Indymedia article condones physical violence

Brother To God

Hello Chekov,
IF one of these "Neo Nazi" s had been killed would the article still be allowed up on indymedia? (an article written by his killer) if not how can you justify publishing a "Glory story" of an assault?

Why have you not being a member of indy media reported these thugs who wrote this stuff to the gardai and given over all the information you have on them ? is assault ok ?

The Corinthian

chekov wrote:

That's ridiculously poor logic. We remove articles that are against the editorial guidelines, we do not remove ones that are not. This does not make us in any way complicit or supportive of the sentiments of any of the posts that we publish.

Then the promotion of vigilante style violence is acceptable within your editorial guidelines? And you don’t consider that complicit or supportive of the sentiments of any of the posts that you publish?

If you didn’t censor anything, I’d accept you were at least neutral, but you’re not. Your editorial policy is a template of what you consider acceptable or not. As vigilante style violence is acceptable within your editorial guidelines, then it falls into what you and Indymedia consider acceptable.

If you have another version of logic you prefer, feel free to explain it to us.

Oh, and do feel free to respond to my other points.

chekov

the_syco wrote:

The mods here remove that sort of stuff. On indymedia the photo's are left there, and the people in them are named.

That's not true. I've pointed out several claims above which are very clearly defamatory against myself. The indymedia photos and related claims are true on the other hand. If they are not we would be facing a very serious defamation case.

chekov

meditraitor wrote:

There is no virtue in carrying that story

http://www.indymedia.ie/about_us


And these efforts to "free humanity" include giving a soap box to an organisation that is no better than the scum it opposes. It doesnt even have the intellect to approach the problem of racism and bigotry without the need for violence!

What would be free about humanity if this attitude became the norm?

We also give "a soap box" to SF, RSF, 32CSM, PUP etc. All of these groups glorify certain acts of extra-state violence without us supporting any of them.

chekov

Brother To God wrote:

Hello Chekov,
IF one of these "Neo Nazi" s had been killed would the article still be allowed up on indymedia? (an article written by his killer) if not how can you justify publishing a "Glory story" of an assault?

I believe we would. We similarly carry the propaganda of republican groups who carried out civilian bombings.

meditraitor

chekov wrote:

We also give "a soap box" to SF, RSF, 32CSM, PUP etc. All of these groups glorify certain acts of extra-state violence without us supporting any of them.

Can you point me to the last article SF RSF PUP posted on your site describing from the "lads" prospective the latest Knee-capping and all it intailed because I cant see it?

Karl Hungus

chekov wrote:

There are a couple of reasons why that is wrong - firstly because everybody should be concerned when innocent people are attacked and secondly because the far right don't just attack immigrants, leftists, gays, etc are also high up the target list.

Oh I understand what the far right is all about. But this attidute of guilty by ideology and violence being justified because of the possibility of violence, and the very notion that I shouldn't be concerned because I'm not one of them, well that is just warped.

As for the idea of the far right attacking people, well, there's no doubt a lot of people post on the Irish section of Stormfront. How many people actually showed up to this meeting? A mere 4 of them. What were they doing? Having a pint, as reported by your arcticle. Doesn't sound very violent to me.

Now perhaps I can put something in perspective for you. My name has been posted on Stormfront before, with some fairly unfriendly comments. Nothing has ever happened to me because of it. But if, on the other hand, my name would ever be published on Indymedia, I can tell you that I'd grab the baseball bat, and bolt the front door.

chekov wrote:

I am completely against attacking people because one might think they are nazis. That's just thuggery.

Yet these are exactly the thugs you are defending.

Brother To God

chekov wrote:

I believe we would. We similarly carry the propaganda of republican groups who carried out civilian bombings.

Being honest your statement was very true,instead of news you have published propaganda.I thought the idea of indymedia was a platform for indy news, not indy propaganda?

chekov

meditraitor wrote:

Can you point me to the last article SF RSF PUP posted on your site describing from the "lads" prospective the latest Knee-capping and all it intailed because I cant see it?

First one I found: http://www.indymedia.ie/article/75297

chekov

Brother To God wrote:

Being honest your statement was very true,instead of news you have published propaganda.I thought the idea of indymedia was a platform for indy news, not indy propaganda?

As a self-publishing site, the articles are written from the point of view of the authors. We don't try to ensure objectivity, just accuracy (to as great an extent as a volunteer collective can).

dermot_sheehan

Let's be quite honest here. Indymedia have been acting like twats for years, so much so that they have the same credibility as Pravda had, the news is only believed by the self delusional ideologues.

