Not only has the Fairness Doctrine been put in place on the internet, it is being exploited by small-minded individuals who believe that those who dare disagree with their Dear Leader (The Appointed One) are to be banned by the hundreds for expressing their opinions.  To whom am I referring?  Ravelry, of course, namely the owner and his cult of trolls.

According to the owner, he can do whatever he wants on Ravelry because it’s a “private” web site.  I hate to wake him up from his hallucinations but Ravelry stopped being a private site when he started accepting money from advertisers.  That is called “commerce” and, as such, relinquishes his “right” to refer to Ravelry as a “private” web site.  It is my opinion that if the owner would spend less time drinking and partying every night and invest in some legal advice, he would understand the difference between a “private” web site and a business.  But I digress.

Yesterday a “Dear John” letter was sent to those 100+ members of Ravelry who had their memberships removed in a banning frenzy by the owner.  It reads as follows:

Please be advised that your user account at Ravelry.com (the “Website”) has been permanently suspended due to a violation of Ravelry, LLC’s (the “Company”) Terms of Use.

This suspension is a result of your ongoing effort to disrupt the Website and the experience of its users. We have identified your actions through your membership on the website http://www.bunkerboard.com. Your actions are well documented and validated by your IP address. We have compiled numerous examples of certain users, including you, from the offending website using our Website’s posting, flagging, and voting features, amongst other tactics, to disrupt and harass our legitimate and serious users.

Section 8(1) of the Website’s Terms of Use specifically states that you agree not to use the Website to post content that is harassing or otherwise objectionable. This same Section, paragraph (12), also states that you agree not to use the Website to harass another user. If found in violation of any of the Website’s Terms of Use or if you have acted in a manner which demonstrates you do not intend to comply with the Terms of Use, Section 12(2)(4) allows the Company to immediately terminate your user account.

At this time, your user account will remain in permanent suspension and you will be unable to access the Website for any purpose. If you have patterns that you have purchased and stored on the Website, we will email these to you within seven (7) days of this email. For people who have advertisements on the Website, they will be immediately removed. Since these advertisements are paid in the arrears, we will not be seeking payment for removed advertisements from advertisers who had their accounts suspended.

If you feel you have been suspended in error, you are welcome to submit a request for reinstatement to legal@ravelry.com and we will consider these appeals on a case-by- base basis. However, I will advise that if you were a member of http://www.bunkerboard.com we will not consider your appeal. If indeed we determine you were suspended in error, we will of course reinstate your account immediately and apologize for any inconvenience.

The decision to suspend users did not come easy to the owners of Ravelry. However, since the community has grown so large, we just cannot continue to expend valuable resources on policing a few users who have such a negative impact on the entire community. We are a small company with very limited resources who are attempting to provide an enjoyable experience for all users and we cannot continue to tolerate this type of disruptive and objectionable conduct.

Sincerely,

Craig S. Stelmach, Esq.
Ravelry, LLC

Let’s dissect this nasty frog, shall we?

“posting, flagging, and voting features, amongst other tactics, to disrupt and harass our legitimate and serious users”

This is where the Fairness Doctrine comes into play.  You see, it’s acceptable and encouraged for the trolls to engage in exactly the same “tactics” if their targets are conservative members or groups.  The “voting features” are buttons that display words like, “agree”, “disagree”, “love”, “funny”, “interesting” and “educational”.  The owner installed the buttons in every group for their use.  When conservatives visit other groups and use the buttons, that is grounds for instant banning.  When the trolls invade a group en masse and use the buttons, it’s granted authorization and praise by the owner.  The conservative members who were banned were victims of the trolls and their voting sprees.  When they contacted the owner about the harassment, nothing was done, period.  Of course, the owner and his cult of trolls have created some very imaginative falsehoods about how the moderators of the conservative groups “would not work with or cooperate with”  the owner when troll problems arose.  All of the mod’s desperately tried to get the owner to do something about the troll invasions on many occasions.  The pleas always fell on deaf ears or they were accused of not moderating correctly.  In one instance, after a members post had been flagged by a troll as being “hate speech” because the post contained the word, “noose” in reference to a scarf, the owner and His Band of Merry Fairies responded with this racist remark about anybody who lives in Mississippi:  (This is a screen capture of the response.)

