's hear some good ideas on how we can get this corrected on HP and make it truly as great as it was intended to be.

Seperating Church and Hate: But don't forget to Moderate

2010-07-21T17:17:00.001-07:00

There was an interesting article published on Huffpo today: Separating Church and Hate: Irrationality and Anti-Muslim Stereotyping The following is an exchange I had with user Jan Allen McDaniel:

HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Jan Allen McDaniel 4 hours ago (6:05 PM)
"And you talk of Islamic terrorism as if it is something built into Islam or one sided on the part of them. In fact the number of people killed in the US and elsewhere due to Islamic terrorism is dwarfed by the number of Islamic people caused to die through US intervention in the mideast since 1950."

We could go on for some time about who did what to whom and not settle anything. I hope we can start from the agreement that a lot of Muslims want to kill us and we want to kill them. Given that, we can speculate on why this is true.

I believe that the struggle is over which system of law will survive the war, Islamic law or Western law like America's. Mybe you disagree.

HUFFPOST SUPER USER
RedDogBear 2 hours ago (7:29 PM)
"We could go on for some time about who did what to whom and not settle anything. I hope we can start from the agreement that a lot of Muslims want to kill us and we want to kill them. Given that, we can speculate on why this is true."

There isn't much speculation. Osama bin Laden has said why he wants to attack the west and most of his charges are true. Which doesn't mean I think he is any way justified. He is a criminal and a thug and the worst kind of theocratic would-be tyrant.

I can give you countless examples. The US has overthrown governments (Iran, Iraq), installed dictators who routinely practice torture (Iran), destroyed basic infrastructure resulting in wide spread civilian deaths (Iraq), shot down civilian airliners (Iran), and supported corrupt dictators (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan) through out the middle east. These aren't matters of speculation. They are facts.

HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Jan Allen McDaniel 1 hour ago (8:21 PM)
Maybe your intent is to blame America for the situation we are in, and I will not join in that. If you want to talk about where we go from here, I'm game.

My reply was censored. Luckily I had a feeling it might be. Here it is:

I don't blame America any more than I blame Afghanistan, Iran, or Iraq. I blame Ronald Reagan, George Bush (both of them), Osama bin Laden, .... I blame specific people who have committed crimes. I don't excuse either side for killing innocent people. Its never justified. As for going forward you can't go forward unless you admit the crimes that both sides have committed.

I think this is a very illustrative example. Even if you are a conservative libertarian I think you would agree that there was nothing obscene, personal, off topic or anything else that would contradict the supposed Huffington Post standards. The only reason to suppress this comment is that if expresses ideas that criticize our government and the right to criticize our government is an essential part of free speech and democracy.

Remembering HumeSkeptic and CarlIV

2010-07-19T07:22:00.000-07:00

There is a new article on the Huffington Post today mourning the loss of two users: HumSkeptic and CarlIV, both of whom died recently. First we would like to also express our sadness at their passing. We all had interesting discussions with both of them.

However, there is an interesting statistic glossed over in the article. The following statistics are from the Huffington Post as quoted in the article.

HumeSkeptic had a total of 116,966 comments. Of those 24,038 were censored! I.e. 20% of the comments of a user that the moderators praise as one of the most thoughtful commenters on the site were censored. Some other users have commented on this as well but no reply from the Huffpo moderators who wrote the article yet.

Click here if you can't see the comment box

New Facebook Group

2010-07-17T20:51:00.000-07:00

There is a new group on Facebook called Banned from Huffpo

The threaded discussion capabilities on this blog are relatively limited. The Facebook group provides a way for us to have better discussions and also for other users to quickly post their own examples of censorship or other thoughts.

Dirty Little Secret: Criticism of 2 party system gets censored

2010-07-16T12:32:00.000-07:00

Here is a recent post from a user this comment was censored from the article Dirty Little Secrets the Republicans Don't Want You to Know.

It was polite, on topic, and contained no profanity:
America's 2 party system is a joke! The neo-cons and neo-liberals all have dirty hands regarding the transfer of wealth from the middle class to transnational corporations and the banking cartel. We are in the middle of a economic war and America the Republic is losing.

Another Deleted Comment

2010-07-14T18:16:00.000-07:00

Here is another example where one of our members tried to respond to a comment from user MattBass83 only to find that the comment was deleted. The comment was captured below. Why it was deleted from a progressive blog is hard to imagine. This is yet another example of how arbitrary and capricious the censorship on Huffpo can be. (Click on the image to see a larger version).

Holy Boldness doesn't include bold enough to allow free speech

2010-07-14T12:51:00.000-07:00

Here is an example from James Ballard of a long thread, an interesting discussion of religion that got censored for no apparent reason except perhaps the author of the main article on the Holy Boldness of Women disagreed with it:

Thursday, July 8, 2010
4:50 PM CST
Hey Red Dog,
Last night I discovered whole chunks of dialogue were censored; this time I'm sure by the author, because they all made it past the moderators this past holiday weekend. Regardless who's doing it, censorship is censorship, and in this particular case I believe it is egregious. I did not copy the entire thread as I normally do; the posts WERE published and there was an entire dialogue going on between "llisa" and myself. They censored hers as well; my apologies to "IIisa" for not including her all of her replies, assuming she visits this blog...J.B.

Georgetown/On Faith: Holy Boldness of Women

llisa 10:47 PM on 6/30/2010

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Perhaps the best thing to happen to religion would be for the men to step down and let the women take over. Women seem to be better able to see that religion should contain good works and kind words and be used for good instead of for control.

James Ballard

77 Fans

@ "IIisa"12:00 PM CST

..."Women seem to be better able to see that religion should contain good works and kind words and be used for good instead of for control...."

Sorry "IIisa" but this is absolute nonsense. Neither "good works" nor "kind words" are gender predestined. I'm fed up with hearing this abysmally failed "feminist" slant promulgating inane assumptions about men.

If the men in your adult life are "controlling", it's because you want it that way. Takes two to twist.

