Now before anyone tears me a new one for lamenting the loss of a veteran UK-based, largely unmoderated, predominately left wing talkboard, I should add that there are many people on FR who have been on GUT before, likewise I know many former FR members who joined GUT.
Way back in the mid 90s, long before I'd heard of Free Republic, word got round of a new player in the "talkboard" market: it was Guardian Talk (GU Talk for short, or GUT), and part of the Guardian newspapers website. At first it was a primitive affair, I suspect a hobby job by some Guardian employees. At some point they decided to vamp it up a bit, but for ten years it remained pretty much unaltered.
Imagine FR but with images and HTML formatting disabled, and a "say what you like" ethos, you're pretty much there in terms of technology and ideology.
In the early days, most of the membership were dyed-in-the-wool left wingers (probably Guardian readers!), but it got progressively more conservative (by UK standards, not by JimRob's standards!) over time. The membership increased whenever another discussion forum shut down (I remember lots of people from either end of the political spectrum, coming over from the CNN forums).
Unlike many other boards of its kind, the Guardian editorial policy wasn't applied to its talkboards in any way, shape or form. In reality you had to out yourself as a hardcore neo-Nazi, anti-Semite or serial bully, or post something that was legally actionable to get so much as a warning from the moderators, never mind a ban.
The sudden closure of this veteran talkboard is to be lamented, irrespective of the politics of the Guardian newspaper. In fact, it's quite ironic, that a rag that consistently rails against oppression and censorship and plays holier-than-thou with its "comment is free" ethos, has imposed the most draconian censorship of free speech possible upon the internet community, with no warning.
On September 11th 2001, people in New York, Washington and the Middle East were posting news updates minute by minute, not just describing what was on the TV but what was happening in the streets and in their communities. I’m sure the same kind of thing must’ve happened on a million discussion forums all round the world.
But there was no Twitter, there was no Facebook. There were a handful of “talkboards” that really captured the opinions of millions on a global scale, in real time, that are still around today. Until last Friday, one of them was Guardian Talk.
The GU talkboards were based on similar technology to Free Republic. On that fateful day, GU Talk had UK nationals, American nationals, Europeans, Israelis, and people from all over the Commonwealth, not to mention members who lived and worked in the Middle East, all providing real-time updates of the reaction on their doorsteps.
As it happens, the outpouring of sympathy for America and the desire to bring those responsible to justice, was both spontaneous and genuine - and the nature of the GU Talk discussion on that dreadful day, totally transcended national politics.
The shock and anger and grief was tangible and GU Talk didn’t object to profanity so people were free to express their feelings without holding back.
If any American ever dared believe the whole world wasn’t with them sharing their anger and grief on that day, I would’ve said to them: Read that thread.