So, for those of you who proudly live in Mississippi, according to Ravelry, you are automatically a “racist”.

In essence, what the owner is bitching about is the fact that a group of conservatives have an “off-site” board where they can gather and not be invaded by the cult of trolls.  It’s peaceful and quiet and they don’t have to worry about the owner eavesdropping on private conversations with each other.  There is nothing in the rules on Ravelry about it being a violation to belong to an “off-site” board, period.  A few of the groups that the cult of trolls belong to have their own “off-site” boards.  Have they been banned for doing exactly what others are accused of doing?  Absolutely, without a doubt, they have not!  How do I know this?  Because those boards have a mole that they don’t know about.  Life’s a bitch, ain’t it?  Section 8, Paragraph 12 of the Ravelry rules apply to the cult of trolls, too.  Whether they like it or not.

To “The Powers That Be” at Ravelry, your fallacious outrage is as phony as that being demonstrated by the Leftist loons in our capitol.  It is falling on deaf ears because we know how you operate and your feeble attempt to stifle free speech is not working.  EPOCH FAIL!

The “Fairness Doctrine” has been introduced to the internet without Congress lifting a finger.  In the knitting community this would be shocking to most people but to those of us who have been the victims of free speech suppression it is, unfortunately, a reality.

The Screecher of the House wants the government to bail out the San Francisco Chronicle in order to keep it viable, yet she also wants conservative radio to be silenced.  The same bizarre thinking goes on in the knitting communities as well.

The focus of this post is to display the obvious comparison when it comes to knitters, crocheters, spinners and dyers who gather on one beta web site to make new friends, share their projects and communicate with like-minded people.

When it comes to politics, if you’re conservative, your voice is not welcomed on that web site especially if you are outspoken and back your statements up with facts.  The owners of the site are liberal loons who have a “slobbering love affair” with The Annointed One, our current president.  They make no excuses about being liberal loons but they have very little patience with conservatives.  They also make no excuses about their liberal loon followers (I refer to them as the “cult of trolls”).  They see nothing wrong with the trolls invading a conservative group to create pandemonium and spread hate.  However, let a few conservatives stand up for themselves and push back, well, that’s a whole new story.  Once that happens, the conservatives are singled out like the wildebeast on the African savannah.  The owners will use private messages to berate them, threaten them and chastise them.  The trolls know about this and they continue the attacks, resorting to foul, ugly language and even personal attacks against the family members of their prey.  They invent false accusations against conservatives then run like 5-year olds to the owners and repeat the lies.  The owners believe them because, after all, they are members of the cult.

The cult is also responsible for the filthy, vulgar images and language that is available for all to see, including small children.  The owners find nothing wrong with this and have inserted a “warning” of sorts to parents.  The warning does not include the fact that many of the images are pornographic and the language is X-rated.  You see, the freedom of speech applies only to the cult and its leaders.  It does not apply to anyone that has opposite beliefs, most especially Christians, if they stand up for their beliefs and voice their opinions.  As long as the oppressed are quiet, maintain a very high standard of “political correctness” and fear the reprisals of the owners, they are, for the most part, left alone.

Recently, over 100 conservative knitters and crocheters were swept up in a “banning” frenzy by the owners.  It was the only way that the owners could finally silence them and appease the cult of trolls.  Many of those that were banned were completely innocent of saying or doing anything at all, other than belonging to a couple of particular conservative groups.  Those that were banned were not given the common courtesy of a notice, in any way, shape or form.  Many were sellers of yarn, patterns and accessories and are now unable to maintain their accounts.  I would not be a bit surprised if the owners confiscate any monies due them because they are certainly ignoring the emails of the sellers or referring them to the mystical and non-existent  “legal department” which, upon Googling, turns out to be some guy that does legal work for a real estate company.  He may or may not be a licensed attorney.  He may or may not  know the owners.  In my opinion, he was created in a booze-induced foggy dream of one of the owners and does not, in fact, exist.

Yes, the Fairness Doctrine is alive and well on the internet and has targeted fiber artists in particular.  Who would have thought that knitters, crocheters, spinners and dyers would be the target of a Marxist manifesto such as this.