Many thanks to all

Articles here seem quite diverse

Was it the comments?

Sorry about link

I raised the topic because

It's about this site

Shintaro, "I raised the topic because It's about this site"

So what is your opinion of the article then? After all, you raised this thread so you must have had some purpose.

Forrest Gumpp,

It is a most insidious form of censorship, resulting in further self-censorship. Those responsible are never held to account and in the ordinary course of events their guidelines and decisions are not made public. As Christopher Pearson says in the article linked by Poirot (and elsewhere by you),

"The code is a triumph of political correctness gone mad, and badly needs rewriting. Schedule C provides that IASH Australia members "are forbidden to place advertising on sites containing barred content - in other words, any of the inventory defined below - in any circumstances. Content articulating views intended or reasonably likely to cause or incite hatred of any race, religion, creed, class or ethnic group. Content articulating views calculated to cause offence to or incite hatred of any individual or group."

The last sentence is the loopiest in the schedule. It forbids anything that might offend anyone."

Muehlenberg's piece

Is rubbish, but I'm not sure

That's the real issue

Other blogs point to

Vilification and hate

In the comments

I'd be interested to know how IBM and ANZ treat the Federal Government which quite specifically does not allow gay marriage. It is very clear that OLO has facilitated debate on the topic, allowing the nay sayers to publish and comment here also provides opportunity to rebut their arguments and to show them for the hollow nonsense that they mostly are.

I suspect that trying to silence contrary opinions does more to harden attitudes than any efforts the anti-gay marriage crowd can come up with.

R0bert

It has been an interesting exercise getting to grips with just exactly what the Internet Advertising Sales Houses Australia, and its 'code of conduct', is.

According to 'Marketing' online magazine, IASH Australia was formed by 12 online advertising companies in 2009, and is "an industry body that will take over the mantle from Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA)". See: http://www.marketingmag.com.au/articles/news/1513/iash_australia_the_new_online_advertising_industry_body/ . Whether any or all of these 12 companies are Australian companies, is not immediately clear from this 'Marketing' article.

Given that the article speaks of IASH Australia 'taking over the mantle' from IANA, and that 'mantle' having presumably included 'code of conduct' matters, I was moved to enquire as to what had been the status of IANA in an Australian context.

It appears IANA is, according to the ACCC website, http://www.accc.gov.au/content/index.phtml/itemId/288509/fromItemId/815972/quickLinkId/816542/whichType/org , an organisation based in the USA;

"... responsible for coordinating some of the key elements
that keep the Internet running smoothly. IANA is
responsible for various administrative functions
associated with management of the Internet's domain-name
system root zone, including reviewing the appropriateness
of changes to the content of the root zone as the Internet
evolves ...."

I question as to whether, before the formation of IASH Australia, IANA had promulgated ANY code of conduct having application, in Australia, with respect to the online advertising industry.

So IANA has of its own authority anointed IASH Australia as the promulgator of an 'industry''code of conduct' for online advertising. IASH Australia has, in turn, determined that the policing of the 'code of conduct' shall be conducted by an entity called, IMO somewhat misleadingly if not unlawfully, ABC Australia, according to the 'Marketing' magazine article. The euphemism for 'policing' used in the article is 'rigorous audit'.

The acronym 'ABC Australia' stands for 'Audit Bureau of Circulations', an Australian print media organisation.

Is it too big a stretch of the imagination to see this as an MSM/US government assault on the blogosphere?

I did read the article, Forrest Gump, and I gave my opinion on it.
I don't like the idea of censorship either, but an online opinion site owner cannot be seen to favour one (legal) view over another either, especially about contentious issues such as gay marriage, homosexuality, abortion, euthanasia, religion and racial issues.

At the end of the day though, don't companies such as ANZ and IBM also have a right to put their advertising where they like?
They are spending megabucks to advertise their products, so I imagine they will advertise wherever they want!

In my experience of the site so far, I found the moderators to be generally fair and equitable in most decisions.

However, it is a fine line between allowing certain contentious articles to be put up on OLO more often than others, and actually promoting their content to some extent.