August 01, 2008
Free Speech for Bloggers
| Host: | Ingrid Schlueter |
| Guest: | Ken Silva Please shut off any videos running before listening in earlier posts in this blog: |
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Pastor Ken Silva is founder of Apprising Ministries, which states as its purpose, "to provide sound reasons to believe in Jesus, the Christ as well as to defend the faith once delivered unto the saints from enemy attacks within the Church and from without." Ken's ministry seeks to aid local churches to be faithful to sound doctrine and to contend for the faith. Ken is author of a number of articles critiquing many of the disturbing trends of the modern church. The articles are posted at http://apprising.org/. Ken also contributes columns at Christian World Network and is editor of the Christian Research Network.
Free speech is increasingly being threatened on the Internet, as the exploding number of blog sites that provide an outlet for opinions and interaction with readers has caused some to try to silence those with whom they disagree.
Traditionally, blog sites that invite comments often create a lively exchange that if not administered properly, can get out of hand, in language, innuendo, and even vicious attacks. Many blogs allow this to continue, while others try to maintain more civility.
But in this case, the response by one individual, Richard Abanes, who is a strong supporter of Rick Warren's Purpose Driven ministry, took the battle to a whole new level. Instead of simply stating his disagreement with statements by Ken Silva, he accused him of slander in an article written by Ken three years ago. Wiithout trying to work directly with Ken Silva, Abanes contacted the hosting company to demand that the article be removed. The web host, IPower, sent Ken an email demanding that the article be taken down within 48 hours or his site would be taken down. Due to the troubling precedent this sets in the blog world, this incident has also become a hot topic of conversation online.
Free speech is coming under increasing attack, and the "Wild West" environment of the Internet is now becoming the target of those would would want to control it--from individuals, to government regulators. Many more details are included in this program.
http://apprising.org/ is now back online, and is a good place to start to learn what Ken Silva is all about, and what has been happening to him and his site.
More Information
News Story about the shutdown of
http://christiannewswire.com/news/332947299.html
Ken Silva's articles can also be seen on the following sites:
Ingrid Schlueter's blog, Slice of Laodicea
And, of course, his own blog site which has been set up again following its deletion by the previous server:
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1 comment:
This Open Letter to Steve Camp outlines my initial thoughts/intentions/motivation for writing to Ken Silva's ISP. It also covers various issues relating to the "Ken Silva vs. Richard Abanes" controversy, including:
1. Bible Study notes on key passages being discussed (1 Cor. 6 and Matt. 18),
2. the actual contents of my email to Silva's ISP,
3. observations about the current state of the church,
4. an indictment of today's so-called Online Discernment Ministries, and
5. documentation of Ken Silva’s violation of federal copyright/privacy laws, and other issues.
The open letter should answer most questions and addressed the widely-read article by Steve Camp titled "Battles in the Blogsphere." Proverbs 18:13 reads: "He who answers before listening—that is his folly and his shame." Proverbs 18:17 tells us: "The first to present his case seems right, till another comes forward and questions him."
And FYI, this post was made by a message board administrator in charge of moderating the forums at crosswalk.com and christianity.com.
+++++++++++++++++++++ BEGIN
From an Admin stand point I usually encourage people to use the report feature when they see someone violating our Terms of Service. One thing I have found is that the anonymity of the Internet fosters hotheadedness. Therefore, one never knows how terribly the recipient of a warning will respond. This is not to say that Mr. Silva has a tendency to that sort of behavior. (However, his response certainly does seem to indicate that it is in the realm of possibility that it would be so.)
We provide a service with a Terms of Service to which everyone agrees to abide by. Outlined in that service is how we will deal with violations of our Terms of Service. Rather than our members having to deal with this sort of unpleasantness we offer to deal with the situation privately.
In my opinion, a person does the right thing when he/she reports what is perceived to be a violation of our rules so that the situation can be reviewed and the appropriate action taken.
I doubt that the service provider in this case lost any sleep over any perceived threats of a law suit from Mr. Abanes. Such a suit standing up in court would be near impossible.
I believe, rather, that they did much the same thing I do. Look at the content and determine if it violated their rules. They found that it indeed did break their rules and sent a notice to Mr. Silva requesting that the content be removed for violations of the Terms of Service. (This is actually more than what we do in that we remove the content ourselves and notify the offender of the action taken.)
In this Admin's view Mr. Abanes did the right thing. . . .
Mr. Silva should have reviewed the Terms of Service and determined if they were rules by which he wished to be governed. . . . When asked to remove the content for violations of the Terms of Service Mr. Silva should have complied as per his agreement and then considered finding a site more suitable for his style.
+++++++++++++++++++++ END
This sums up the incident fairly well. I have nothing to add, except my 100% agreement with this administrator. As I have noted before, those who have ears to hear and eyes to see will both see and hear the truth.
See his full post at my website, under Thoughts of a Web Forum Administrator: A Look At Ken Silva's Actions
R. Abanes
Pop Culture Mix Website
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