If they keep acting like twats they will sooner or later piss off the wrong person, and they will be sued. If it's for negligence or defamation, who knows. They will get a judgement against them. They however have no money. One of their only assets however is the right to the name indymedia and the domain indymedia.ie. It would be quite ironic and slightly amuzing to see that brand end up in the hands of corporate media due to excessive muppetry on their part.

chekov

Karl Hungus wrote:

Now perhaps I can put something in perspective for you. My name has been posted on Stormfront before, with some fairly unfriendly comments. Nothing has ever happened to me because of it. But if, on the other hand, my name would ever be published on Indymedia, I can tell you that I'd grab the baseball bat, and bolt the front door.

If an allegation was made about you on indymedia which was either a) unsubsantiated or b) not related to the public domain (ie what you got up to in your private life) we would remove it as soon as we saw it. On the only case ever before where an allegation was made against a named individual that he was a neo-nazi we removed it as soon as it was brought to our attention as the evidence cited in support of the claim was not deemed conclusive.

meditraitor

chekov wrote:

First one I found: http://www.indymedia.ie/article/75297

Thanks for finding that for me as I wouldnt have enjoyed going through Indymedia archives if its anything like the tripe on those 2 Posts...

INLA - scum (illegal)
AFA - scum (soon to be if they keep up this crap)

The Corinthian

chekov wrote:

There are a couple of reasons why that is wrong - firstly because everybody should be concerned when innocent people are attacked and secondly because the far right don't just attack immigrants, leftists, gays, etc are also high up the target list.

Here’s something I have an issue with - the term far right. What does it mean? From what I can see of Indymedia it seems to cover everything from neo-Nazis to the PD’s. It’s all very well whinging on about Nazis, but you seem to use them as the some justification for attacking a much broader group of ideologies that have little or nothing to do with National Socialism.

I've been defending indymedia from the wild claims that indymedia can be said to be supportive of it by virtue of carrying it.

All the social responsibility of a tobacco company.

chekov

meditraitor wrote:

Thanks for finding that for me as I wouldnt have enjoyed going through Indymedia archives if its anything like the tripe on those 2 Posts...

INLA - scum (illegal)
AFA - scum (soon to be if they keep up this crap)

I typed INLA into the search engine that's all.

chekov

The Corinthian wrote:

Here’s something I have an issue with - the term far right. What does it mean? From what I can see of Indymedia it seems to cover everything from neo-Nazis to the PD’s. It’s all very well whinging on about Nazis, but you seem to use them as the some justification for attacking a much broader group of ideologies that have little or nothing to do with National Socialism.

That's a point to some extent. I think that an awful lot of people have an inclination to shriek "fascist" on the most ridiculous basis, including the current minister for justice. However, in this particular case, I think it is beyond question that the Celtic Wolves are indeed neo-nazis of the traditional skin-headed thuggish variety. You don't exactly end up wearing an Adolf Hitler T-shirt by mistake.

The Corinthian wrote:

All the social responsibility of a tobacco company.

Our interpretation of our responsibility is different. We generally use the guide that our responsibility is to allow groups* to express themselves in their own words and to allow the public to make up their own minds about their politics and actions. You will see plenty of critical opinions expressed on many articles, including that one about the INLA above. It is only a shame that many of the critical articles consist of little more than mindless abuse or content-free outrage rather than any attempt to engage with the authors of the various pieces.

* as long as the groups do not openly promote some notion of inherent race/gender/sexuality/sectarian based inequality or discrimination.

bonkey

chekov wrote:

You completely miss my point. I was not defending the action,

No, you were defendnig Indymedias decision not to censor this article, on the basis that the choice of victim makes the article and follow-on commentary acceptable to your editorial policy in your eyes.

If the victims were some innocent members of the public I think we both agree that neither the article nor many of the followup comments would not be tolerated. If I'm mistaken in that, then I apologise that my opinion of Indymedia isn't low enough. If I'm not mistaken - as I believe is more likely the case - then I stand by my assertion that your refusal to censor this article and the followups - at least partly on the basis of who the victim was - constitutes tacit support of the action, to some degree at least.

Their application is objective to the greatest degree possible.

So you're saying that there is no distinction being made about who was attacked? That this article would be allowed to stand if the victims were just regular members of the public? That expressing a wish to see people beaten up is ok, regardless of who those people are or what the reason for their beating would be?

"to the greatest degree possible" sounds to me more like "as we see it", which is another way of saying "subjectively".

I accept that no-one can have complete objectivity.

However, yoru responses here show that its clear you feel that the rules I've already outlined don't apply here because of who the victim is and why said victim was attacked. Thats not even trying to be objective. If you want to argue that you shouldn't be objective in such a situation, I'm completely willing to listen and respond to you, but I really don't think you can explain how the rules in this case were objectively applied. You can state it, sure, but explain why it is objective? I doubt it.

This is just crazy. People keep claiming that indymedia supports wanton violence.

