BlueNC - "Sock Puppets and Astroturfing at BlueNC" - Is Censorship Of Corporate Voices Proper?

[TomCADem]

Glenn Greenwald, who is widely admired and cited on this board, has spoken in support of the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United, which allowed corporations to spend unlimited amounts in political campaigns. So, given this support of corporate speech, was it proper a few years back for BlueNC to condemn anti-Democratic Sock Puppets on a Democratic Blog? In other words, is it censorship, to post a comment, then keep it perma-kicked to the top of a forum with a bunch of one line K&R type comments?

http://www.bluenc.com/sock-puppets-and-astroturfing-at-bluenc

BlueNC is a community blog. As such, we appreciate the participation and input of everyone. We have intentionally limited rules and guidelines to better promote an open forum. Until recently, the only way to get your account blocked and your IP banned was to expose the true identity of a member who had made reasonable attempts to secure their anonymity.

Unfortunately, our size and traffic have opened us up to folks who want to use this community instead of joining this community.

In the past two years, BlueNC had only experienced a couple of minor skirmishes with sock puppets engaged in astroturf campaigns. This month, though, we found ourselves tracking down 8 separate identities for one user. We figured it was time to set in stone a few new rules.

You may have noticed two new entries to the BlueNC FAQ. They are on sock puppets and astroturfing. Having stated rules won't prevent people from breaking them, but it does mean we can act more quickly to shut down an astroturf campaign before too much damage is done.

Some of you may have more than one identity. This can be useful when one is for lurking and another for posting diaries and comments, or one is used in an official capacity (you're with a campaign or organization) and one is used for personal comments. As long as you don't use the two identities to back each other up, you are not misusing multiple identities and you're fine.

BlueNC defines sock puppets as follows:

On the internet, sock puppets are alternate identities of one person that are used deceptively in an online community. We do not strictly prohibit multiple identities at BlueNC because there are valid reasons for some people to have a public identity and an anonymous or pseudonymous identity. We do however ban the creation of multiple accounts when they are being used to create a false sense of support for or against a person, organization or issue

If and when discovered, the owner of the multiple accounts will be given an opportunity to select one identity to use. All others will then be blocked. If this person fails to cooperate, an IP ban will be placed on the user's IP address or multiple IP addresses.

So, should sock puppetry be condemned or embraced? We see that Facebook and Goodle were engaged in a covert PR campaign that was only discovered because Facebook was sloppy. In a post-Citizens United World with Fox News providing millions in-kind contributions in the form of 24/7 right wing propaganda, and corporations devoting millions to astroturf groups like Freedom Works, is there any way for liberals to screen out the voices of those who are paid to sew discord?

Personally, I think we may be losing the war, as the corporate media monopoly saturates the media and internet with right wing narratives such as blaming Democrats while giving Republicans a free pass. In time, even liberals will soon be embracing the anti-Democratic talking points of the corporate media.

[Lint Head]

1. Corporations don't get a say while they have all of the money. Give up some of the blood money

and I will give you a say because you are NOT a private citizen of the USA with any real rights.