Posted on 09/22/2010 8:23:10 PM PDT by kristinn
The Internet giant AOL libeled Free Republic as "hosting child pornography" in an article published Wednesday, September 22, 2010, at their Daily Finance news site. The site's masthead reads: Daily Finance An AOL Money & Finance Site.
Authored by Daily Finance media columnist Jeff Bercovici, the article entitled Muzzled Reporter Says 'Maw of Yahoo' No Place for Journalism tells the story about John Cook's reasons for leaving Yahoo News and returning to his previous gig with Gawker. According to the article, Cook was the senior national affairs reporter for Yahoo's The Upshot news blog. Bercovici notes that he and Cook are friends and former colleagues.
In the article, Bercovici writes that among Cook's reasons for leaving Yahoo News was that he was not allowed to write about Free Republic:
"But Cook offers a different interpretation of his move, saying that Yahoo's corporate conservatism repeatedly got in the way of his attempts to report the news. In one instance, Cook was forced to bowdlerize a quotation from New York Times reporter James Risen; he was told that referring to masturbation, even euphemistically, was unacceptable. On similar grounds, he was prohibited from writing about the conservative website Free Republic hosting child pornography. Most glaringly, he was told that a proposed story on the Obama Administration raising the salary of White House staffers by 9% lacked the necessary balance; it was killed."
The original paragraph includes a link to a Salon.com article about a scammer creating a user account at Free Republic and posting a link to an alleged child porn site on his home page.(Salon reports it did not directly verify the link.)
The article explicitly exonerates Free Republic of "hosting child pornography" and instead cites the site as being "lax" in its registration process:
"Now FreeRepublic.com is not hosting or even "condoning" child pornography. It's just that it's so ridiculously easy to set up a profile and get your own FreeRepublic page that apparently anyone can and will do it. Theoretically, someone could do this at Kos or OpenSalon. (But, as far as we know, no one has.)"
"...Free Republic appears to delete profiles started for spamming purposes (unless user "freehoodia" was "banned or suspended" for some other reason, like supporting TARP), so, again, all we're accusing it of is being somewhat lax in its moderation of the user registration process."
AOL's Daily Finance presents itself as a professional journalistic enterprise with a full editorial staff overseeing their reporters.
Yet even with a link to the article that flatly refutes AOL's claim that Free Republic hosts child pornography, AOL printed the libel anyway.
Corrective action will be sought.
Yeah, you can keep up-to-date on the Ritter case at aolnews.com
They unquestionably allowed the verbiage to be printed knowing full well the false suggestion of child pornography upon Free Republic was potentially very damaging to the website's conservative reputation. It was in its way a stealth attack on Free Republic and every conservative who posts here.
Jim should own them. Never mind, aol, has to be broke to pull this stunt. My vote is with an earlier post, on operatives.
Keep in mind le difference, oui?
Leni
I know we don’t need to tell you this, Jim, and you’ve probably already started exploring your options, but this is a very serious charge being leveled against this site. It is slanderous and malicious. Take them to court and demand a full apology, in addition to damages.
Surprisingly, there is actually a lawsuit that this Freeper can support! GO GET ‘EM, JIM!
Go get ‘em!
This is on Wiki:
Banning participants
Jim Robinson has also made it a point to ban fellow conservatives and others who don’t completely share his political mindset. [55]
(SNIP)
Despite this willingness to ban users, however, critics have charged that the lack of moderating on the site has allowed some users to advertise underage pornography: “One thing that apparently won’t result in a ban: using the site solely to boost Web ranking for your child porn site.”[58]
Yeah because, you know, that whole "freedom" thingy is just so hard to understand....
Quick! Get a lawyer!!! I feel a whiplash coming on! Sue AOL’s ass!!!
In ius voco spurius
We will not go silently into the night.
So who is really behind this...Soros? Who is willing to offer aol as a sacrifice? This really means that FR has become broadly respected and somebody feels their agenda is threatened.
Like 20 years worth!
Is than an Apple?
Is than an Apple?
Is >that< an Apple?
I would say- Go after Wiki too. That crosses the line.
‘He is sort of an internet version of Jayson Blair.’
This is unfair to Blair. He wrote about real things — he just made up the interesting details.
Yea AOL sucked so bad i had to cancel a checking account to get them to stop charging me for something i hadn’t used in over 2 years.
Phone calls didn’t work.
Jim, perhaps you didn't know this, but the boys and I have been buying and storing barrels of whoop-a$$.
You let us know when you're in the mood for a keggar.
I can barely keep myself from putting on the toga as it is.
Anything they can do we can do better.... We can do anything better than them.... (sing it! lol)
Who wants to check how lax DU is?
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