Right-wing reposts on Indymedia
national |
rights, freedoms and repression |
news report 
Sunday January 04, 2004 20:06
by --
Indymedia UK and Ireland used for pro-Israel reposts from right-wing sites.
The 'news' item
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=62832
about "Euro-socialists judeophobia" is a repost from a number of right-wing web sites, including netanyahu.org and a Likud website. The interviewer, Tobiass, is a correspondent for Israeli radio.
Similar reposts from right-wing sites, usually in the USA, have appeared on Indymedia UK. The theme is the same: all opposition to Israel is anti-semitism, and Europe is anti-semitic. In some cases the 'dhimmitude theory' is included. This is a weird claim, popular among sections of the American right, that Europe is controlled by Muslims and that the original inhabitants have been reduced to semi-slavery.
The question is, what this kind of racist nonsense doing on Indymedia? Is it the function of Indymedia to act as a mirror site for the Likud Party, or for any American right-wing conspiracy theorist?
Comments (2 of 2)
Jump To Comment: 1 2Anyone can post to Indymedia - whether left, right or apolitical. However articles can be hidden if they are in breach of editorial guidelines. One of the guidelines is that articles can't be just cut and pasted from another freely available source on the Internet without any original content from the poster in the form of added commentary or summarising of the article content.
If you notice that an article is in breach of guidelines, please inform the editorial group. If it's a cut-and-paste or crosspost from other IMC sites, it would help a lot to supply the URL(s). You can subscribe to the editorial list or just simply use the contact form at http://www.indymedia.ie/contact.php
Indymedia works best with the participation of all users.
It should also be noted that, when looking at whether an article has been contributed with the sheer originality of pressing "copy" followed by "paste", it doesn't make a whit of a difference what the "author" is talking about. If you look at our editorial policy, we don't take it upon ourselves to stop Indymedia readers from reading things they might disagree with. In the case of the article referenced above, it's the format (the lack of originality) rather than something objectionable about the content that raises an issue.
With all due respect, if you want an on-message dream world, Indymedia isn't it. Although we do try to keep the wire free of fascist, abusive, hateful posts etc, it is not the privilege of editors to screen out "right-wing" articles. If you don't want to read them, don't read them.
Indymedia Ireland is a media collective. We are independent volunteer citizen journalists producing and distributing the authentic voices of the people. Indymedia Ireland is an open news project where anyone can post their own news, comment, videos or photos about Ireland or related matters.