By Andrew L. Jaffee

Join the Boycott (JTB) overcame censors at AOL and Lycos, and now Yahoo! Why would a responsible organization like JTB be censored in a free society? “Join the Boycott, an initiative of the Friends of Israel Community, is a Yahoo Geocities website addressing the serious problem of anti-Israel propaganda in the Los Angeles Times, and anti-Israel bias in general. Join the Boycott has been providing ongoing commentary on this subject for over 5 years. Join the Boycott advocates responsible consumer protest as a means to combat anti-Israel bias.” Note that certain keyword that I highlighted, Israel. Yes, in these upside-down, politically-correct times, double-standards are commonplace.

Apparently, Yahoo! GeoCities has no problem hosting sites such as The Lebanese Marxist-Lenninist [sic] Page, which features a link for a “boycott israel campaign” and these two images:

   

So it was on April 10 that Yahoo! pulled the plug on Join the Boycott’s site “without notice and without explanation.” When JTB asked Yahoo! for an explanation, they got the standard, boilerplate legal mumbo-jumbo:

Your Yahoo! account was disabled pursuant to the Yahoo! GeoCities Terms of Service (TOS). You agreed to abide by the TOS when you created your Yahoo! GeoCities account. The TOS can be found for your review at:

http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/geoterms.html

and provides in relevant part: “You agree that Yahoo!, in its sole discretion, may terminate your password, Yahoo! GeoCities site, use of the Service or use of any other Yahoo! service, and remove and discard any Content within the Service, for any reason, including, without limitation, for lack of use or if Yahoo! believes that you have violated or acted inconsistently with the letter or spirit of the TOS. …”

Translation: Someone pressured Yahoo! to terminate JTB because they found the content and activism “objectionable.” But JTB and its supporters didn’t take Yahoo! censorship lying down. I posted an article on the situation, and many people wrote letters to Yahoo! chiding its politically-correct censorship. While Yahoo! is within its rights in the letter of the law, the spirit of its actions verge on violation of the right to freedom of expression enshrined in the First Amendment. According to JTB, “Our protests intensified to the point of involving media and politicians, until on May 15, Yahoo put Join the Boycott back online.” Guess what happened. Yahoo! reinstated JTB with this (non)explanation:

Story continues below
(your purchases help keep netWMD running)…
   

We have investigated the issue you’ve brought to our attention and your account now appears to be functioning properly.

We apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced.

Thank you again for contacting Yahoo! Customer Care.

Translation: Yahoo! got scared of facing some bad publicity. Indeed, Yahoo!’s censorship (and fumbling) is testament to the effectiveness of JTB’s activism. If JTB weren’t making a difference, it wouldn’t have been noticed.

While pro-Israel activists often face multicultural, PC-motivated double-standards, the lesson here is that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Don’t take any BS from a bunch of apparatchiks (bureaucrats). Get the word out about Israel — and support the good people at Join the Boycott.

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Related: Political Correctness, Media/Blogsphere, Constitution

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