Reply to Comment from Walkfly

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.