[Nettime-bold] Re: <nettime> slashdot chooses its battle and complies to scientology claims

[Carl Guderian <blacque_jacques@yahoo.com>]

I think the *real* test would be what Slashdot did if
the clams were to demand the identity of the poster.
If the poster's anonymizer wasn't up to snuff, then
Xenu help him/her. And if Slashdot delivered up the
poster, then all Xenu's legions of body thetans
couldn't save Slashdot's reputation.

Carl

--- Drazen Pantic <drazen@opennet.org> wrote:
>
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/03/16/1256226&mode=thread
> 
> <
> Last Saturday a comment was posted here by an
> anonymous reader that
> contained text that was copyrighted by the Church of
> Scientology. They
> have since followed the DMCA and demanded that we
> remove the comment.
> While Slashdot is an open forum and we encourage
> free discussion and
> sharing of ideas, our lawyers have advised us that,
> considering all
> the details of this case, the comment should come
> down. Read on to
> understand what this means.
> ...
> 
> We need to choose our battles and this isn't one we
> want to have. We
> want Slashdot to be a forum where you can say what's
> in your heart,
> but we simply can't defend an anonymous poster who
> violates copyright
> law. Keep that in mind when you post in both this
> discussion, and in
> others in the future. Post your ideas. Post your
> thoughts. And most of
> all, post your links. We need to play by the rules
> or it's game over.
> 
> ...
> >
> 
> Comment:
> 
> This might be a defining moment for Slashdot,
> proclaimed leader of
> so-called Open Source journalism. The model proved
> itself as effective as
> a model for collective journalistic writing and
> editorial work. The key
> remaining point, we did not have chance to test
> until now, is how much
> Slashdot management and Slashdot as collective do
> really care about basic
> principles of openness and freedom of expression -
> they speak so much of.
> 
> The previous paragraph, starting with "We need to
> choose our battles." is
> a sad example of selective tolerance and weak
> excuse. The message is
> basically that Slashdot will mind its own business,
> and propagate news and
> rights of Open Source community, primarily against
> Microsoft and similar
> corporations. But, when issues shift towards more
> fundamental issues of
> freedom of expression, the management will back
> off...
> 
> Finally, the "an anonymous poster who violates
> copyright law" is basically
> the typical poster of Slashdot, and many other posts
> could fall into that
> category. But, the entities that were subject of
> those posts were not as
> scary as Scientology is, so Slashdot has decided
> many times to go along
> with smaller or bigger violations. Now, that they
> faced the strong
> response from an entity they do not understand and
> are afraid of, CmdrTaco
> and friends decided that it would be most opportune
> for them to remove the
> post and try to forget about it...
> 
> The comments on the page from Slashdot readers is
> pretty strong. Some
> subjects mention "the end of Slashdot" and sever
> disappointment. If it
> stays like this, it really might be the beginning of
> decline of
> Slashdot...
> 
> Drazen
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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