No doubt you'd be quick to label yours truly "controlling"; a PC word that has virtually emasculated the American male.

I have no desire to "control"; I just won't be manipulated either. Plenty of men who aren't "controlling"; plenty of women who are "controlling"...you just have to look for one while avoiding the other, and forget the idiotic stereotypes that have been drilled into your brain for the past several decades.

J.B.
7/2/10

llisa 7/2/2010

179 Fans

Takes only one man to twist.

James Ballard

77 Fans

The man who twists alone is not telling you about the partners he is with.

[ The 2 replies above I adopt from memory...they were also censored; the rest of "llisa's" posts were censored as well ]

James Ballard

77 Fans

@ "IIisa"
1:45 PM CST

"...And women were not allowed to be elders or deacons or preachers and girls were not allowed to light candles or ring the bell...This is still the way it is in too many religions. Women are subservient and do all the work, and men rule."...

The "women" you speak of have been and, tragically, are "subservient" because they wanted to be and want to be. Otherwise, they would not have been "subservient", nor want to be. Sorry. It's that simple. It's called the line of least resistance, which all humans indulge in; not just women.

And this is the "way" with ALL religions. I'm happy that you were smarter than that, and left. The problem I have with today's American "feminists" as that they continue to fail to appreciate paradox; in fact, they chose to remain in denial over it.

Example : "...And women were not allowed to be elders or deacons..."

So what? No disappoint there. Why would you want to be recognized as such by ignorant people who choose to sustain a failed and oppressive way of life ?

Example : Gays are denied "marriage rites". So what ? Ditto to what I said above.

One answer : Do not ever, EVER circumscribe your life by the the dictates and stupidities of others, whether or not "others" means one individual or the culture at large.

...(continued)...

...(conclusion)...

Not sure about this new "partnership" bit; comes from a failed premise : No one is "equal" to anyone. Period. You can't expect human beings to behave like a bank portfolio. Deny or dummy down the uniqueness of one individual is destructive; regardless whether either member of the "partnership" is capable of recognizing this or not. "Partnership" is another Orwellian PC buzz word that ultimately means : Control.

And your fortunate upbringing seems to shatter the very premise of your initial statements; the fact that "the church" is and has been "controlling" is a no brainer. This does not translate that "most" men are "controlling", or that women in "religion" could make any improvements, at all, to a rigid outdated belief system.

J.B.
7/2/10

James Ballard

77 Fans

@ "IIisa"
2:10 PM CST

Yes.

The RCC has been and remains among the worst oppressors of the human spirit. Over the centuries the RCC has pushed and polished the envelop of tyranny and cynical manipulation of language to such extremes as to defy all sense of logic or appearance of sanity.

They are and remain the masters of propaganda and brainwashing technique. Get to the children first. It will become the ultimate irony that had they not followed this centuries old practice, the RCC would never have been sustainable.
Get to the children first.

Other orthodoxies, (again, ironically) follow in their footsteps. But they are amateurs compared to the Roman Catholic Church.

Only until recently do we bear witness to the extremity of their corruption.

J.B.
7/2/10

James Ballard

77 Fans

@ "llisa"
4:25 PM CST

If you are going to quote me please do not do so out of context. These blog threads are unwieldy enough as it is; no need to compound the problem.

Quote :

..."Men have always been in control of religion."...

...Not without the help of the women who enabled it.

Same line of "thinking" in the cliche :

"Men make war"...That's right...but not without the women who enable it. Passive-aggressively, I might add.

Quote :

..."Since religions are not going away any time soon, they would certainly benefit if women were to take over"...
You did not explicitly state : "Most men are controlling" True. You clearly implied it in your previous statements I quote above. Passive-aggressive methinks. No ?

...(continued)...

...(concluded)...

Quote :

...""Since religions are not going away any time soon, they would certainly benefit if women were to take over..."
That's not only capitulation and defeatist, you are rationalizing to support your contention. The fact is, "religion" is going away, very quickly; notwithstanding all the woo and blustering in the so-called "spiritual' essays saturating this blog. You see in them the desperation and final gasps of the Boogeyman hoodoo/voodoo nonsense that has plagued humanity for centuries...Besides, neither my thinking nor my physical being is tied down to a "country"; another outdated notion.

The world has indeed joined the 21st century, notwithstanding the morons this "country" has been breeding with an impunity that is horrific to the rest of the world. If we continue to regress, our regression will be matched and countered simply by the rest of the planet ignoring us.

Can't leave an old joke in the bread box too long without expecting it to mold and be thrown away.

J.B.
7/2/10

More Lanza, more censorship

2010-07-08T11:45:00.000-07:00

There are some authors I've pretty much just given up commenting on and Dr. Lanza is one of them. He has a new article: What Are We? New Experiments Suggest We're Not Purely Physical that pretty much sticks to his standard template.

I thought I had seen it all in terms of Huffington Post censorship but here is a fascinating example from Huffpo User JohnFromCensornati:

My comment cleared the moderators at 8:30 PM EST and disappeared 30 - 45 minutes later. Believe it or not, it consisted of nothing but things that Lanza himself has said. Here it is:

-------- Begin Comment ----------------
New experiments suggest that part of us exists outside of the physical world.

Experiments suggest the answer is simpler than anyone thought. Without the glue of consciousness, time essentially reboots.

Experiments suggest that you're not an object -- you are your consciousness.

A series of experiments hold the answer to why we exist.

Experiments suggest that life is not just a one-time deal.

Will the wicked be punished? Yes, according to a new interpretation of recent experiments.
-------- End Comment ----------------

Quantum Censorship

2010-07-08T11:38:00.000-07:00

There is a new article on Quantum Consciousness by Michael Bernard Beckwith.

