Self Censorship and Image
When I first wrote for Urbanagora, I had full administrative privileges, including the ability to delete comments. In one of my first articles someone posted a completely off-topic troll response and I deleted it. I remember someone coming to me and explaining to me the benefits of not doing such things. He told me that this was to be a place of free and open speech and that even unpopular ideas should be voiced. The unpopular or flatly stupid ideas would be duly deconstructed and free speech would reveal a higher truth. His name was Billy Joe Mills.
Imagine my surprise today then, when I find this same man going against the very principles he explained to me nearly three years ago. He posted a very interesting article in reaction to a political cartoon from a well known and controversial cartoonist. Specifically this one:
http://blogs.thetimes.co.za/minor/files/2009/02/deadmonkey.jpg
He received some rather unfavorable and some insulting responses from readers who thought he was overreacting. Within 24 hours the post was down. Then it was back up. Now it is back down and deleted. This kind of self-censorship seems to scream against the very principles of the guy I met three years ago. I’m not trying to insult you Billy. I’m just making a public call for you to stick to your guns and defend your position or take the flak. Maybe it’s to preserve a sense of self-image, but whatever damage that could be done mostly is. People don’t forget and the internet has a long memory as Tom likes to remind us.
Comment by Billy Joe Mills on 19 February 2009 at 1:24 pm:
Brandon…I took it down because something was wrong with the HTML and it was messing up the site. I saved the text of what I wrote and am intending on republishing it as soon as I figure out the HTML issues. Me taking it down had nothing to do with some kind of regret about what I wrote. DORK!
Comment by Billy Joe Mills on 19 February 2009 at 1:26 pm:
Perhaps now you will wish to self-censor this post of yours? hahahaha. Hilarious stuff.
Comment by Billy Joe Mills on 19 February 2009 at 1:33 pm:
P.S. Josh and Tom can back up my story about the HTML issues, if there is some doubt.
Comment by Brandon on 19 February 2009 at 1:50 pm:
“Perhaps now you will wish to self-censor this post of yours? hahahaha. Hilarious stuff.”
Not really. Based on your reactions in person to some of the comments here it wouldn’t have been inconceivable, out of character perhaps, but not impossible. The timing was unfortunate and incredibly convenient, so I threw up a quick request that you put it back up.
Comment by Billy Joe Mills on 19 February 2009 at 2:10 pm:
I’m working on putting it back up, but honestly the HTML issues are really bizarre to me and they’re not something I’ve encountered in the past. The post functioned properly for the first 45 minutes or so that it was up and then suddenly started cutting off the view of the page. I started getting complaints from people that it was messing up the whole blog, so I took it down rather than allow it to mess up the other parts of the blog.
I am the type of person who tries to recognize mistakes I have made in the past and then attempt to correct them, but I am not the type of person who will try to rewrite history.
Comment by Joshua on 19 February 2009 at 9:56 pm:
I hereby back up Billy’s story. Would have earlier but I had a hectic day. I’m not sure what happened w/ the previous post, but it was causing some major problems. Several people were having problems viewing the blog b/c of whatever the issue was w/ his last post. I’m not sure what went wrong w/ it, but something was definitely wrong. I also think that most of us here end up taking a pretty heavy share of abuse from one another, and Billy in almost every case has left it on the blog. I think this post was sort of uncalled for, you could have granted a presumption of good faith to give him time to repost the article.
Comment by Billy Joe Mills on 20 February 2009 at 11:20 am:
Brandon, maybe next time just send me a quick email or IM asking me why I took a post down rather than assuming the worst of me.
Comment by Brandon Ruiz on 22 February 2009 at 10:53 am:
I can’t help but assume the worst of you BJM. You’re a bad person. That’s common knowledge :-)