1. Last Saturday, an offensive, irresponsible and dangerous article titled
“Occupational Awareness” was posted on the OO Media web site. Occupy
Oakland denounces the article. The article contains personal attacks on an
individual in Occupy Oakland that are untrue and unsubstantiated, and that
are extremely dangerous to him and to the movement. The article appeals
and legitimates a fantasy of “terrorist threat” that has consistently been
used by the state to repress and silence protest, and to create false
“enemies,” and uses classic racist tactics of racial profiling to do so.
This article is not only a serious danger to the person attacked, it is a
danger to our movement and it requires immediate action.
2. As the authors of the article used their position within the Media
committee to prominently feature and promote the article, and continue to
defend the article, this committee should be immediately disbanded and a
new committee formed.
3. All resources from the OO Media committee will be shut down and/or
control handed over to the new committee. This includes all email lists
and Facebook discussion groups, OO Media phone number, the OO Media
Twitter account and the OO Media web site at hellaoccupyoakland.org. The
new Media committee will work with the web committee and others to
resurrect the articles from the OO Media web site and make them available
in some form, excluding the “Occupational Awareness“ article and the
“Clarification” article which furthered the accusations.
4. The new Media committee will only be responsible for responding to
outside media inquiries to media@occupyoakoand.org and helping other
committees send out press releases and setup press conferences. The Media
committee will no longer have an official public web site, Twitter, or
public Facebook separate from the official Occupy Oakland versions of
these. Nobody who is currently in the Media committee will be allowed to
be a member of the new committee for the time being. Members of the media committee will adhere to the resolutions of the General Assembly.
russ, your response here is not altogether true. i’ve spoken with at least one member of the web committee who was not involved in making this decision to remove buttons connecting http://hellaoccupyoakland.org/ to this website, and did not know about the decision to delete the committee meeting announcement from the calendar, which was done almost a week before this proposal was introduced. in the interest of accountability, i am requesting that you produce (or link me to, if they’re already posted) the minutes of that meeting, including the names of members who were present and the discussion to make these decisions.
also, russ, you have included incorrect information, as http://hellaoccupyoakland.org/ is, indeed, still online and still reporting on the happenings at occupy oakland and in the larger oakland community.
it would be good to know how a committee whose job it is to manage a website feels it is also your job, as a committee, to limit people’s access to using this site, as you indicate in your comments and as you have done.
Hellaoccupyoakland.org is no longer online and is redirecting to occupyoakland.org.
The web committee condemns in the strongest terms recent postings from hellaoccupyoakland.org which briefly appeared as links on the occupyoakland.org site sidebar via an automatic rss feed. Once we became aware of the content of these posts we terminated the rss feed which featured them. We did so in accordance with our general policy for postings to the occupyoakland.org site:
“People don’t always agree. Participants in a movement don’t always agree. Occupy Oakland postings should express any disagreements in a principled fashion. Personal attacks and expressions of racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia are not permitted on this site.”
–Web Committee
hi, Wiseoldsnail.
The decision to remove links to HOO.org was made by the entire web committee. This was to contain the spread of the damage cause by the controversial post on hellaoccupyoakland.org and its follow on letter rationalizing the post. Just to be clear, we will not allow Occupyoakland.org to be used as a platform to further extend this controversy.
-Russ
hi, gretchen. were you also part of the decision to remove the buttons connecting to hoo, before any ga decision to disown the good comrades who produce that site? were you involved in the decision to delete the regularly scheduled meeting of oomedia before any ga decision?
Hi WiseOldSnail. This is Gretchen from the OO Web Committee. I am the one who posted that proposal “to denounce people who tweet up a shit storm.” However, it turns out that was not a real proposal. Someone got into our RiseUp pad and rewrote the real proposal, which is “to disband the Media Committee.” Sorry for the confusion. We are making sure that this will not happen again.
this has not been up long enough for people to even discuss, and is certainly not an emergency. here is the proposal i read last night:::
1) Proposal to Denounce People Who Tweet a Shit Storm
1.For the past week a certain many people have used their twitter accounts
to publish lies and otherwise insulting comments about everyone within a
committee based on the actions of several people in that committee.
2. As the authors of these tweets are making Occupy Oakland look foolish
and childish, thereby doing serious damage to our image, we propose to publicly
denounce all the individuals who are posting such nonsense.
3. While we cannot always track who owns a twitter account, some of these
people are known to us. We propose that people who make us look foolish to the
outside world be ostracized and refused entry to any committee meetings.
4. We also agree, furthermore, that every tweet hereafter will be monitered by our
tweet monitering committee, and those found tweeting rude and insulting lies shall
be dealt with severely by our tweet enforcement squad.
please follow some sort of protocol as facilitators. who decides what is an emergency, and since when are we an organization which chooses to stifle free speech? i am very confused.