Here is a comment thread that got deleted. This is one of those where I saw the comments and then they disappeared:
-------- Begin Comments --------------
RedDogBear Commented Jul 07, 2010 at 14:00:34 in Religion
“What exactly IS "Quantum consciousness THEORY"? I've never seen any actual basic definition, just a lot of musings about how the Internet is cool and bringing us all together and how quantum entanglement proves we are all spirits. BTW, I agree with the first two but don't think they have anything to do with quantum anything and I think the last one is false and shows a fundamental lack of understanding of what quantum (physics) theory is really all about.”

DrBlizzardo replied on Jul 07, 2010 at 14:25:19
“Wow. This is the first time I've seen a post allowed that called the author's knowledge of quantum physics into question.

Generally they allow comments by the gullible, the clueless and the ignorant, but if one of we scientist who DO know something about quantum physics points out the sheer nonsense and rank ridicularity of many of the assertions and suppositions made, or that perhaps the author does not know quantum physics in general and that there is little or no basis in science for the wild assertions of authors like Beckwith, Lanza and Chopra in these pages in particular, your comments get whacked.

The gullible get a platform, the scientists are muzzled.

Why? These comment pages are for the glorification of the authors, not the free exchange of ideas and information between the readers.

Fortunately, most of us cross-post our comments on Digg, StumbleUpon, Tumblr, etc...

But it is still a shame it is HuffPo's policy to muzzle scientists in order to appease authors who may be only selling ignorance to the gullible.”
-------- End Comments --------------

My "spidey sense" as to what moderators will tolerate is getting more fine tuned. As soon as I saw Dr. Blizzardo's comment I had a feeling that both his reply and my original comment would be gone soon.

Wink, wink,...

2010-07-06T18:49:00.000-07:00

The last post was an example of how any comment that talked about Huffpo or the moderation policy was almost certain to be censored. Here is another example, where even just alluding to the policy gets you censored (click the image for full size if you have trouble reading it).

First rule of Huffpo: Don't talk about Huffpo

2010-07-05T15:10:00.000-07:00

Here is an interesting thread that was censored today. As I've tried to reverse engineer the Huffpo censorship rules one thing I've noticed is that most comments that in any way talk about the censorship policy or indeed even the Huffpo site itself almost always get censored. To me this is one of the most egregious things about the whole policy. If we are really interested in creating a new media, an alternative to the corporate controlled newspapers, cable news, network news, etc. then I think one of the most essential qualities would be a willingness for us to discuss the medium itself. Personally, I've come to believe for quite some time that Ms. Huffington is just interested in being the electronic version of the New York Times, with a lot less science and a lot more new age woo and People magazine. Here is the thread with an introduction from James Ballard:

Huff "moderators" (or the author) just censored an entire thread between myself and a new fan. The first and reply posts ("ZumaBlue's reply) were already published over the weekend, then when I replied and fanned "ZumaBlue", the entire thread was censored !

Why ?

James Ballard

Channeling Erik: Conversations With My Son in the Afterlife

James Ballard 06:17 PM on 7/03/2010

77 Fans

[ 2nd posting ]
"MJK NL"
5:15 PM CST

Sad. This "MD" is in total shutdown mode : complete denial.

A better therapy for her would be to read a book, as opposed to enabling herself with "mediums" and formulating these delusions on a public blog. Catharsis ? I don't think so. Denial ? Definitely.

And why is this blog in "living" and not in "religion", where it belongs ??

J.B.
7/3/10

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ZumaBlue 08:01 PM on 7/03/2010

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My sympathies were with this grieving family possibly being exploited by a "medium", but now it's with other vulnerable, mournful people logging onto this blog now being exploited by a mother who has taken up the reigns and is now "channeling" her deceased son - herself. Telling people that this is her "sons" work, fortune telling. Healthy boundaries seem to be completely erased all for some personal need.

Some people will go to any length to hear, what they desperately want and desire to hear. To absolve themselves of guilt, anger, fear, grief. All perspective long lost -

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James Ballard 0 minute ago (1:56 PM)

77 Fans

@ "ZumaBlue"
12:55 PM CST

Fanned.

...Furthermore, the fact that Huff is enabling her is also sad and in direct violation of the health boundaries you are addressing. It's both exploitive and pathetic. It gives me shivers to think that this woman is an "MD". I pity the "patients" within her sphere of "medical practice". Just how objective in diagnosing and treatments can this "MD" be in dispensing sound medical practice while at the same time she solicits "mediums" ?

Outrageous. Sad . And pathetic.

J.B.
7/5/10

An Interesting thread that got cut off Part 2

2010-07-02T17:07:00.000-07:00

This is part two. For reasons of formatting and my pathetic skills in HTML I had to divide this up into two posts. For the beginning of this thread see Part 1 below. My reply to the end of part 1 was published but TheWM's reply below was one of those that I could see and tried replying to several times only to realize that his reply never really was published:

RedDogBear "And yet you still think he was as bad as Hitler?
Hm. One of us is surely missing something."

I'm talking about a moral evaluation. Stalin ruthlessly killed millions of his own people in the Gulags. He created a climate of fear and paranoia through the Soviet bloc countries and he ruled those countries through intimidation.

The fact that he was also used as a bogey man by the right wing US and that they inflated the threat he posed doesn't matter much when evaluating his morality. Its analogous to Sadam Hussein. He was never a serious threat to the US and he was also overblown as an external enemy. That doesn't mean he wasn't a murderous tyrant.

posted Jun 24, 2010 at 16:09:48 Reply Link

TheWM "Stalin ruthlessly killed millions of his own people in the Gulags."

What really happened in the Gulag? I for one do not trust Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's account of things. He was a pretty fervent Orthodox Christian and saw everything through that prism.

There are a lot of wildly inflated numbers circulating when it comes to tallying up all of Stalin's victims, a lot of misinformation. I think it may be a while before a really reliable and accurate history of the Soviet Union is written.

Clearly, Stalin did many very bad things. But he also took over the Soviet Union when it was still mostly agrarian and illiterate, and when he died three decades later it was mostly literate and industrialized.