You have refrained from censoring it, whilst you would presumably censor it were the victims (or arguably the perpetrators) different.

That is tacit approval, whether you like it or not.

Its like someon in (US) court who answers "no" to questions dealnig with 6 of the 7th days in a week, and then pleads the fifth with respect to answering for the 7th day. They haven't explicitly admitted anything either. It doesn't mean its crazy to claim that there's good grounds to believe the answer for day 7 is something other than a straight "no" again.

You could similarly say that boards.ie supports racism, defamation, etc if you were so silly as to confuse the message with the messenger on such self-publishing sites.

If we allowed the racists their say, but would refuse to allow those opposing racism to make a similar point from the opposite point of view....in such a case I'd agree with you.

If we allowed racists to say its ok to use violence against immigrants, but wouldn't allow someone to say its ok to beat the crap out of racists....sure...I wouldn't disagree there either.

But thats not how I understand the policy here. This forum, for example, has ground-rules which include no attacking the poster. We don't qualify that with unless they deserve it or unless you disagree with their ideology. It may not be applied perfectly - perfect objcetivity is probably impossible to achieve - but I would criticise any moderator here for taking the "it doesn't apply in this case because of who the victim is" line.

You're just making any old stuff up. I don't think that and I certainly didn't suggest it.

No, I'm not making stuff up. I'm drawing logical conclusions based on the stance you've taken here and the editorial policy of Indymedia (how it is written, how you've defended it, and how it can be seen to have been implemented)

You clarified that you would support the "work within the system" option if it worked. A direct implication of this is that it doesn't work, hence you don't support it.

(Correct me if I'm wrong on that....do you believe that working within the system was the right thing to do in this case, and that the AFA/YA thugs were completely out of line taking the law into their own hands? On teh assumption I'm not wrong, though....)

It would seem to me that from this, I have two choices. I can believe you support no approach whatsoever because none of them work....or I can believe that you support something other than working through the system, despite it also not working.

(Correct me if I'm wrong here too...but you're not going to argue that any system works, are you?)

At the same time, you've (editorially) sanctioned actions that would constitute incitement to hatred in your own book (and thus be editorially censored) were the victims different. I've already explained why I see this as tacit agreement at least.

This led me to believe that of the remaining options - support nothing or support working outside the system - you're more likely to fall into the latter category. I may be wrong, but I most certainly didn't just make up stuff.

jc

mountainyman

The Corinthian wrote:

All the social responsibility of a tobacco company.

The responsibility of a tobacco company is to make money for its shareholders.

The responsibility of indymedia is to disseminate information. It is not a newspaper but a printing press.

neo Nazi is a meaningless word why don't people just say outgroup and be done with it.

I punched you because you belong to an outgroup and it makes me feel virtuous.

Outgoups could include
Nazi
Communist
Sinn Feiner
Homosexual
Black
Foreigner
Rovers fan
etc.

I only agree with the last

bonkey

chekov wrote:

because everybody should be concerned when innocent people are attacked

Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind

Its not just attacks on the innocent we should be concerned about.

jc

chekov

bonkey wrote:

No, I'm not making stuff up. I'm drawing logical conclusions based on the stance you've taken here and the editorial policy of Indymedia (how it is written, how you've defended it, and how it can be seen to have been implemented)

You clarified that you would support the "work within the system" option if it worked. A direct implication of this is that it doesn't work, hence you don't support it.

(Correct me if I'm wrong on that....do you believe that working within the system was the right thing to do in this case, and that the AFA/YA thugs were completely out of line taking the law into their own hands? On teh assumption I'm not wrong, though....)

This led me to believe that of the remaining options - support nothing or support working outside the system - you're more likely to fall into the latter category. I may be wrong, but I most certainly didn't just make up stuff.

It would seem to me that from this, I have two choices. I can believe you support no approach whatsoever because none of them work....or I can believe that you support something other than working through the system, despite it also not working.

(Correct me if I'm wrong here too...but you're not going to argue that any system works, are you?)

I'll correct you so, I wrote:

chekov wrote:

As it happens I tend to think that reasoning, debate and the dissemination of accurate information are the best ways to counter racism and thus hinder the attempts of neo-nazis to organise.
...
As I said above, I happen to think that the most effective way to address such problems in our current society is to remain within the law,

I await an apology.

At the same time, you've (editorially) sanctioned actions that would constitute incitement to hatred in your own book (and thus be editorially censored) were the victims different. I've already explained why I see this as tacit agreement at least.

Far from being incitement to hatred in "my own book", I wrote: "Opposition to neo-nazis is not hate-mongering. That's just a red-herring. you are eliding this issue with the separate issue of the justification of extra-state violence."

Our editorial policy on hate speech reads thus:

"Posts that contain explicitly racist, sexist or homophobic views will be removed. We don't oppose free speech for people with hateful views, we're just not going to provide them with a platform for distributing those views."

