On Feb 15, I posted an
article responding to defamatory accusations against myself and Sam Tissot on
the r/Trotskyism subreddit. The
slanderous material. reprinted from the WSWS, A provocation that failed: On Alex Steiner’sattempt to discredit the ICFI’s defense of Ukrainian Trotskyist Bogdan Syrotiuk,
had been lurking there for 10 days.
I posted a response to the slanders that had been published in the
permanent revolution website, Scurrilous libel from the WSWS.
When I checked a couple of hours later my post had
disappeared. I then found a message from the moderators of that subreddit
informing me that I am permanently banned. The message read,
Hello, You have been permanently banned from participating
in r/Trotskyism because your
post violates this community's rules.
There was no explanation of what rule my post violated. The rules posted for this subreddit state “No slander, no death threats”. But my
post was responding to a slander, whereas there seemed to be no problem posting
the WSWS slanders against us as far as the moderators were concerned!
I tried to appeal this blatant act of censorship, writing to
the moderators,
Please explain why you allowed an article to be published
that contains defamatory and libelous statements against me, namely, "A
provocation that failed: On Alex Steiner’s attempt to discredit the ICFI’s
defense of Ukrainian Trotskyist Bogdan Syrotiuk."
When I posted an article responding to these slanderous accusations, namely,
"A scurrilous libel from the WSWS", you deleted the article without
any explanation. You then banned me from the r/Trotskyism subreddit and
again provided no explanation. I am demanding that you reinstate me in the
Trotskyism subreddit and cease censoring content that is critical of the World
Socialist Web Site.
Alex Steiner
The moderators never responded.
Considering that the WSWS has published many articles against
censorship on the Internet, this act of
censorship by moderators who are spokesmen for the WSWS reveals an incredible
level of cynicism and hypocrisy. Here
are just a sample of the WSWS protestations against Internet censorship:
Meta maintains
censorship regime in Canada a year after passage of Online News Act
WSWS writer
Evan Blake banned from “Badass Teachers Association” Facebook group
Meet the
Censored: Andre Damon
YouTube
censors David North’s lecture on the death of Aaron Bushnell
Oppose
Facebook’s shutdown of the WSWS in Portuguese page, an act of political
censorship!
And
finally, how about being banned from a Reddit subreddit?
Why is the
World Socialist Web Site banned from the subreddit r/coronavirus?
In
the inverted word of the WSWS and its mouthpiece on Reddit, the r/Trotskyism
subreddit, up is down and down is up. Slander is legitimate news and a reply to
slander is, … well, slander.
One
final piece of irony is the slogan of the WSWS apparatchik who posted the WSWS slander against us. It is signed by someone with the moniker, “JohnWilsonWSWS”.
The slogan he associates with that name is:
Organizing
resistance against Internet censorship.
You
can’t make this stuff up.
1 comment:
Somehow the article about you on the WSWS is still pinned to the top of the page. With all the events happening in the world they feel that slander is the most important thing to pin to their page for weeks?
Post a Comment