When Hitler took over Germany it was a world leader in science, industry and culture, and when he died twelve years later it was a smoking pile of rubble, its citizens' heads were full of racist propoganda, Germany had started a world war in which over 50 million people died, and millions of men, women and children -- including tiny babies -- had been systematically gassed and shot.

An Interesting thread that got cut off Part 1

2010-07-02T17:04:00.000-07:00

Here is the first part of an interesting thread that got cut off just as we were getting into what IMO was some very interesting discussion. I think TheWM was wrong, wrong, wrong, (and I'm sure he thinks the same about me) but his arguments were more interesting and cogent than 99% of the users I talk to on Huffpo. This is one of the things that I find most annoying about The Huffington Post. You can talk about the latest star on American Idol to your heart's content but as soon as you start getting into an interesting political discussion you get cut off because you may use a forbidden word or phrase such as genocide, holocaust, or zionism.

beninabox1 01:10 PM on 6/24/2010

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yep, stalin hitler and roosevelt were religously motivated. Must have missed those speeches.

HUFFPOST SUPER USER

TheWM 01:21 PM on 6/24/2010

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As a leftist atheist I'm used to debating against the Stalin-was-as-bad-as-Hitler meme, which has morphed into the Stalin-was-much-much-worse-than-Hitler meme -- but did you just lump Hitler, Stalin and Roosevelt together? Seriously?

HUFFPOST SUPER USER

RedDogBear 02:26 PM on 6/24/2010

221 Fans

Well we agree putting Roosevelt there was ridiculous. But I'm about as left wing as they come and I think Hitler and Stalin were more or less the same. Hitler was more psychotic I think especially toward the end. And Stalin more the controlled sociopath.

Now if we were comparing say Lenin or Trotsky to Hitler I would agree with you. That's about as sensible as comparing Roosevelt to Hitler. Lenin could be ruthless in consolidating his power but if you read actual history George Washington had his ruthless moments too. But Stalin was just a butcher IMO.

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RedDogBear 02:36 PM on 6/24/2010

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One more point. I do agree that the fear of Stalin as a threat to the world has been vastly overblown. He never had the chance and was never all that interested in conquering the world. He was concerned with (and understandably given the devastation the Russian people suffered in WWII) with securing Russia's security against future invasions.

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HUFFPOST SUPER USER

TheWM 03:45 PM on 6/24/2010

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"I do agree that the fear of Stalin as a threat to the world has been vastly overblown. He never had the chance and was never all that interested in conquering the world."

And yet you still think he was as bad as Hitler?

Hm. One of us is surely missing something.

Not all whores are equally respectable

2010-07-02T15:02:00.000-07:00

From a new Huffpo user who has had enough of the arbitrary censorship policy:

I had a perfect example of the “bot” phenomenon today, July 1, 2010. There is an article about Helen Reddy calling out Madonna. Specifically, the headline was “Madonna has made us all whores,” and they used the word “whore” in the article as well. Yet (I’m sure you can see this coming) no comment I made got posted because I included the word “whore” in it. Funny thing was, I was making a rather pithy comment about something tangential yet relevant, specifically:

“So basically, Reddy is saying that the classic Madonna – Whore complex is no longer valid... since the two have apparently merged into one.”

Well, socially of course, the M/W complex is exactly what Madonna spent her early career attacking. I thought the comment hugely appropriate, but alas, hp’s bot did not.

I've had so many similar examples. Article that discuss the most tawdry subjecs and comments that arbitrarily get "moderated" for using less offensive language than what was in the original article.

Are you Experienced?

2010-05-26T19:22:00.000-07:00

Rev. James Martin has a Huffpo article on faith called Want to Experience God? You Already Have: Vulnerability.

Its one of those articles that claims belief in the irrational is actually a good thing. As I read it and thought about my own life I realized that you could replace "God" with "drugs" or other vices and it would pretty much still make sense. So I posted the following comment:

Want to Experience Drugs? You already have: Vulnerability.
Try the following experiment: replace “God” with “Drugs” in this article. It still pretty much makes sense. Not that I’m advocating drugs, not at all. Just pointing out that just because we turn to something at times of vulnerability doesn’t mean that thing is true or worthy.

I think this is another perfect example of what is wrong with the moderation policy. You may disagree with my comment but I can't see how you would think its in any way obscene, a personal attack, or anything that should be reasonably censored.

Crazy Moderation Failures

2010-05-15T15:57:00.000-07:00

Here's an example of outright hate-speech that made it through the moderation. Even if it's satire, it's over the top. These comments demonstrate the futility of the expert system bot that is supposed to screen out hateful comments. The system lets comments like this through yet it blocks other comments that are completely appropriate.

Template for a Huffpo Lanza Article

2010-05-12T15:32:00.000-07:00

Well Dr. Lanza has another paper. This one asks if machines will take over the world.

I posted the following comment. Originally it went through and it was up for about an hour and then it was deleted.

Template for a Huffington Post Article by Dr. Lanza
Ask an interesting question.
Say some vague and unproven things about the interesting question.
Mention some tangential reference to the interesting question as a way to site some previous work by Dr. Lanza.
Describe a personal emotional experience that relates to the interesting question.
Make some unfounded mystical conclusions that reinforce traditional beliefs of western religion.

Comments on last post

2010-05-10T15:39:00.000-07:00

I had a chance to look at some of the links that were in the last post and wanted to comment on them. The policy for this blog is to publish examples and thoughts from users on The Huffington Post about the censorship policy. I’ll publish any relevant article that someone wants to post doing as little or as much editing as each poster desires.

I don’t want us to get side tracked to specific issues or left/right ideologies. An earlier post talked about gun control and took a very pro gun control point of view. However, I also welcome people who are strong supporters of the second amendment. So I will post any comments or examples regardless of the politics or opinions expressed. However, after looking at the links in the previous post I just wanted to make a few things clear.

If I were the Huffpo editor I would have rejected the Jesse Ventura article on 9/11. It didn't contain a single link or footnote even though there are plenty of sites and articles for the various truth movement theories that are put forward.

