New Media, Same Old Bias

I'm finding that one of the factors in the negative projection of Israel in the media is the editing ineptitude of those fora which screen comments. Perhaps ineptitude does injustice to the practice, since some of the screening is clearly agenda driven.

For instance, today I attempted to respond to a post on HuffPo. I was blocked. Why? I can only surmise. Everything I said was factual, referring to the Oslo accords & the misrepresentations of the poster I was responding to. I referred to the Obama administration as "dweebs", a pretty innocuous if derisory adjective. I can't imagine that I was blocked for citing the Oslo accords, so I must have been blocked for using a word that the editor is unfamiliar with. However, none of the horrid posts on that site were blocked for lying, misrepresentation, or other vile & defamatory practices. That suggests that both agenda & stupidity govern the practices of their post monitors.

I recently was engaged in a debate with a virulent anti-Israeli poster on the student paper at Oxford U. I was blocked. I wrote to the address on the site asking why my posts were being blocked, and received no reply whatsoever. Could this possibly be a mere reflection of the historic policies & practices of that great bastion nation of democracy & colonialism? One must wonder.

I was also blocked from a debate recently on Nation of Change. Again, I responded somewhat harshly, but factually, to a person who was rude to me in his efforts to smear Israel with fantasy horrors. His rudeness was permitted, mine rejected.

It seems pretty clear that accuracy is of no concern on these websites, but sarcasm, especially when used in support of Israel and truth is closely examined, highly suspect, and likely to be blocked. I've even had non-sarcastic, totally factual posts rejected. But I can never find out why.

No bias in these open media, eh?