There is drama on the internet once again. The varied reactions to a recent “controversy” at Boing Boing surprised me. Several accused Boing Boing of censorship, but the thread was also replete with references to 1984, FISA, and numerous other things the commenters found unsavory. The issue at hand has been completely blown out of proportion. The facts are as follows:

A step-by-step look at Boing Boing’s actions

1. Following some incident, certain posts that involved input from one “Violet Blue”, including one about — how funny is this? — Google’s “censorship” that resulted in several adult-oriented blogs dropping in rankings were “unpublished.” (Note: Her posts were not deleted. They still exist, essentially, but the posts cannot be accessed from Boing Boing itself.)
2. Some sites catch a whiff of the drama about to be let loose. Remarks are made about Boing Boing’s integrity, including (many) references to Communism and revisionism.
3. Teresa, one of the site’s moderators, posts an explanatory post, claiming that:

   It’s our blog and so we made an editorial decision, like we do every single day. We didn’t attempt to silence Violet. We unpublished our own work. There’s a big difference between that and censorship.

   Teresa Nielsen Hayden: “That Violet Blue thing”

At this point, there’s little more to be said that hasn’t been said already. Here’s my take on the controversy: I believe that Boing Boing is perfectly within its right to delete and remove posts from public view. Because Boing Boing is not actively preventing people from reading the posts (they even mentioned that the posts in question are still available in the WayBack Machine), this does not even come close to the suppression of the 1st Amendment, or whatever else enraged commenters were spouting on about.

However, removing the posts does not create a good journalistic standard. The posts in questions were written over a year ago (some of them nearing two years old), and for a site of Boing Boing’s size and volume, that equates to eons ago. Those who addressed the controversy were not really concerned that the posts themselves were missing. I doubt their absence would have been noticed by many if it had not been for Boing Boing’s popularity — and thus inherent magnetism towards drama — and more importantly, its intense advocacy of free speech, free press, and free action. An accusation of censorship for Boing Boing weighs more heavily than, perhaps, on an online news site or magazine where such standards are considered commonplace.

Instead of unpublishing the post, Boing Boing could have just as easily posted a redaction of their support of Violet Blue, and have people judge for themselves whether the posts were even worth the concern. It would have saved Boing Boing’s face and a whole lot of fuss and anger. Boing Boing may have acted under the pretense of quietly resolving an incident, but it could have chosen words as a medium, not their absence.