Stu News and Photos

Prompted, again, by my bro, I present you fine folk with one of those "Yeah, I already knew that," topics: Rich people have power over poor people.

In this case, there's a dude, Craig Murray, once a UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan, now a blogger, who has made a variety of accusations against a super-rich dude, Alisher Usmanov, accusing him of theft of state property, fraud, etc.

This happens a lot: I, as well as many other bloggers, millions of bloggers, accuse other folks of wrong-doing. In America, our Constitution gives me that ability, by protecting written speech. Except, if I were to write about a rich person, there's a chance that my blog's host *might* be persuaded to shut me down, for fear of massive and expensive legal action against them. Known as the Streisand Effect, it can happen in what seems to be a random fashion, based solely on the "victim's" ego and bank account size.

I've taken on Mel Gibson and a few other rich folk, but without reprisal. However, The Streisand Effect is like lightning - you never know when you'll get hit and there's little you can do to prevent it, other than hiding. Me, I'm not big on hiding.

So let me go on the record: If Alisher Usmanov has been seriously libeled, let him take it to the courts. It is a societal crime to allow his money to scare a blog/website provider into taking down content. Censorship, without legal due process, is indeed a crime against all humanity.