From: "Ben Seattle" <left-transparency-AT-Leninism.org>
Subject: AUT: censorship policy at http://struggle.net/ALDS (reply to Chris)
Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 21:07:06 -0800


Chris • Jan 6:
> Aside from being somewhat typical, and therefore
> not too exciting, the ban on crudeness and threats
> does not seem to extend to the Stalinist from
> Chicago who posted that all anarchists should be
> hung.  This does not bode well for any kind of
> reasonably comradely discussion, Ben.

Hi Chris,

Thanks for your feedback.

about the "Stalinist" from Chicago:
-----------------------------------

I should explain to other readers here that dozens of activists
have posted comments and questions to the ALDS site.  One of
those comments was by someone who claimed to be a "Militant
Marxist-Leninist sociology proffessor" from Chicago who posted
the following:

>     "Anarchists are counter-revolutionary petty-bourgeois
>     hooligans who should be executed after the revolution
>     to defend the workers and their state."

Now things in cyberspace are not always what they seem.  For
example here we (supposedly) have a sociology professor who can't
spell "professor".  How likely is that?  After seeing this
comment I checked the logs on my site and saw that someone using
the same IP address had posted, within a ten minute period, a
series of comments with different political views under different
names to various forums on the site.  The very first of these
comments reveal something of the real politics of this person.
As a reply to my essay # 160 (which criticizes the views of many
anarchists that a future workers' state will be a police state)
this person posted the following:

>    "This is based on a straw man and misses the point
>    of the anti-authoritarian critique of Marxism"

My best educated guess is that this person is an anarchist-minded
activist who is somewhat immature--and who gave his real views in
this initial comment and, following that, pretended to be a
rather stupid person with a very repressed and repressive
personality and worldview.  Why would someone do this?  Most
likely because he felt that this little bit of deception and
trickery would reveal a "deeper" truth.

Now I could have deleted the post on the grounds that it was
obviously insincere.  It would have been the first post that I
have found necessary to delete.  Rather than do this. however, I
simply added to it in a different colored font an explanation to
readers: that this "proffessor" was acting as a troll, was
pretending to have views he did not really have in order to
provoke a reaction.  I thought it was better to explain this to
readers than to simply delete the insincere post--since
otherwise, readers who noticed it missing would wonder if I had
exercised censorship on someone simply because what he said was
incredibly stupid (note: it is not my policy to censor posts just
because they are stupid).

So I wonder, Chris, did you somehow miss seeing my note that the
guy was really a troll?  Or do you think that my note was
insufficient?  Based on the comments that I have seen, visitors
to the site appear to have little trouble distinguishing the
comments by the troll from the real attitudes of my debate
partner, Daniel, and myself.

It did not even occur to me (until I saw your email) that anyone
would consider the guy's comment a threat.  It seemed to be too
stupid for that.  On the other hand--I sometimes do not have a
clue as to what goes thru the minds of visitors to the site.  So
I am interested in your opinion (and that of others here).
Should I just delete the post?

somewhat typical?
-------------------

You thought this site was "somewhat typical"?  Egads!!  Did you
read part 5?  Did you read essay # 160?  Did you read essay #
153?  My own personal opinion is that no content like this exists
on any debate site anywhere in the world.

Sincerely and with revolutionary regards,
Ben Seattle
----//-// 7.Jan.2003
http://struggle.net/Ben (my elists / theory / infrastructure)

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