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07/14/2009
But, but, but -- we want this company to print our rights-depriving hostility without restraint!
*FACT: To "block" a website means to prevent users from seeing it. Placing a content warning on a website is not a blocking -- it's merely a heads up for users who might be offended/upset/enraged/sickened by certain site elements.
*FACT: "Free speech" might be the most misrepresented/misunderstoon concept in America. Despite commonly-held claims, it does not, in most cases, apply to a company's corporate decision-making. It primarily applies to government interference with citizens' expression. Companies place limits on speech ALL THE TIME!
*FACT: Blogger (a Google company) makes its content policy well known. It expressly states that "Users may not publish material that promotes hate toward groups based on race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, veteran status, and sexual orientation/gender identity." This is just one of the boundaries they have had to implement in order to maintain the kind of forum that they can, in good conscience, run under their name. When they receieve enough user complaints -- they act on them. But even still, the company doesn't typically "block" or "ban" offenders: They simply place content warnings on sites that fail to comply:
*FACT: MassResistance has been declared a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center. In fact, they are one of only twelve in the SPLC's anti-gay category. The group's record of affronts goes back years and years, extending their notoriety well beyond the boundaries of the Bay State.
Okay, now that that's all out of the way: Go check out this misrepresentative bullsh*t that WorldNetDaily is mindlessly propagating as fact:
Google's blog hosting service, Blogger.com, admits that in the name of "free speech" some of its blogs are "offensive, harmful, inaccurate," but when one of its clients blogged in opposition to a transgender rights bill, Google drew the line.
A day before the Massachusetts Legislature plans to review a controversial gender identity bill, Blogger.com blocked the blog of MassResistance, an organization that exposes the increasingly open agenda of the homosexual movement in Massachusetts, with a warning that some of the content may be "objectionable," requiring readers to confirm their intent to visit.
...
"Nothing on our site could be construed as 'hate,'" [MassResistance's Brian Camenker] said.
...
"I've been anticipating this for quite a while now," [MassResistance's Amy Contrada] said. "Obviously Google is a private enterprise at this point, but their actions represent a trial balloon for government censorship of undefined 'hate' speech. And just like the gender identity bills, nowhere is it clearly defined what the terms mean. What will be classified as 'hate?'
Google blocks blog exposing homosexual agenda [WND]
Okay, again: Nobody is BLOCKING MassResistance's rabidly anti-LGBT blog. Blogger has simply placed a content warning on the site -- a message that users only see on their first visit! After one simple click, MR's followers are as free to read the hostile prose as they ever have been. The only difference is that Blogger now makes it clear that the words are Massresistance's own product and not endorsed by the hosting company itself. That is their right as a business!!
But out of desperation, those who have turned fallacy into an art form are trying to mine political mileage out of a perfectly straightforward situation. Forget the easily understandable facts. Forget taking responsibility for the daily condemnations that pepper the anti-LGBT pages. MassResistance/WorldNetDaily immediately turn to "gays hate freedom" mode, using fear and loathing to rile their peeps into believing that any reasonable scrutiny of MR's pointedly poisonous pride-protesting pen is an unwarranted free speech violation.
We are now using our own free speech to call them fear-mongering fibbers.
Your thoughts
"doesn't don't"?
Jeremy, the honeymoon is over, get some sleep.
It's impossible to react to this post, because MassResistance is behaving exactly the way one would expect.
Posted by: Mike in the Tundra | Jul 14, 2009 11:22:51 AM
You're too polite. Call them bald-faced LIARS. They are right-wingers, which automatically tells you that everything they say in public is a LIE.
Or, to quote Valerie from "The Princess Bride":
"LIAR!! LIARRRRRR!!"
Posted by: RW in LGB | Jul 14, 2009 11:29:44 AM
"Jeremy, the honeymoon is over, get some sleep."
A simple, "you made a typo" would have sufficed.
Corrected.
Posted by: G-A-Y | Jul 14, 2009 11:36:14 AM
Right-wing Christians should be assumed to be lying until proven otherwise.
(Right-wingers and Christians, as separate groups, are generally fine. It's the combination that scares me.)
TRiG.
Posted by: Timothy (TRiG) | Jul 14, 2009 1:54:11 PM
"A simple, "you made a typo" would have sufficed."
Of course it would have, but ....
1) I took my husband to the doctor this morning, and we got a great report. When I'm happy, I'm mouthy.
2) There's enough teacher left in me that I am able to see everyone's typos except my own.
3) Did I mention that I'm happy?
Posted by: Mike in the Tundra | Jul 14, 2009 2:53:34 PM
Jeremy, I hope you're not getting enough sleep. The honeymoon isn't over until you say it's over. (50 years, maybe?)
Posted by: SammySeattle | Jul 14, 2009 7:32:11 PM
Don't worry, SS: It's been a honeymoon for six and a half years, and shows no signs of slowing :-)
Posted by: G-A-Y | Jul 14, 2009 8:16:43 PM
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