Terry Hurlbut & DiggPatriots

I've already mentioned that Terry Hurlbut, aka Conservapedia sysop TerryH, aka username Temlakos, was one of those fine, upstanding citizens involved with the DiggPatriots. You know, those model, moral Americans who saw it as their divine duty to censor as many Digg article comments as possible, that they didn't like. Or that didn't conform to their twisted worldview. They did this by using multiple accounts to vote down articles they didn't like, and even have progressive/liberal contributors banned.

Now, Terry has been notably silent about his involvement, especially once it was brought up in the comments following another of his crackpot articles. Still, no doubt behind the scenes, they're still high-fiving each other and probably have the balls to grumble about being outed.

Terry Hurlbut - Busted!!

(h/t to EddyP)
Oh, happy day!

Readers of Conservapedia might be familiar with one of Andrew Schlafly's rally calls, 'We don't censor the truth here." Of course, that means, along with "Open your mind," that you had better not challenge whatever bullshit theory he's putting forward today. Of course, it's also one of his criticisms of Wikipedia. They censor edits on Intelligent Design and other creationist claptrap, not to mention that classroom prayer is censored. So, despite the actual goings-on on CP, you'd be of the opinion that they're pretty anti censorship. Just running a search on "censor" pulls up a pretty comprehensive list.

Of course, they get around deleting everything they disagree with by claiming it's "lies," "deceit," or "liberal claptrap" - a personal favourite of Andrew Schlafly's.

Now, a story broke on 5th August, about a conservative cabal on media site Digg, who actively engaged in censoring Digg'd articles that they did not like. They called themselves Digg Patriots (or DP... which has an entirely different snigger-worthy connotation to the more *ahem* open-minded) To quote from AlterNet:

A group of influential conservative members of the behemoth social media site Digg.com have just been caught red-handed in a widespread campaign of censorship, having multiple accounts, upvote padding, and deliberately trying to ban progressives. An undercover investigation has exposed this effort, which has been in action for more than one year.

As one of their members was caught saying:

The more liberal stories that were buried the better chance conservative stories have to get to the front page. I’ll continue to bury their submissions until they change their ways and become conservatives.”
-phoenixtx (aka vrayz)

Now you might be asking yourself what this has to do with Conservapedia. You know, that bastion of free speech and arch-enemy of censorship. Well, the article goes on to list the names of the Digg members involved. And there, right down the bottom, we come across the name Temlakos.

Who is none other than Terry Hurlbut (try saying that name without smiling) otherwise known as Conservapedia administrator TerryH. So it would appear as if one on Andy's hand-picked henchmen is in fact, a duplicitous cur, who - despite being a member of a site that deplores censorship (excuse me whist I laugh like a hyena for 5 minutes) - actively engages in censorship.

Then again, did we expect anything else from the merry crew of the "Trustworthy" encyclopaedia?