28 October, 2002:

Posted at 18h23. Permalink.

Tom Coates of Plasticbag is embroiled in heated discussion about using inbound links and warblogging, especially: What opportunities are there for political expression on the www apart from stating an opinion?; what opportunities does an inbound link provide, in this context? Unfortunately, from the warblogging (as loosely defined as that is) or right wing (as loosely defined as that is) perspective, this has been taken to mean stifling of freedom of speech and refusal to engage in an argument, made all the worse by the non-too-complimentary characteristics Tom's post associated with warblogs and the particular inbound links to be blocked/redirected -- in fact, it looks like an attack followed by a censorship of debate. And so the inbound links continue. All of which makes me think... Given the traffic plasticbag.org must be experiencing in this exchange, what if pop-up ads were put on the weblog and a message: Each time you visit this site, you add 5 cents to my Un-American Activities Fund. What then?