There is simply no way that one could logically argue that anti-fascism could possibly be included under this guideline.

Crash

Chekov wrote:

Far from being incitement to hatred in "my own book", I wrote: "Opposition to neo-nazis is not hate-mongering. That's just a red-herring. you are eliding this issue with the separate issue of the justification of extra-state violence."

Might be partially down to the fact there seems to be no difference between the two for the writer of said article. seeing as the aims of AFA integrate the two together, I don't think it can be differentiated between on this topic.

IronMan

chekov wrote:

Our interpretation of our responsibility is different. We generally use the guide that our responsibility is to allow groups* to express themselves in their own words and to allow the public to make up their own minds about their politics and actions. You will see plenty of critical opinions expressed on many articles, including that one about the INLA above. It is only a shame that many of the critical articles consist of little more than mindless abuse or content-free outrage rather than any attempt to engage with the authors of the various pieces.

* as long as the groups do not openly promote some notion of inherent race/gender/sexuality/sectarian based inequality or discrimination.

So are you suggesting that posts by members of the INLA, PUP and 32CSC are not sectarian?

BuffyBot

Once again, do you think that opposition to neo-nazism is a "hateful view"?

You know, you're only a few evolutionary style steps from the "if you're not with us, you're against us" mentality. And we all know how the good people of Indymedia feel about GWB..

chekov

&#231 wrote: »

Might be partially down to the fact there seems to be no difference between the two for the writer of said article. seeing as the aims of AFA integrate the two together, I don't think it can be differentiated between on this topic.

It would be more accurate to say that the author of the article feels that both are justified rather than that they are both the same thing. I'm simply trying to point out the different principles and, in passing, why it is ridiculous to consider anti-fascism to be akin to discrimination based upon inherent qualities. It's like saying that calls for paedophiles to be arrested are hate-speech (since that would be using violence against them). Similarly, although I'm sure that many here would oppose it (including myself as it happens), nobody sane would attack indymedia for carrying an opinion piece which advocated state-violence (ie criminalisation) against neo-nazis.

Zombrex

Indymedia wrote:

ended in utter humiliation as anti-fascists first evicted them from their meeting point in a city centre pub and then proceeded to beat them up and down O'Connell Street.

I really hope the irony of this sentence isn't lost on these idiots.

It reminds me of the "Pro-life group kills doctor" headlines.

Does IndyMedia not have any form of editorial control or moderation?

chekov

IronMan wrote:

So are you suggesting that posts by members of the INLA, PUP and 32CSC are not sectarian?

Although their effects are most certainly sectarian, none of those groups promote an openly discriminatory or sectarian political line.

chekov

Wicknight wrote:

I really hope the irony of this sentence isn't lost on these idiots.

It reminds me of the "Pro-life group kills doctor" headlines.

Does IndyMedia not have any form of editorial control or moderation?

AFA not indymedia. FFS.

ronanp

अधिनाय&#2325 wrote:

The editorial guidelines do not include a ban on encouragement to break the law. boards.ie generally deletes posts that encourage law-breaking, even minor law-breaking such as copyright infringement. Encouragement to serious crime such as assault would not be allowed.

Small point here which will undoubtedly be lost in the thread, but of course the editorial guidelines do not include a ban on encouragement to break the law. Law and morality are not intertwined. Something can be right yet illegal, and wrong yet legal. For example, most major civil rights movements have been illegal.

The Corinthian

chekov wrote:

That's a point to some extent. I think that an awful lot of people have an inclination to shriek "fascist" on the most ridiculous basis, including the current minister for justice. However, in this particular case, I think it is beyond question that the Celtic Wolves are indeed neo-nazis of the traditional skin-headed thuggish variety. You don't exactly end up wearing an Adolf Hitler T-shirt by mistake.

So your definition only extends as far as neo-Nazis?

Our interpretation of our responsibility is different.

That’s my point. So is the interpretation of our responsibility that the tobacco industry has. For that matter the same applies for the arms industry - after all, guns don’t kill people, people kill people.

* as long as the groups do not openly promote some notion of inherent race/gender/sexuality/sectarian based inequality or discrimination.

How about class? You don’t appear to have any problem with discrimination based on class.

mountainyman wrote:

The responsibility of indymedia is to disseminate information. It is not a newspaper but a printing press.

It’s ok to print racist hate propaganda, but not to write it then?

chekov

The Corinthian wrote:

How about class? You don’t appear to have any problem with discrimination based on class.

I assure you that I do. I find the property and inheritance laws which allocate a tremendous amount of power to people depending upon the accident of their birth to be morally repugnant. I also find any other type of discrimination based upon the accident of somebody's birth to be reprehensible.