A web ban on Ron Paul supporters  
Thursday, October 25th, 2007

I get so ticked when the blogosphere limits free speech, because blogs are the best way to broadcast news and opinion without limits on what one can or cannot say.

Alas, RedState.com has taken a controversial approach on limiting what political supporters can talk about on their forum.

"Effective immediately, new users may *not* shill for Ron Paul in any way[,] shape, form or fashion.  Not in comments, not in diaries, nada.  If your account is less than 6 months old, you can talk about something else, you can participate in other threads and be your zany libertarian self all you want, but you cannot pimp Ron Paul.  Those with accounts more than six months old may proceed as normal," Leon Wolfe at RedState wrote this week.

RedState has several different contributing bloggers, and was bought by Eagle Publishing.  Veteran commenters are still allowed to say whatever they want on the site, Ron Paul propaganda, even - the ban is obviously to fend off the new wave of Ron Paul internet users.

Ron Paul has humungous support over the internet, dubbed the "Ron Paul Revolution," especially on MySpace.com.  His followers are pretty hardcore, promoting him wherever they can - I myself have seen "Ron Paul Revolution" banners hanging on freeway overpasses in Ohio - and a lot of that promotion takes place online.

Check out some of this week's stats of Presidential Candidates' YouTube online videos (powered by TechPresident.com).  Ron Paul 2008 has more views than any other presidential candidate, of all the parties:

He is running as a Republican, and many are offended by the classification of "zany libertarian" that Wolfe used.

It brings up an interesting point, though:  when contributers to internet blogs and forums are cheerleading for different candidates rather than bringing up discussion points, does it become spam-ish?

Well, as always, you're free to say whatever you want on our comments ;-)

   

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