X-Message-Number: 33481 Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2011 01:51:56 -0500 Subject: Behind the scenes suppression of free speech? From: Finance Department <> --000325558c3638792d049e7fdd21 I find it curious that within weeks of the Cold Filter owner beginning to moderate so heavily that entire posts from some veteran members are deleted, causing some such to cease bothering to post there and the forum to become a bowl of infrequent pablum messages, now the CryoNet owner is also mysteriously moved to put his forum into "stasis". And what are we offered so far as a replacement? An advertisement-laden Yahoo Group where dictatorial moderation is promised (Definition of moderation: The censorship of material the dictator or a clique of same, personally disagrees with). It almost makes one wonder who is behind this recent disabling of what once were free speech vehicles for cryonics and related discussion. And what the incentives or disincentives were for complying with the orders for shutdown or heavy moderation. And now Stephen Bridge, Alcor's emergency Spin Doctor, who rarely is allowed by his work and family to post at all, has emerged as well, in defense of CryoNet going away. Oh OK, given the possibility there was no such outside influence, then the blame rests squarely on the shoulders of the forum owners, acting irresponsibly to deter/disallow free speech. I, though, smell a rat in the background. And I respectfully request Kevin Brown the CN owner, if he carries out his death (stasis) threat, to reanimate the forum thereafter as soon as possible, after a brief period of personal reflection on the implications of his action of removing the only remaining free speech vehicle for cryonics discussion from the internet. Not so cheerful, FD --000325558c3638792d049e7fdd21 Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1 [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=33481