Indy Media Watch

Indymedia and Blogger.com

Indymedia’s early role as an open bulletin board filled an important niche. At the time, there were very few news websites that weren’t related to existing newspapers, and the free publishing systems that existed (Geocities, Angelfire) did not lend themselves to regular updates. The Active software created a system where people with only a rudimentary understanding of html could upload their stories, without needing to FTP them to the server, rename files, etc.

The open publishing system worked well, particularly during the events that individual Indymedia sites were often created to cover. It was not long however before it became obvious that this openness was a liability afterward, where Indymedia sites became sites of flamewars, racist commentary, advertising and porn. Regular posters developed the habit of posting articles to the newswires of every available Indymedia – undermining the necessity of having geographical sites in the first place.
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The space for an unedited, unrestricted, uncensored newswire exists outside of Indymedia – any number of blog sites – blogger/livejournal/xanga/myspace etc all allow for this open publishing format. Therefore, it’s not necessary for Indymedia to continue supporting the publication of garbage in the name of free speech.

So then what’s the point?

Permalink # posted by Dan @ 8:13 PM | |