posted on May, 28 2011 @ 11:08 AM
I think people who frequent ATS might be more sensitive to this issue.
Regarding the language, specifically, it's probably something that should be considered separately from true "censorship", at least in the usual
sense.
One of my esteemed friends here on ATS is soficrow, she is very knowledgeable on many matters, including this one, as it relates here on ATS, and she
explained to me what is going on. Because ATS is a business, and the principle way they can grow is through a rising Google ranking, they must take
this into account.
So, if Google penalizes a website for language issues, ATS must deal with it accordingly, else they are shooting themselves in the foot. Do they do a
good job of controlling it? No, not really, but the auto-censors screen out the critical stuff.
As far a true censorship, yes, that is an issue, IMO, and like the language part of it, Google may have plenty to do with it, unfortunately.
But we should take a step back first, and try and see a bigger picture I think. The fact is, society has proven very vulnerable to the insidious
controlling power of political correctness. ATS is not immune of course, and considering that ATS is user-driven, and that so many ATS members
are radically controlled by their PC programming (from my observations), you basically see what you would expect to see.
Some years ago, back when I only lurked, I seem to recall much more robust discourse on ATS, people not terribly afraid of telling it like they
felt.
Today, not so much. But I'm sure I'm not the only one who has noticed that the more PC the issue is, the more you see the political vitriol rear
it's head. On every page sometimes, you have members who simply show up to announce their stance, with no reasoning, or worse, they only pop in to
use PC to label and attack anyone who has dared to step out of line. And if you should point something like this out, guess what, you're going to
get the spank from the mods, not the PC nuts. Sadly, the PC crowd not only rule, they probably will only get stronger, the rate things are going.
How will such a force ultimately work out for a site like ATS? It's anyone's guess, but seeing as how the entire PC notion is antithetical to any
genuine flow of ideas, I can only call it like I see it. PC does not bode well for anyone, or any website that dares to promote true freedom of
speech.
Back to Google. Well, PC has proven itself so powerful, that Google can seemingly only function to express this power as well. Some have mentioned
that Google is controlled by the elite, so no big surprise, but this obviously impacts ATS as well.
The most obvious specific example is one that ATS ownership has vigorously tried to get under control, the issue of "hate". Sure, sounds funny,
considering the massive anti-Jew membership, but when it comes to "race", this becomes very important. Google will penalize a website that is
deemed to promote "hate" (however they want to define that). So, ATS has to recognize that, and act accordingly, else they might get down-graded by
Google. This is the way I understand it anyway.
Not that keeping the fringe in check is a bad thing, but some could argue about better ways of doing it. Is it really true that if you can't beat
them, you join them?
I guess time will tell.
JR