Also, there is a reference to the Cristopher Bolyn web site. After looking at it I believe this guy is a clear anti-semite. I'm not one of those people who think that any criticism of Israel or Zionism is automatically anti-semitic. But the Cristopher Bolyn site wasn't the kind of principled criticism of Israel put forward by people such as Norman Finkelstein or Noam Chomsky. His site was just anti-semitism.

So I view that post as a good example of how open I would like this site to be. Even though I don’t agree with most of it I’m going to leave it posted just as is since that is what Abbybwood and I agreed to.

9/11 Censorship

2010-05-06T12:49:00.000-07:00

Here is a comment from Huffpo user Abbybwood about 9/11 censorship at The Huffington Post and other sites.

I have been actively involved in politics for over 30 years. Since 9/11 I have been very interested in the investigation that, I feel, did not take place. As a result I have read many books, watched scores of videos and read tons online.

Naturally, from time to time I have attempted to share information regarding 9/11 by posting links and comments at The Huffington Post. Anything I have ever posted regarding 9/11 has been deleted, so eventually I gave up trying. Huffington has a clear rule: "No mention of any conspiracy theories". They even took down an article about 9/11 by former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura.

Huffington Post is not the only site that censors comments on 9/11 particularly comments that doubt the "official" story and that suggest problems/questions regarding the 9/11 commission report. CommonDreams has zero tolerance for mentioning 9/11 as does CrooksandLiars. InformationClearingHouse is very tolerant. Salon seems to allow anything as well. About two days ago, ICH had a thread featuring a recent speech by Dr. David Ray Griffin in Chicago regarding 9/11 and the war in Afghanistan. I watched about 7 YouTube links on it, then proceeded to read the comments.

Someone made a comment about Mossad having an involvement with 9/11, then another person asked for links. So I put a series of links and a few comments and went off to another site.
My post is still there and people seemed to appreciate the links. Had I put that post up at Huffington, C&L or at CommonDreams it would have been deleted for sure.

I actually made a comment about Christopher Bollyn's site at The Washington Post online today and I don't think it was removed. (His website is frequently shut down).

Anyhow, I just wanted to tell you of my frustration with not being able to dialogue with my fellow Americans about the worst tragedy in modern American history. There is lots of new information that should be shared about 9/11.

More Deleted Comments from Dr. Lanza

2010-05-04T16:27:00.000-07:00

Dr. Lanza (or whoever does his moderating) is one of the most egregious of the personal censors. He often deletes comments that are not personal or vulgar but are overly critical of his point of view. Here is another exchange between Huffpo users Holyheretic and 1Canadian that were deleted from Dr. Lanza's article Who Are We? Experiments Suggest You're Not Who You Think

holyheretic SCIENCE HAS FAILED!
Robert Lanza turns to a children’s story about Alice and her bizarre characters and situations to tell us that “Science has failed to recognize those properties of life that make it fundamental to our existence.”   Such language “SCIENCE HAS FAILED” is the all too familiar and all too obnoxious language of the Full-of-Faith. They always argue that science “failed to discover”. They always strive to lecture us on “faults and failures” of science.  They do it to inoculate themselves against the criticism of the glaring, growing faults and failures of their ancient dogmas. But why would the distinguished MD use the language of the denigrators of science?   Why not acknowledge the fact that our knowledge keeps growing, that science is amazing, and that it keeps evolving? Why not say “science has not YET recognized”?

posted May 3, 2010 at 03:10:34 Reply Link
1canadian SCIENCE HAS FAILED... Might I suggest that instead of being defensive in this way, you consider that science's failure is related for the most part to its refusal to consider "consciousness" as even being relevant in both the grand and small scale of things, period. Science concerns itself almost exclusively with externalized phenomenology, and that which it cannot observe relegated to file 13. Science also has its own built in agenda, to which it is blind or refuses to observe.  What is it exactly that science is 'learning'? Technology has made great strides for sure, but classic science still holds onto most of the views it was born with, and those views it holds onto has dearly as the 'superstitions' science claims feed to religious groups, in spite of the fact science cannot see that its owns views can at times be as blindly followed.  What has science 'created' really? Even the common cold has science stumped, what to say of mot other things.  Knowledge of what exactly keeps growing? The props and things of the universe? these come and go, but what f the source of the props? Until science recognizes 'consciousness' it will still be groping in the dark. And in spite of sciences apparent accumulation or wealth of knowledge, it has yet to cultivate wisdom..   Cheers

holyheretic Commented May 03, 2010 at 04:54:37 in Living
Dear 1canadian  Thanks a lot for your comment and for making your point: “What has science 'created' really? Even the common cold has science stumped, what to say of mot other things”.  Are you one of those Full-of-Faith people I was complaining about who finds comfort in his or her perfect-pie-in-the-sky and virgins in the clouds?  If you are one of these Full-of-Faith people then obviously your God does not need the metaphor of heroine of a Walt Disney story from 1951 to make His point or to make himself known to the rest of us.   He can also cure the common cold in no time at all.   Cheers!

