Remember this?:
Very recently, it seems, under threat and pressure from different advertisers/spruikers, or the poor economy, or something, the ‘corruption’ (to use a word I really dislike) appears to have spread.
It has now reached the point where … the forum Moderators and management appear to be actually CENSORING THE DISCUSSION FORUM to make the site more ‘hospitable’ for their shonky advertisers.
Other forumites are noticing.
As I have noted before, caving in to threats is a recipe for attracting more threats.
Yet the credibility-eviscerating censorship continues … it’s like watching someone shadow-boxing.
You can’t ‘good behave’ your way out of a situation with a bully pressuring you.
Surrender, fight — or ask for help!
Distorting legitimate discussion like they are doing becomes, eventually, plain dishonest.
[…] It was always, always dodgy,* but perhaps the ‘commercial imperative’ had driven the free-thinkers at Google to submerge their outrage. (This is NOT a long term strategy, as we have discussed in relation to an example closer to home.) […]
Ha! I just noticed another thread has been silently excised from PropertyTalk.com, probably under the same yet-to-actually-materialise threats of ‘legal action’.
Gone is the ‘Bye bye Dean Letfus’ thread started in 2007 to discuss Mr Letfus’s promotion of so-called educational events with the claim ‘all profits to help the poor in Fiji’, seeking details of that work — details which were not exactly forthcoming.
The Bye bye Dean Letfus thread has, it seems, been removed from view — with no public announcement (that I can see. Maybe I missed it?) — unlike the Sponge Bay and Perriam Cove threads — two discussion threads which examined aspects of Mr Letfus’s promotion of these two property developments by interests associated with Auckland accountant Matthew Gilligan.
These two threads were removed temporarily, for ‘consideration’ — it was announced after someone asked — ‘disabled while the Moderators and website owners consider their legal obligations’.
Nothing’s been decimated, apparently: ‘we haven’t decimated anything. We have removed threads for review. That means it being reviewed.’
Great. We’ll watch for the outcome of the review. (But don’t hold your breath.)
As noted elsewhere, I eschew righteous indignation, so I just have sinking feeling, as I watch ‘independence’ and integrity slowly slipping away from PT like twilight fading.
Reminds me of Dylan Thomas…
DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
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