I read through the Australian newspapers' article that Poirot gave us a link to above.
Basically it seems to say that Graham Young was upset that OLO lost two major advertising sponsorships from IBM and ANZ because he appeared to promote anti-gay-marriage articles on this forum.

I must say I was a bit disappointed to read this, because I always thought that the moderators of this forum were objective about such contentious issues.

After reading the following statement from ANZ, I must say I agree with their stance:

"The ANZ's Stephen Ries replied first. "ANZ does not advertise on any opinion-type websites that may cause offence or segregate any individuals or group. In this instance our advertising was placed through an automatic advertising placement service and once we were alerted to the content we removed our advertising."
"The removal of our advertising should not be viewed as a violation of free speech; it's simply that we choose not to advertise on blogs that do not align to our organisational values."

The promotion of Gay marriage as an 'abomination' and as something that will supposedly destroy the 'sanctity' of 'real' marriages out there in the community, is an attitude that is predominantly Christian church motivated.

OLO hierarchy should not show a preference for or against such contentious issues, or it will be known as a biased site.

Lexi has it about right, we want the freedom to say what we think.
And it is the endless evil of PC that some times stops us from saying it,too often.
GY Lives and must, in a world that has rules.
One of these is when does free speech become a shield for rock throwers?
I see myself and others getting close, if not actually , bringing concerns to GY in my comments on terrorism.
A re crafted thoughtful thread may make it,if we all confined our selves to the subject without flaming and such it would be interesting.
But we can, truly we can, see how such a thread would get ugly.

"An editor must be seen to be objective - however, it's not an easy task,"

No kidding :)

Well.. the level of flack Graham takes from the 'we are the elite and you should follow OUR guidance' mob, certainly demonstrates this.

Check this out....one now banned former poster says: (in one breath)

//I can only endorse that the comments sectoin requires unbiased moderation.//

Then in the NEXT breath says:

//I recommend checking my own posting history OLO// where the person holds themself up as an example of 'purity'.

Then...calls on Graham to 'compare' what that person describes as 'hate speech' from others who still post here.

Moments later.. one of 'that crowd' says:

//Graham, while it’s clear that honesty doesn’t come easily to you, you really should try a bit harder.
I’m a retired academic, as you’ve been told many times. The “hate site” to which you refer was a private blog for various former OLO users to discuss the abysmal way that you run the Forum section of your site//

Been....TOLD! so.. listen up... right....."told"....

and they whine about 'hate speech' by others ? cough, choke, splutter gaggg.

Hmmmm sounds pretty hateful to me.

suzeonline, on Saturday, 5 February 2011 at 11:16:46 PM says:

"OLO hierarchy should not show a preference
for or against such contentious issues, or
it will be known as a biased site."




suzeonline, that is exactly what OLO has done, published articles both for and against on this issue!





You have said you have read the news item to which Poirot provided a link in the second post to this thread. Did you not notice the second paragraph in that news item? It said:

"In December [Graham Young] published a piece
arguing the case against gay marriage by the
pro-family campaigner, Bill Muehlenberg, and
then a series of spirited exchanges on the merits
of the argument. It was not the first article he'd
run on the subject ; that honour had gone to Rodney
Croome, a gay activist. ..."



This issue is not about the pros and cons of gay marriage.



As can be determined by anyone who wishes to read, up until now those pros and cons could in practise be argued in the relevant comment threads on the OLO site by such as were interested in that issue. The real issue is the muzzling of discussion of just one side of this contention, with the objective that there shall be no real debate. That muzzling is being attempted by an essentially parasitic organisation, the Internet Advertising Sales Houses, one activity of which would seem to be the organisation of secondary boycotts against non-signatories to its 'code of conduct'.

Those who read the news item published in The Australian will note that the ANZ did not exercise active discretion of its own as to where it placed its advertising, but placed it "through an automatic advertising placement service" and only removed that advertising when alerted to the content (ie. the very occurrence of debate) on the OLO site. In short, highly paid senior executives of the ANZ abdicated their responsibilities for oversight of adherence to corporate advertising policy, and outsourced them to an essentially 'standover man' organisation, IASH, working to its own restraint-of-trade agenda.

this is one of those topics..[where an good head-line has been subverted to the perverted cause]

its not enough the media is saturated..or as if the topic hasnt been coverd endlessly here on the forum...and the news and the many media's

its hardly a matter of freespeach..but rather abusing the right of others to speak out against you lot..

im fine with you doing as you like
but resent the way you lot push your adgenda

the non stop adgenda..poor you lot
been closed down everytime you dare speak...[see the joke?]

no i guess you do feel put upon..

but as for freedumb to speak out
you lot have it in spades

many others dont...!

get over it
go sleep with ya lover
find real issues ..that need real tissues

dont bother reply
im not wasting time
on getting more adverts on gay..pr..up on the active/topic search results charter

see you on the real issues
re freedom to speak

gy...please put topic in the heading
headline highjacking is spam

AGIR:

Obviously you did not learn anything from David F., on his "we/they" thread.