Friday, January 29, 2010

GeenStijl Censors Het Vrije Volk

GeenStijl is one of the largest news sites in the Netherlands. It is immensely popular, and up until now I had always assumed it was a freedom-friendly site like so many others in the right-of-center European blogosphere.

Our expatriate Dutch correspondent H. Numan disabused me of this notion today with his report on the latest journalistic behavior on display at GeenStijl:

StraitjacketA few days ago a fellow writer noticed GeenStijl or PowNed or both aren’t rightwing at all.

Rutger Castricum was present at Wilders’ trial. He produced a piece of TV journalism that wouldn’t be out of place in North Korea. Only supporters of Wilders fitting the stereotype were shown. Especially if they would behave accordingly. The stereotypical PVV supporter is supposed to be white trailer trash. Anything not fitting the politically correct picture was not shown.

A truly nasty piece of journalism, and utterly unexpected.

Botte Hond wrote an article about it on Het Vrije Volk: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

He was banned from GeenStijl and related sites immediately.
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The ban was officially lifted, but it still seems to be in place. Others who supported him were and are banned. No reason given.

I occasionally post a comment on GeenStijl, too. This morning I posted a link to an offending article about GeenStijl at HVV. Three hours later it was gone. No reason given.

Read the articles. You can rest assured GeenStijl is there for the money. Nothing else. The money comes from the government. The government doesn’t want Wilders.

GeenStijl acts as if it is conservative right, but I am almost certain it is at best a mercenary.

8 comments:

D. G. Neree said...

True. They were supposedly THE free speech site in Holland and they were pioneers in atacking the political correctness in The Netherlands.

But last year they went on a campaign to broadcast on national television, which is totally corrupted by the leftist political status qou. They mobilised their readers/commenters to become a member of Powned, which they did.

Some people already warned, that they would be gobbled up by the system, but to anyones unpleasant surprise they did more than that: They started licking in with the system and now they are even worse:
for they advocate free speech, but use Stalinistic and arrogance methods to silence dissenting voices.

Isn't that a well known story? After the revolutiion, the revolutionaries become the new tyrants.

Bye bye Geenstijl and bye bye Powned

Reaguurders: you were used and then spat out.

Henrik R Clausen said...

How's the ecomomical situation of Geenstijl..?

D. G. Neree said...

Quite good I guess. It is owned by "De Telegraaf"a dutch newspaper. (Although newspapers are losing readers and advertisers themselves. But the new broadcaster of GS, Powned, will get 15 million euro's a year from the tax payer. The dutch have a strange media-law system.
Anyway, the stakes for the program makers are high. But the paradoxical thing is, that they promised to stir up this corrupted public broadcasting syatem from the inside. Turns out, they will just the salt that makes thes the porridge taste better.

But maybe they are cutting their own flesh now. After all, how far can you go in ridiculing and banning your own supporters?

D. G. Neree said...

"Turns out, they will just the salt that makes thes the porridge taste better."

must be

"Turns out, they will just be the salt that will make the porridge taste better.

D. G. Neree said...

The irony is, that the majority of the supporters of Geenstijl are also the ones that strongly support Geert Wilders, who they see as the only one who can get Holland out of the mess we're running into.

So it's rather stupid to picture the latter as nitwits, thereby giving the enemy of their supporters,the Wildersbashers (leftwing & Islamists) ammunition for their attacks (an opportunity the MSM of course happily took advantage of).

But their reaction, the banning of protesters to that, was even more short sighted and anti free spech.

Maybe they can get away with it. They have enough followers still who will stay in the pack. But of course, theirs will not be the most critical voices.

D. G. Neree said...

Furthermore, the damage control they do, is only worsening things.

It's just that now the money is in their pocket, they couldn't care less. They know on which side their sandwich is buttered now.

Anonymous said...

You thought GeenStijl did do journalism? Don't make me laugh! They just want to provoke.

Not that it is sane to compare the war of the Ottoman empire against Medieval Europe (not really a beacon of liberty those days) to something as unimaginative the 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion'...

D. G. Neree said...

True, it is provocative semi-journalism. But instead of silencing the protesters with the argument that it is satire, they ban the critics and sit in their twitter-tower acting arrogant about it.

Moreover, if you are an entertainer, you should be careful in mocking your own audience.