Good bye

For an overview of why this blog was started please see the Introduction.

I've decided to shut down the blog. I've been getting inundated with spam lately and its just too much work to filter through all the spam to find the few legitimate comments. I'm also moving to a new email, if you would like to contact me you can send me an email at: MadScientistX11@gmail.com

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

Cheers,

Red Dog

Is Ariana really a Feminist?

Here is an email I received from a newly banned Huffpo user named RushZappaFan the other day that pretty much speaks for itself: 

I am so f'ing stunned by being banned by HuffPo that I have to vent. I am the CEO of a public health agency in canada and a men's health advocate (its Movember). I responded to an article about discrimination of women by mentioning how patriarchy is killing poor un-educated males in staggering numbers and now I am banned. I believe in the truth - rationalism. I now see HuffPo as another corporation who stifles constructive dialogue if it might cause their target demographic to start looking elsewhere for answers. keep up the good work. Any one on the side of truth is good, and visa versa.

Huffpo/AOL Escalating to Physical Threats

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 no She 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

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

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

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

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

Censor One for the Gipper

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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".