Why We Will Republish Articles About Lior Kaplan and Jonathan Cohen (Criticism of Anyone is Permitted, It is Free Speech)
Adults need to grow up and accept criticism (online and offline), even if they disagree on pertinent details
IN THE coming few days we'll re-publish more controversial articles which seem to have triggered legal action and aggressive censorship attempts, we can assume or guess on the presumed grounds of "antisemitism" (anti-Semitism).
With people resigning over the decision to take legal action (they disagree with this), the matter is clearly controversial within Debian itself. In other words, some volunteers view this as misuse of Debian's financial resources and either way, not much will be accomplished because sites can change domains (not that it's without a share of technical problems).
Jonathan Carter, the Debian Project Leader (DPL), isn't seeking reelection. This DPL stepping aside might shed a clue on his perceived legacy as censor. He could prevent this if he wanted to.
"There is also that saying," I'm told... "people who live in glass houses should not throw stones..."
It is important to understand this dark phase in the history of Debian. To better understand it we will reproduce the raw material as it still stands.
Something similar happened to Craig Murray, known in recent years for his friendship with Julian Assange. After he kept blasting Aaronovitch (for a very long time; there's lots of that) and the Israeli army (IDF) he got sued for libel and this was spun as a matter of anti-Semitism. The problem is, any sympathy for "Palestine" had been framed as "anti-Semitism" (or pro-Hamas) and thus got suppressed/censored. If we go down this slippery slope of sensitivities and sensibilities, it would be considered "racist" to detest TikTok or to insist that Taiwan deserves sovereignty.
It should be duly noted that the views expressed in these coming articles are those of their author. We just try to be a neutral platform. This is part of the history of Debian.
On the Web, material rarely vanishes; it just relocates. There's a cost associated with attempts to hide things. █