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Censorship and the 2008 election: Ron Paul and the marginalization of third party candidates in the US

a hitch:

Test bulletin # 1 included no mention of offending political candidate or code.

Test bulletin # 2 included 1 mention of offending political candidate Dr. Ron Paul, by name, in message body but included no code.

Test bulletin # 3 included 2 mentions of offending political candidate Dr. Ron Paul, by name, one in message body, and one in header but included no code.

Test bulletin # 4 included no mentions of offending political candidate and included html link to censorship video on YouTube but included no other code.

Test bulletin # 5 included no mention of offending political candidate and included embedded code to censorship video.

Test bulletin # 6 included 2 mentions of offending political candidate Ron Paul and
included embedded code to censorship video.

After test bulletin #7, things started to go awry.

Test Bulletin #7 was full of code copied from an article at PatriotBeliever.com (4)and included lots of links to the MSNBC polls. This bulletin never posted but my MySpace account was fine.

Test Bulletin #8 was a forwarded bulletin from another MySpacer, which included an embedded video and various links, including links to the MSNBC polls. The bulletin didn't post. MySpace said my account had been phished and blocked. After I changed my password, I was able to continue the experiment.

Test Bulletins # 9 and # 10 were embedded movies only and caused no problem.

Test Bulletin # 11 included no mention of offending political candidate and included 3 unlabeled links to the MSNBC poll stories. The bulletin didn't post. MySpace said my account had been phished and blocked. After I changed my password, I was able to continue the experiment.

Test Bulletin # 12 included no mention of offending political candidate but included three unlabeled links to random, non-political MSNBC pages. The bulletin didn't post. MySpace said my account had been phished and blocked.

In summary, I was able to send bulletins that mentioned Ron Paul by name in both the subject and the body. I was also able to send links and embedded movies. It was not referring to Ron Paul, per se, that was shutting me down. It was linking to preexisting stories that was doing it, specifically from the MSNBC poll.

In the final analysis, what appears to be in fact happening is that instead of blocking direct mentions of candidate Dr. Ron Paul, MySpace is simply blocking anyone who posts bulletins with simple links to MSNBC. Regardless of whether the content includes conspiracy theories regarding the major media suppression of Ron Paul or just regular old sports and entertainment news, the MySpace phishing robot seems to activate after ANY bulletin post with an MSNBC link in it. So now I must ask: Is MySpace intentionally censoring its users based merely upon political affiliations or is it actually intentionally boycotting an entire news network in its zeal for suppression? Does MSNBC know about this?

(1) http://abcnews.go.com/Politics /Story?id=3147940

(2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v =ehhj-0JsKmA

(3)http://ronpaul2 008.typepad.com/ron_paul_2008/ 2007/05/press_release_2.html

(4 )http://patriotbeliever.com/ho me/modules.php?name=News&file= article&sid=62

Learn more about this author, T. Sunshine Love.
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