So BoingBoing (you’ll recall I got banned ages ago), a site which regularly criticizes other sites, corporations, and entities for censorship and abuses of free speech and other basic human rights, once again fell victim to its all-too-common hypocritical nature and went censorship crazy on its users when they dared disagree with a post’s rather politically-extremist content. As much as BoingBoing paints itself as an ethical player and a promoter of cyber-rights, they have a long history of heavy handed moderation and abuse of commentors who disagree with them. Sometimes this takes the form of simply silencing single posters, or posting snide and insulting responses (while killing the person’s ability to reply), but when the overwhelming opinion of the readership disagrees, they outright kill comments altogether. Many have left the site due to what they see as a cowardly and fascistic unethical “do as I say not as I do” modus operandi.
Anyway, today’s “problem” post (made by Cory) was “Little boy talks to Michelle Bachman about his gay mom” which contains this video of a shy little eight year old boy very quietly telling Michelle Bachman, after much prompting from his mom, that “My mommy’s gay but she doesn’t need fixing”. The overwhelming response from viewers both on BoingBoing and around the net, even those who completely agreed with the sentiment, was that using children as a political weapon is reprehensible.
Obviously I am 100% pro-gay rights and pretty much 100% anti-Bachman. That said, I think using an eight year old to advocate for your sex/love life is extremely dangerous to their psyche — it’s analogous to the damage that can be done to a child that’s been caught in a divorce. It’s doubly dangerous when the child is being asked to share or shoulder the burden of the parent’s pain. It’s wrong how American society treats gay people. Gay people know this better than anyone — and I’d have thought that this would make them understand how important it is to protect their child from all this pain. Willingly making a child feel like their family are unwanted outsiders is extremely troubling. Worse yet, it plays into the hands of hateful fools like Bachman who will use this as ammunition against gay parents — “see, they even drag their children into their sex lives!”
And that doesn’t even begin to consider the collateral damage that can occur from the posting of the video, which as I write this has been viewed approaching three million times. The kid is a celebrity of the moment — a celebrity that many people will have extremely negative attitudes about. Why put a kid in that position willingly? And what if the immediate situation had become hostile? What if people in the crowd had started screaming at the mother or worse? Why put a kid in the middle of that? It’s terrible parenting in my opinion.
Now, some people are saying “it was the kid’s choice!” I don’t doubt that if Bachman made some “gay people have a sickness that needs curing” that the child would have disagreed if they’ve spent their life being taught that there’s nothing wrong with homosexuality — which there isn’t of course. But that doesn’t mean that it’s a good idea to turn the child into a political weapon at the rally let alone in front of the whole world via YouTube. Nor does the fact that the child has healthy views about sexual orientation mean that they should be brought into an environment that’s so negative toward his family and his sense of security and home. He’s already going to have stresses that so-called “normal” family children do not. Why many it harder for him?
Anyway, none of that is really my point for this post. I’m not trying to argue about whether the end justifies the means. Is it acceptable to put a child at risk to make the world a better place? Maybe, I don’t know where that line should be drawn. But I do know that IT SHOULD BE DISCUSSED! My point and revelation in this post is that when people expressed this view — completely politely I might add — BoingBoing chose to censor it. At first I thought it was a technical glitch because it seemed so outlandish that BoingBoing would get worked up about people taking what I assume is the “obvious” response, but then it became clear that it actually was another censor party. Now the entry is completely devoid of comments and none may be added. Incidentally the YouTube video was similarly stripped of comments. Shame on everyone involved. And double shame for doing it silently, without commentary. I think that’s what makes BoingBoing’s incessant censorship especially dangerous — the fact that they go out of their way to hide it and pretend it doesn’t happen.
I did however take a screen cap of the whole thing before Ken Snider (it is hard to not sink to their childish level and comment on his unfortunate avatar) or whoever was in charge of BoingBoing’s censorship team managed to kill it off — although if it is Ken, I wonder if Cory et al tolerate this embarrassment simply because they’re afraid to bite the hand that feeds him since as far as I know he’s in charge of making them their all-important advertising revenues. But hahahaha on you, wannabe censor king, you were too slow! If anyone wants to see what was so incredibly offensive that BoingBoing thought that they should stop the world from seeing it, click the picture above. Be warned that it’s a giant one meg 1050×12158 pixel image that may well crash your browser. Sorry about that if it does.
I used to really enjoy and even “look up to” BoingBoing so it really made me sad when I realized that the emperor wore no clothes.
Update: I just noticed that since writing this BoingBoing has banned my name from posting new comments to BoingBoing. So…. in addition to all of the above, it seems that BB’s policy is that if you say something critical about their policies on another site, they ban you whether or not you’ve been a problem commenter on their site. I guess that’s what you call a “preemptive strike” in the censorship world.