Interesting Deleted Comment on the Times Square Bombing Attempt

2010-05-04T15:59:00.000-07:00

Here is a deleted comment on the Times Square bombing recorded by ScienceFTW. Trying a new approach here of inserting an actual screen shot that a member of the anti-censorship on Huffpo cell captured:

Dr. Lanza reinvents B.F. Skinner

2010-05-02T18:10:00.000-07:00

Dr. Lanza has published another article on Huffpo, this time on the nature of consciousness or something like that. I’ve become so tired of his rambling that I have to admit I don’t bother reading his articles very carefully. However, as I scanned the article one part jumped out at me:

“Years ago I published an experiment (Science, 212, 695, 1981) with Harvard psychologist B.F. Skinner (the "father" of modern behaviorism) showing that like us, animals are capable of 'self-awareness.' We taught pigeons to use a mirror to locate a spot on their body which they couldn't see directly. Although similar behavior in primates is attributed to a self-concept, it's clear there are different degrees of self-awareness.“

Back in the 70’s I studied psychology. At that time Skinner was still somewhat in vogue and I learned a fair amount about his point of view, enough to know that the idea of Skinner publishing a paper that claimed “that like us, animals are capable of 'self-awareness” makes about as much sense as Richard Dawkins publishing a paper that claimed the fossil record proves that God created the Universe in seven days 6,000 years ago. So I posted the following comment:

Commented May 02, 2010 at 14:32:08 in Living
“IMO Dr. Lanza is misrepresenting his work with Skinner. B.F. Skinner is the founder of behaviorism. A mostly discredited view of experimental psychology that postulated that any discussion of internal states such as self awareness were not legitimate topics for scientific study. He would NEVER conduct a study "showing that like us, animals are capable of 'self-awareness.' " He thought the concept of self awareness wasn't scientifically valid for humans let alone animals. Although I couldn't find the paper Dr. Lanza mentioned I did find a summary. It included the sentence:
"Although similar behavior in primates has been attributed to a self-concept or other cognitive process, the present example suggests an account in terms of environmental events."

I.e., Skinner was not at all postulating that animals are self aware, rather he was trying to demonstrate that behavior that might be attributed to self awareness could in fact be explained by "environmental factors". Essentially the opposite of what Dr. Lanza claims.”
And Rationalist replied with the following very relevant comment:

Rationalist replied on May 02, 2010 at 15:29:44
“Dr. Lanza, is also making false, scientifically refuted claims about the nature of material reality.
Folks are so eager to hear a non-physicist medical doctor pontificate about particle physics - yet they would never consider having a particle physicist operate on their body.
Particles are not created by observation at all. That is a misunderstanding of what has been known in physics for a hundred years, and continually verified by experimentation.
There is no evidence of the universe consisting of anything but material matter, and all matter is comprised of material particles. The unfortunate use of the term "wave function" to model behavior at the subatomic, or "quantum" level, in order to account for differences from the macro, or Newtonian physical level, has led to this New Agey pseudo-scientific misinterpretation of the "dual nature of matter". People with the resume Dr. Lanza touts should, and likely do, know better, yet perpetuate this mystical mumbo-jumbo.”

My comment and Rationalist’s reply both got posted. They made it through the censor bot. Rationalist posted other very relevant comments and I replied to them. In fact, and this reinforces my feeling that although I don’t believe in God if I’m wrong and she does exist she has a sick sense of humor, after i replied to one of Rationalist’s comments saying something like (unfortunately didn’t save this comment)

“At least we should give Lanza or whoever is moderating his comments credit, usually critical comments don’t make it through”

After that comment, several of my and Rationalist’s comments disappeared. This is an example of what I think is the worst about the censorship on the Huffington Post. There was nothing in any of my comments or the comments of Rationalist that could be considered remotely obscene, off topic, or personal attacks. My comment was about as relevant as you can get. I was making an argument that the author had fundamentally misrepresented his research. You can’t get much more relevant than that. Even if I was wrong (I don’t think i was but for the sake of argument) the proper way to reply to my comment was for the author or his representative to show me I was wrong. If they couldn’t or didn’t want to bother basic rules of intellectual honesty required them to leave my comments in place.

Arianna's Mandatory Cult Meetings

2010-04-15T15:09:00.000-07:00

This was one of the comments that really brought home to me that perhaps there was something more serious going on with Huffpo censorship than a poorly designed expert system. On the article Why Are Children Rejecting Science? user ScienceFTW posted a comment that talked about Ms. Huffington’s ties to new age ideas. His comment included two links that were quite interesting.

The first link described Ms. Huffington’s connection to “the Movement For Spiritual Inner Awareness a cult ex-members described as sexually and financially exploitive in a series of Los Angeles Times exposés”.

The second was an announcement on the Texas Freedom Network about “an evening with Arianna Huffington”. It wasn’t the announcement itself that was interesting but the comments that followed which were quite critical of Ms. Huffington.

My reaction to both these articles was mild interest. However, I was much more interested when I saw ScienceFTW’s comment vanish as I tried to reply to it. Even more interesting was how difficult it was for me to simply reply back to ScienceFTW and acknowledge that I had seen the comments and links before they were moderated out of existence. I tried several comments all of which were deleted then I finally managed to get the following brief comment in. I’ve found that the shorter you make comments the better chance they have to make it past the many layers of Huffpo censorship:

=== Begin Comment ===
RedDogBear 134 fans permalink
I've tried leaving several comments, will try to keep this short as possible: thanks for the links, I saw and saved them before they vanished.
Reply Favorite Flag as abusive Posted 03:09 PM on 4/10/2010
ScienceFTW Unfan 110 fans permalink
Yeah, don't complain about it too much. I did, and i was banned...
=== Begin Comment ===

To be honest I’m not all that concerned if Ms. Huffington likes some new age cult. I also don’t care that much if she makes her staff attend their meetings. I’ve worked in the corporate world and being forced to attend time wasting meetings is more or less expected. Also, I recognize this may be mostly or completely just rumors and things taken out of context by disgruntled ex-employees or progressive bloggers who may not like Ms. Huffington for other reasons. What doesn’t seem acceptable to me is that a progressive blog censors reasonable criticism. If this is all hooey then Huffpo should say so or ignore it not censor it.

Will Anonymity be a thing of the past on Huffpo?

2010-04-14T14:41:00.000-07:00

The following is an example of a comment that disappeared right before my eyes. To be more precise there was a comment about anonymous comments and Ms. Huffington's opinion on them. That comment contained the following link to a NY times article on anonymous online comments. I followed the link and read the article and then went back to reply to the comment. As I hit submit I received the message "the comment you are replying to no longer exists". Unfortunately at that point I hadn't yet started to copy and save anything that Huffpo might find threatening so I don't have the original comment.

