Public Protests NPR Link Policy

Wired News ^ | 6/20/02 | Farhad Manjoo

[Jean S]

When huge, nameless, faceless corporations try to impose "linking policies" upon webmasters who want to point to the company's site, people usually react in a predictable way. They get mad, they spitefully put up dozens of policy-violating links, and they bemoan, once more, the fact that some folks still don't understand that if you don't want to be linked you shouldn't be on the Web.

[FateAmenableToChange]

: "It depends on your homepage -- what if you're an advocate for left-handed socialist diabetics? We wouldn't want to give support to advocacy groups."

Ok, let me get this straight. They don't want to support any advocacy groups, but they are willing to support left-handed socialist diabetics?

[3AngelaD]

Seems to me that if it's tax-supported National PUBLIC Radio,
we've already paid for this stuff and people should just go ahead
and link and let them suck it up. They should be asking us for
permission to act, not vice versa.

[Sloth]

"It depends on your homepage -- what if you're an advocate for left-handed socialist diabetics? We wouldn't want to give support to advocacy groups. It's part of keeping our integrity that our journalism remain noncommercial, and we're not engaged in advocacy in any way," Dvorkin explained.

Huh? Has this guy ever *listened* to NPR?

[Tacis]

Hey, they run on government money; they don need no steenkin reasons. They are ultra-left wing, liberal extremists that don't want to be associated with any site that isn't rapidily homophiliac; no fairy flag, no NPR.

[MrB]

Michael Feldman on NPR:
"NPR has finally changed its name to reflect its recent programming - it will now be called Al Jazeera Public Radio"

[AAABEST]

Ya'll better enjoy the internet and it's freedom while you can because you're going to see lots of this stuff attempted and much of it acheived. It may take 5 years it may take 100, but slowly the controllers (in government, business and the media) will control. Nothing personal, it's just what they do. It's their agenda and it's happening as we speak. Many of their enablers (witting and unwitting) walk amongst us right here on FR.

Something as free and as great as the internet was not in the script and they'll do what they can to squeeze the life out of the particular part of cyberspace that offends them, costs them money or causes them to relinquish power.

They will suceed if we let them.

[billsux]

which begs the question: "why do you want to link to NPR???"

[syriacus]

which begs the question: "why do you want to link to NPR???"

And the question: "What is NPR afraid of? Are they afraid that any lies or mistakes they make will be pointed to, for all the world to laugh and/or tsk at?"

I could picture the NY Times deciding to refuse to let people to "point" to some of their sillier ideas/mistakes.

Because of the growth of the web, it's been harder for self-appointed opinion leaders to maintain their perfect images.

[cynwoody]

What ever happened to Newtie's plan to pull NPR's public funding?

[Timesink]

It may take 5 years it may take 100, but slowly the controllers (in government, business and the media) will control.

If they do, we'll just create another network and abandon the Internet. All you need is a few PCs to act as domain name servers and you can create your own entire internet from scratch; a single Unix geek could rig up the basics in a few hours. Combine that with the breakthroughs in wireless technology, and there's really nothing the government, business or the media can do to stop us. If the controls get too stringent on the Internet, the intelligent people WILL create separate, private networks and move onto them. And JohnRob could link FR up to any such network in about five minutes.

[AAABEST]

LOL!

Dude, you just cheered me up! Thank you for your optimism sir, I really needed it today.

[Tennessee_Bob]

The internet was designed to survive an atomic war. Any attempt at censorship would be interpreted as damage by the system and it would simply reroute. It's a hydra, you can't chop off the head without others growing in and replacing it.

[Jamten]

Here they talk about guy latinos whenever I tune in 88.5MHz. Nothing wrong with that group but why do they have to broadcast about that particular group "all the time"?

[Jamten]

Well the Government could make it illegal to surf the web and the can say any web be it Internet or otherwise. They could ban guns and they can ban electronic communication alltogether. With the penalty being death, that would silence the crowed pretty fast. Anything will be possible in the New World Order.