Newspaper threatens to sue blog

It has long been the standard of free speech in America, and indeed the very purpose of the freedom of press to begin with, that news articles could be cited and referenced in ongoing discussions and other works. It appears that day is ended now, as free speech is no longer free.

In the early hours of this morning a contributing author shared with us an editorial piece they had written about the deadly boat-wreck in the Hudson. In that piece, they quoted a small paragraph from an article published by the Poughkeepsie Journal, and properly attributed the quotation. As a supplemental to the piece, also included was a video from the same news source, embedded with the code and embedding tool willingly offered by the Poughkeepsie Journal for the very purpose of sharing.

Nevertheless, today we have received a letter from the Poughkeepsie Journal alleging that we improperly and illegally hosted this material, and threatening legal action if the content was not removed within 24 hours. Sadly, we do not have the legal resources with which to engage in a battle with the publication, so we chose to comply with their fascist demand of censorship.

I for one, will be canceling my delivery subscription at this point.

For more on internet censorship, read...

Book Burning in the Digital Age... and so it begins

And perhaps visit this blog by...

The National Coalition Against Censorship

EDIT to add: It appears that the Poughkeepsie Journal has a history of and affinity for censorship...

Devious Censorship at Esteemed Newspaper