OK, so its not Winston Smith or Brazil but it was a very weird feeling. There was nothing in that comment that was offensive, personal, or in any way something that people committed to free speech would want to ban. What there was was this link to the NY times article that contained quotes from Ms. Huffington that indicated anonymous posting may eventually be a thing of the past on The Huffington Post. Now its her site, she can do with it as she wishes but its also supposed to be a progressive site. It seems amazing to me first of all that this article has never appeared on Huffpo, and I've checked several times. It seems even more ominous that a perfectly harmless comment could be censored because it might contain information that The Corporation (you know the ones that give us the mandate) doesn't want the users of the site to know or discuss. Quotes like this:

“Anonymity is just the way things are done. It’s an accepted part of the Internet, but there’s no question that people hide behind anonymity to make vile or controversial comments,” said Arianna Huffington, a founder of The Huffington Post. “I feel that this is almost like an education process. As the rules of the road are changing and the Internet is growing up, the trend is away from anonymity.”

“There is a younger generation that doesn’t feel the same need for privacy,” Ms. Huffington said. “Many people, when you give them other choices, they choose not to be anonymous.”

The Out of Control Bot Example

2010-04-14T13:48:00.001-07:00

I've come to learn that there is some kind of expert system or "bot" that pre-screens Huffpo comments. This system is out of control. It can censor comments that are perfectly acceptable. Here is one example that I found to be amazing because I actually figured out how to "beat the bot" and it seemed like such a ridiculous example. BTW, this comment is very pro-gun control but I don't mean to insult or put off any second amendment fans here. This site is about censorship and all are welcome and I want to encourage us not to get side tracked on specific issues. I'm including it because it is such a blatant example of how ridiculous the bot is. Note the words in bold.

=== Begin Comment ===
I lived in a VERY scary neighborhood for about a year. The Richmond neighborhood in the SF Bay area. It makes the worst areas of Oakland seem like gated communities. It was the only time I seriously considered buying a gun. But I was living with a wonderful but psychotic girl friend and I was afraid that one of us might at some point pick up the gun. Given that while I lived there she did things like throw her Mac laptop at me (and it still worked after, another testament to Apple) I'm glad I never did. Instead we got a wonderful rescue Rotweiller dog. He was one mean MoFo, to everyone else that is to us he was the sweetest thing in the world. After a while I felt perfectly fine taking him on walks at 2am. NO ONE would mess with me when he was there.
So for all you people living in fear, please get a dog and ditch your guns. Statistics (sorry yes this is that liberal science stuff) show unequivocally that a gun in the home is much more likely to be used against a friend or family than an intruder. But to my knowledge no one ever picked up their dog and shot someone in a fit of anger.
=== End Comment ===

The words in bold were the reason the bot rejected my comment. I resubmitted the comment without those words and the comment made it through.

The Quantum Consciousness

2010-04-14T12:42:00.000-07:00

One of the disturbing trends I've noticed at Huffpo lately are the amazing number of articles on new age topics without appropriate responses from the science community. Three of the most prevalent new agers are Depak Chopra, Robert Lanza, and Ervin Laszlo.

These authors like to post articles that talk about scientific phenomenon such as quantum entanglement, quantum computers, and the multiverse. My knowledge of physics comes from a few introductory courses in college and reading popular books by people like Brian Green. However, even with my basic knowledge it is obvious that these authors don't really understand the topics they are talking about. They simply use the trappings of quantum physics to give a scientific veneer to their new age speculations and to help sell their books and promote their TV appearances. Which is fine. But it should also be fine to respectfully point out their errors and give links to sites that correct them. Here is just one of many, many, comments I posted to a recent Lanza article that was censored -- all word in quotes are from the original article:

=== Begin Comment ===
"Physicists find that almost all models for reality from Newton's laws through Einstein's field equations, have no need for time"

False. Some examples:
Velocity = dx/dt
Acceleration = dv/dt 

Those are pretty foundational formulas for Newtonian physics, and the t stands for time. And Einstein demonstrated that our common sense (Newtonian) notion of time needed to be refined, not that time doesn't exist. Space and time are one concept: space-time but the time part is still pretty important. 

"experiments confirm that Zeno was right. Scientists proved what in the world of quantum physics is equivalent to demonstrating that a watched pot doesn't boil." 
Uhm, a watched pot DOES boil. Try it.

For some more critiques of the science in this and other articles by Lanza see:
http://nirmukta.com/2009/12/14/biocentrism-demystified-a-response-to-deepak-chopra-and-robert-lanzas-notion-of-a-conscious-universe/
=== End Comment ===

I can't begin to understand how that comment was considered inappropriate.

The Mandate is from the Corporation

2010-04-14T12:09:00.000-07:00

Here is an interesting exchange I had with Rob S. from the Huffington Post. I've put his comment about users vs. the corporation in bold. I think its an interesting point of view for a supposedly progressive site.:

=== Begin Email Thread ===
from Community
to reddog071@gmail.com
date Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 9:28 AM
subject Re: Moderation Concerns
Apr 13 (2 days ago)

We understand all of these difficulties extremely well. & again, I believe it's a frustrating experience for some users.

We have a mandate to moderate. We have a fixed amount of money & a fixed amount of support--and so we meet that mandate as best we can with a limited budget.

Not everyone is as frustrated as you are. We have 900,000+ users and most of them are, if not comfortable, not unhappy with how the system works.

& we are well aware of people gaming the system. If they do it too much, and we identify them--we ban them.

All that being said, moderation will chage radically in the coming weeks, and further in the coming months. I'm not free to currently discuss the details. I suspect the new system will be both 1) more effective in publishing what should be, 2) more responsive & in real time when something is deleted which shouldn't be.

We'll have to see how it all plays out once we put it in place--but the changes are specifically designed to help folks who have the same impression you do.

Give us 4 months (tthough I think you'll see significant changes in the next 2-3 weeks)--and you may be much happier.

