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ADL Tries to Censor Yahoo Sites
BMIComp writes, "The Anti-Defamation League is asking for Yahoo! to take down club sites that promote hatred, such as "Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, the National Association for the Advancement of White People, and the World Church of the Creator." They are asking this of Yahoo, since its terms of service state that users are not allowed to:
upload, post, e-mail or otherwise transmit any content that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortuous, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous, invasive of another's privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable;" ZDNet's story here " Ah, the ADL. My favorite left-wing censorship group.
If they ban KKK/hate/etc, they should ban other racist groups like the NAACP,etc
The ADL doesn't "get it" when it comes to the Constitution and Bill of Rights. During the assault weapons scare, the ADL was lobbying for a ban on assault weapons because a few racist nuts were running around in camouflage fatigues, playing soldier. This really pissed me off because their attitude was based on the bankrupt old ideas that "good Jews don't own guns" and "the government will protect us from the antisemites", ghetto thinking that helped make the holocaust possible. They think that the government will only ban "bad" speech, certainly nothing that would affect them.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Yahoo would be opening themselves up for lawsuits if they enforced the terms of service. Once they assume editorial control by removing some offensive sites, they can be sued for the content of sites they failed to remove.
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
> As someone once said (don't ask who, I'm awful with names)...
I believe you are referring to Voltaire. Of course, I Could Be Wrong.
There's another quote that springs to mind -- and this one I don't remember the origin of:
"If you don't believe in freedom of speech for people you despise, you don't believe in freedom of speech at all."
I agree with the ADL, that hatred is bad and all, but I don't agree with the way they're going about preventing it. Companies like Yahoo, have their terms of service and other guidelines in place in case they need to use them, but they don't always enforce them, and they aren't expected to. On the other hand, the ADL comes in and tried to exploit Yahoo's terms of service by telling them that they basically have to terminate certain users clubs/accounts/websites... whatever... because they violate the terms of service. If Yahoo removed the material from their website, I wouldn't care, but people from the outside trying to force them to do it, doesn't seem right.
The ADL is one of the biggest hate groups around. They spread hate and intolerance towards people who hate other people. Talk about being hypocritical.
Burris
Does anyone remember when the ADL got caught a few years ago illegally spying on Americans? The only details I remember are that they maintained a database on thousands of Americans who anyone reported to them had criticized them or said or done anything anti-Semitic, and they actually acquired police databases illegally. I seem to recall that they had tried to harm the people in their database, but I don't remember any details. This story received surprisingly little press coverage. If the KKK had done this, we would still be hearing about it.
Do we grant them their request to take away access for fringe groups (PC for hate groups), or do we stand by a persons rights for free speech?
If the sites are removed, they will simply go elsewhere. There will be no victory, only free publicity for groups that should be ignored. The ADL, in its zealous quest to rid the world of bigotry, is only promoting them.
Its sad that people and groups like the ADL neglect and/or overlook the most powerful (and only effective) weapon against hatred: Education.
Jailbrekr.
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