A Message to Indymedia

Hello, members of the Indy media Collective. This is Free Speech.

In the wake of the w t o Seattle protests you rose admirably to fill the void left by a mainstream media that refused to acknowledge what they could not profit from. At last people had a counter voice to the passive censorship of a multi corporate news conglomerate. For a while a rainbow of voices demanding justice for all rose above the din of commercial media.

It did not last. The guardians of this historic resource became victims of their naivete, allowing the open news wire to be spammed by the far right until granting free speech to racists and censoring anti fascists became a norm in many places. Persons allied with patriot groups cultivated trust among the collectives, exploiting the consensus model by installing cronies, knowing they would be almost impossible to remove. Once control of a collective was complete, they set about remaking it in their image, or destroying it completely.

Portland Indy media is an example of the cancer of censorship Indy media claims to abhor.  It deletes or hides material that conflicts with a conspiracy world view that has replaced educated humanist principles. The wire is a cesspool of conspiracism, anti-semite propaganda and defamatory screeds against imagined corporatists, stooping so low in rooting out imaginary enemies that concerns of i s p information being passed to third parties have been voiced.

Moderation now reflects an arrogance matched only by the corporate mainstream media they claim to oppose, exercising selective application of the rules to delete civil criticisms, while the most vile defamatory material published by friends of the collective goes unmoderated. Cronyism is unchecked. The consensus model has failed.

Recently Portland Indy has allowed themselves to be an organ for the Kay BOO community radio station, a non profit misrepresenting it's mission to the public, while still asking the public for donations. Information about money mismanagement and fraud are removed from the news wire so people are unable to judge for themselves. Portland Indy media has gone beyond simply supporting another alternative media. They have become a propaganda organ for Kay BOO radio and their multiple frauds and scaremongering.

This is unacceptable.

Indy media collectives fell to the fatal flaw of many revolutions, confusing honest criticism with a threat to the cause, acting to marginalize anyone who objects and refusing to answer the most civil concerns.

The Portland situation is a microcosm of this broader reality of the Indy media collective: Indy media is dying. Collectives that have not fallen to sabotage, have run out of money or shut down for lack of volunteers.

In the English speaking world all the Canadian projects are dead.
London is an archive.
Half of the Australia projects are inactive.
Of the 57 United State Projects only 13 have active open news wires.

As the lights go out, nothing stands ready to replace the Indy media collectives. A historic opportunity to revolutionize communication  in the cause of justice has been squandered for the short term satisfaction of using the collective as a megaphone for the extreme radical minority.  Indy media was never meant to be owned by any small group. It was to be a resource to benefit humanity. As such it has failed.

Those of you who have kept to the original principles, thank you. Unfortunately your work is disappearing as this message goes out. Few are left to stop a rabid minority who have stolen the megaphone of the public to spew filth across the Internet.

Indy media, you were warned many many times. You never changed your ways. Instead, you ostracised those who tried to act responsibly.

By opposing free speech and giving a haven to fascist sympathizers, Indy media is now a legitimate target.

Knowledge is free.

You should have expected this.

Good bye.