Best I can offer at this point,

Rob S.
Senior Moderator, Administrative
Huffington Post
Original Message
----------------
Subject: Re: Moderation Concerns
From: reddog071@gmail.com
To:
Date: 2010-04-08 18:43:59

Red Dog to Community
show details Apr 13 (1 day ago)
"We have a mandate to moderate"
Really? From who? Have you ever solicited the input of your users? I've been on the site since it launched and I don't recall ever seeing any discussions or solicitation for feedback about the policy.

I think this is what bothers me the most, that there is no discussion about the censorship policy. And any comments about it get censored! I think you should have an article posted by you or Ariana or your CTO describing where you are and where you are going and encouraging people to give their opinion.

Thanks for the reply.

Red Dog
- Show quoted text -

Community to me
Apr 13 (1 day ago)
The mandate is from the corporation. I wasn't aware Huffington Post needed anybody else's permission for how it moderates comments stored on its servers and displayed on its website.

& again, changes are coming. I'm not trying to frustrate you--and you may even be happy with how it works out--as I said.

Again, they will let users know about these changes--and hopefully address some/most of your concerns when they are ready to--and they are working on it.

There is nothing more I can say at this point, and there is nothing I can accomplish by agitating but slow things down--so I'm letting them do their work.
Thank you,

Rob S.
Senior Moderator, Administrative
Huffington Post
=== End Email Thread ===

There you have it folks. The mandate is from the corporation and Huffpo is not aware that they need the opinions of their users. Quite a mindset for a progressive blog.

Welcome to Banned From Huffpo

2010-04-14T11:55:00.000-07:00

This blog is meant to address censorship on The Huffington Post. I’ve been a Huffpo user since the site launched. Just about the same time I cancelled my cable subscription and stopped buying a daily newspaper because I was so sick of the incessant corporate lies and distortions purveyed through them. Since then Huffpo has been my main site for news.

I had noticed for a long time that comments I made to Huffpo often were never posted. For a long time I didn’t pay much attention and just assumed it was growing pains of the site as they scaled up their technology to support their exponential growth. Then I also began to notice more and more users w0uld c0mment l!ke th1s. Much to my dismay I noticed that when instead of crap I said “cr@p” my comments had a much higher chance to make it through. At this point I should point out that I’m not the type of blogger to use curse words or even words like “crap”. I’m also not the type to engage in personal attacks. I don’t see the point in comments like that. I comment because I like to exchange ideas and I like to argue. However, in my experience nothing makes you look worse in an argument than descending to name calling. I always prefer to debate based on reason and facts and when its clear my counterpart is just name calling I simply stop replying. So if this were about having to type “cr@p” instead of “crap” or refraining from other naughty words I wouldn’t care. However, just when I thought I had the Huffpo censorship system figured out I noticed new kinds of censorship.

The next example was on a column someone wrote about Internet security. I forget the details now but it seemed to me there were several fundamental errors in the article (I’ve worked most of my career in Information Technology). I posted a very polite comment pointing out the errors. I was amazed when it didn’t get posted. I tried several other versions and again none of them were posted. This was the first time I got seriously pissed off. Its one thing to censor comments that have “naughty” words. I think that’s foolish but not that big of a deal. It is quite another to censor comments that show an author to be wrong. Once we start to censor those comments it seems to me we’ve really destroyed a fundamental characteristic of blogs that differentiate them from traditional media. The whole point of comments is that readers can talk back and engage the authors.

From that point I started paying more attention to the censorship. I noticed there were at least four types of censorship:

•Bot censorship. There appears to be an expert system or “bot” that pre-screens posts and either removes or puts in a queues for further scrutiny comments that it deems to be inappropriate. How this bot works I have no idea. All I can say is that it is incredibly arbitrary and in my experience screens out many perfectly reasonable comments.

•Author censorship. Comments that are overly critical of an author, especially comments that point out bias that the author may have are often censored. For example in my experience any comments critical of Depak Chopra are always censored.

•Censorship censorship. Comments that ask questions or critique the censorship policy itself are very frequently censored. I’ve personally left several comments on various articles authored by Ms. Huffington hoping for some type of response and those comments never make it through.

•Huffpo censorship. Comments that have to do with the internal workings or bias of the Huffington Post are almost always censored.

So why does this matter? I’m not opposed at all to some degree of moderation. In fact at times I wish there was more moderation on the site. I often see spam, racist comments, homophobic comments, anti-semitic comments and countless comments that are off topic or simply pointless. I would be happy if more of those comments were moderated out. What makes this something I think worthy of concern is that the censorship has gone from being mildly annoying to a serious suppression of free speech on the site.

For one thing I increasingly find myself wondering how to word things to “sneak past the bot” and using juvenile alternative spellings for various words. This seems moronic. What are we afraid of? The bot isn’t actually screening out truly offensive comments anyway. Its possible to get past them using alternative spelling and yet it often screens out totally reasonable comments. As an example, I had a comment on gun control with the word “shot” in it. I wasn’t threatening to shoot anyone or anything even mildly offensive. I took out that word and the comment got posted. To spend time creating a serious post and then see it vanish and to have to consider what word or phrase the automated system objected to seems to me to be an insult to thoughtful bloggers on the site.

Beyond the bot issues I increasingly find that true discussion and criticism of various authors gets screened out. This is especially true for authors who have article after article that says more or less the same thing and promotes their books or other commercial enterprises.

For me the last straw however was when I tried to raise this issue with the Huffington Post itself. The replies I received said that the site wasn’t interested in what the users thought regarding censorship. “The Mandate is from the Corporation” for moderation and the site will do it without input from the users. So that’s why I created this blog.

What to do Next?

Click here to go to the petition against out of control censorship at the Huffington Post.

Please see the greatest hits page. The blog has been up for a while now and on that page I have links to some of the examples I think are most interesting.

If you would like to join the informal group trying to address the censorship issues at Huffpo please email me at: reddog071@gmail.com