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• Saturday, February 17, 2007 07:59 PM

  MARCOTTE'S WORLD -- "BUT IT'S FREEDOM OF SPEECH"

  Although Marcotte doesn’t say so directly, nearly the entire third page of her essay is devoted to the delusion that the end result of Marcotte’s writings becoming public resulted in her loss (and future feminist and female blogger’s loss) of free speech. That notion is absurd of course as a number of commentators upstream have detailed in much more eloquent fashion than I would attempt.

  What is interesting however is in reading Marcotte’s essay one would come away with a firm belief that Marcotte, as a committed standard bearer for the right to freedom of speech, she would never censure an honest purveyor of truth at her blog.

  Nothing could be further from the truth.

  Several commentators upstream have noted that Marcotte has no qualm in banning commentators and/or deleting comments of anyone at Pandagon that disagrees with any position that Marcotte takes. Let me provide a number of examples. As I detailed in my commentary just prior to this one titled: Marocotte’s World – “Birth Of A Shitstorm,” Marcotte deleted the comments of two commentators on Feb 2nd simply because they had the misfortune of appending an earlier comment of Marcotte which Marcotte decided to deleted some thirteen days after the fact. A notation such as ‘Comment Deleted Because…’ (standard practice for blog administrators) was not made during the deletion process in Marcotte’s haste to ‘clarify.’

  Here is Marcotte’s current position on how to get banned at Pandagon: “Bore me [Marcotte].”

  ‘Bore me,’ of course in Marcotte’s World is advocating any position that is contrary to Marcotte’s worldview, particularly as it relates to the Duke Lacrosse case:

  http://pandagon.net/2007/02/15/to-steal-roxannes-long-ago-post/

  Here Marcotte threatens to ban ‘Vivien Thomas.’ The reason, because Vivien Thomas wrote that Marcotte and other commentators in that thread should be accountable for and should correct the multiple misstatements of fact with regard to the Duke Lacrosse players that Marcotte and the Pandagon regulars promote on an ongoing basis:

  http://pandagon.net/2007/02/13/for-curious-people/#comment-359906

  With the next link Marcotte gives life to the ‘Shitstorm.’ A little background: on Feb 2nd a couple of people that follow the Duke Lacrosse Rape case became aware of Marcotte’s Jan 21st rant regarding the Duke Lacrosse players. Those people then posted a number of reasoned but critical comments about Marcotte’s libelous Jan 21st post at Pandagon. Marcotte responded by deleting the critical Feb 2nd comments and quickly closing the Feb 2nd thread here:

  http://pandagon.net/2007/02/02/you-know-what-i-miss/#comments

  Marcotte then deleted her initial Jan 21 Duke Lacrosse rant post entirely and replaced it with the post that resides there now. The link to a screen capture of Marcotte’s initial Jan 21st Duke Lacrosse rant post (before Marcotte deleted the post) is here:

  http://www.herdwatching.com/media/library/2007/02/pandagon_airport_comment.png

  (See my previous comment just above in this thread titled: ‘Birth Of A Shitstorm.’)

  It is worth noting that Marcotte wholesale deleted the comments that were entirely factual but were inconsistent with Marcotte’s worldview. At the same time she allows to stand the comments made by Pandagon regulars that are wholly inconsistent with the facts of the case.

  Also noteworthy, the comments that Marcotte deleted were most certainly not “oddly aggressive and misogynistic” and they were not made by the “right-wing noise machine.” In fact, one of the commentator’s political perspective is well left of center:

  http://liestoppers.blogspot.com/2007/02/our-collective-voice-limits-of-social.html

  Other commentary regarding Marcotte commentary deletion and commentator banning:

  http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/2007/02/more-airbrushing.html

  http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/186032.php

  http://www.overlawyered.com/2007/02/meet_john_edwardss_new_blogger.html

  The result is Pandagon has become an echo chamber of parroting.

  So sad!

  Marcotte included in her essay a link to a Malkin video parody of Marcotte rants. The parody was funny but not Malkin’s best effort with regard to Marcotte. Here is the best (watch it to the end to get the “Where’s The Delete Key!!!):

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xw2G2OIal2c&mode=related&search=

  OK, so you don’t have to hunt for the first Malkin video, it’s here:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcNbv-7sNLw&mode=related&search=

  Footnote: All of the Pandagon postings and comments in the Pandagon links provided above exist at the time of my commentary post. There are no guarantees, either expressed or implied, that the postings and comments are anything more than Blogosphere fairy dust beyond that time.

  —It's Marcotte's World...Y'all Just Live In It
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