Don't get me wrong -- if it's true then I deplore it. If I understand the allegation, they are reporting real blogs with real opinion as spam. See, this is not free and open debate, it's Nixonian dirty tricks. If it's true, and I have not even read the article to see whether I think it is.
However. Bad behavior but individuals is not in the same category as suppression of free speech by the government. I know you're saying it's apples and oranges too, but I don't think you understand my point. I am outraged-out. I'm much more worried about people getting fired for doing their job not parroting the party line, which has happened a lot, or being locked up indefinitely, which has also happened a lot, or being lied to by their government, which has happened a whole hell of a lot. On Sat, Jul 5, 2008 at 8:09 AM, C. Hatton Humphrey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Learn something new every day! > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zones > > I'm glad that both parties are equally hypocritical in the use of > these things. It takes a pretty haughty view of the 1st Amendment to > say, "you can exercise your freedom of speech and public assembly... > over... there." That is my read on what the "Free Speech Zones" are. > > However you're comparing apples and oranges. > > The Free Speech Zones were/are a calculated attempt to "corral" > protesters so the media could ignore them. My thought is that this is > also the organizer's attempt to protect their own freedom of assembly > and speech, since most protesters these days seem to equate freedom of > speech with freedom to disrupt. Before you say it, I know about the > grannies that were arrested for holding a sign outside the zone. > Those are outside the scope of my assumptions. > > What the Obama supporters are doing is more akin to disrupting and > denying the freedom of speech of others. They are taking calculated > actions and falsely accusing those who hold opposite views of > violating a services TOS. This is the same as removing their freedom > of speech altogether until the false accusations are cleared up. > > Hatton > > On Sat, Jul 5, 2008 at 8:15 AM, Dana <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> this is of course of much more concern than "free speech zones." >> >> On Sat, Jul 5, 2008 at 6:05 AM, Robert Munn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >>> Looks to me like Obama supporters want to stifle dissent... >>> >>> >>> ====== >>> >>> http://blogs.zdnet.com/Murphy/?p=1182 >>> >>> Yesterday, Americans celebrated Independence Day - and I got to spent too >>> much of the day loafing around paging lazily through a whole bunch of more >>> or less nutty political sites. >>> >>> One of things I noticed was the marked difference in treatment accorded a >>> particularly nasty little controversy around whether or not google was >>> purposely shutting down anti-Obama sites on its blogger.com network. >>> >>> Here's the salient bit from what appears to have been the first blast of the >>> whistle - by Warner >>> Huston<http://www.stoptheaclu.com/archives/2008/06/29/google-shuts-down-anti-obama-sites-on-its-blogger-platform> >>> >>> It looks like Google has officially joined the Barack Obama campaign and >>> decided that its contribution would be to shut down any blog on the Google >>> owned Blogspot.com blogging system that has an anti-Obama message. Yes, it >>> sure seems that Google has begun to go through its many thousands of blogs >>> to lock out the owners of anti-Obama blogs so that the noObama message is >>> effectively squelched. >>> >>> A bit after writing this he added this update above his original story: >>> >>> Update: Perhaps it isn't google, but Obamaniacs taking advantage of google's >>> faulty sytem. A commenter explains: >>> >>> The problem with blogger is that a group of people with an ax to grind can >>> report any blog as spam and after enough complaints, it's automatically >>> suspended until a real live human being can get around to examining it. If >>> enough complaints are registered with blogger, you might get a response >>> within 5 days but it takes a concerted effort. This is a huge problem with >>> blogger and something google needs to get a handle on. >>> >>> Regardless who is at fault, this shutting down of free speech is >>> disturbing. >>> >>> As it turns out the person who wrote the comment appears to have been >>> correct: blogger.com, and many of its righter users, seem to have been the >>> victims of a co-ordinated attempt to silence perceived opponents. >>> >>> At the personal level the resemblence to groklaw's policy of presuring >>> editors to shut up writers critizing them struck me as "a >>> birds-of-a-feather" problem, but what was actually most interesting about >>> the whole mess was that it produced an uproar in the right wing blogosphere >>> but went largely unmentioned, and certainly uncondemned, in the much more >>> populous liberal blogosphere. >>> >>> The story made headlines, for example, at >>> hotair<http://hotair.com/archives/2008/06/30/now-just-imagine-blogger-was-the-fec>but >>> appears >>> to have gone >>> unmentioned<http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=blogspot+google+shutdown+anti-obama+sites++%28site:huffingtonpost.com+OR+site:moveon.org+OR+site:dailykos.com%29&start=30&sa=N>on >>> dailykos, the huffingtonpost, and >>> moveon.org. >>> >>> The specific issue is unimportant to most technology managers, but in more >>> general terms this is a problem affecting all of cloud computing: trust your >>> business to an Amazon, a Microsoft, or a Google, and you become vulnerable >>> to a wholly new kind of denial of service attack - one that can be triggered >>> by essentially unrelated employee actions or opinions and hold your entire >>> business hostage to the service provider's business processes. >>> >>> "Five days" with "a concerted effort" is the guy's description of google's >>> remediation process - and if you don't think a business contract on >>> something like email will ever be treated the same way: think about your >>> business relationship with monopoly suppliers from telcos to Microsoft. >>> >>> >>> >> >> > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;203748912;27390454;j Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:263408 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
