This is the first in a series of posts addressing claims at Whale Oil that Google are ISIS friendly, that makes varying claims about why Google Ads ceased on Whale Oil for part of yesterday and then resumed again, that tries to raise donations to fund the ongoing operation of the blog, and that makes highly ironic claims about freedom of speech and censorship.
REVEALED: WHY WHALEOIL ISN’T RUNNING GOOGLE ADS ANY LONGER [UPDATED 5PM]
On October 29, Whaleoil published The only solution is to kill them before they kill us, an article covering how ISIS and other Islamic adherents bent on throwing gays off building and subjugating women are to be met by preemptive force to protect our way of life and freedoms, such as they are.
This set off a small but vocal part of Social Media. No surprise: exactly the same people who are always busy trying to damage Whaleoil in some way. This time a petition was created to request the Human Rights Commission take Whaleoil to court for “hate speech“. And as you’d expect, this was promoted by other blogs and even some main stream media journalists. (Oh the irony).
This third post is about oh the irony of “Oh the irony”.
In this post a number of claims and comments about free speech, which are highly ironic and hypocritical given the the history of banning and censoring on Whale Oil and their involvement in trying to smear and shut up critics.
From the original post:
But our critics didn’t leave it there. They have also been busy placing pressure on our advertisers.
They can not just disagree with our position, we must be silenced. The irony of fighting for freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association, and so on, by denying someone you disagree with those rights is remarkable.
Fighting for freedom of speech? Yeah, wrong.
And:
At these times, the community that is Whaleoil stands up against the bullying from those who want Whaleoil broken and to disappear.
It’s common for bullies to claim they are the victims of bullying when confronted.
More from comments, first their “featured comment”:
Obviously Don’s favourable comment was allowed by Whale Oil’s heavy handed censorship.
Also:
Someone frequenting Whale Oil who doesn’t like bullies – only the bullies they disagree with.
In reply to a comment by Pete Belt:
Did Slater type that with a straight face? Perhaps he believes that attacks on free speech only matter when it’s his speech that’s being attacked.
Except Belt doesn’t leave opinions he doesn’t want on Whale Oil.
‘We’ is those who have not been banned by Belt. There have been many claims that people who have donated to Whale Oil in the past have been censored and banned.
It wasn’t confined to that post, the very next post yesterday, by Spanish Bride, was Silencing Free Speech isn’t the same as changing people’s minds. This has ironic gems like:
They don’t realise that creating a hostile environment for debate enables them to intimidate and silence but it does not mean that they have changed anyone’s mind.
Many readers of Your NZ will see the high levels of irony and hypocrisy in this.
For anyone who hasn’t seen Whale Oil in action someone sent me some screen shots from Whale Oil yesterday that you won’t find there now.
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It’s common for awkward questions and unwelcome opinions to disappear from Whale Oil, and for unwelcome contributors to be blocked and banned.
Now of course Slater and Belt can censor and ban as much as they like on their own blog.
But when they claim to be champions of free speech and criticise the censorship of others when they censor and ban as much as they do they deserve strong criticism of their double standards and their hypocrisy.
Belt said in his post’s update yesterday:
The Google Bot is even more merciless than I am as a moderator.
I hear many complaints about Belt’s ‘moderation’ – more like censorship, message control and propaganda enforcement – and few about the Google bot.
Free speech is as much a feature of Whale Oil as clean politics and honest disclosure – it’s a sad joke.
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