Michael Bloomberg Michael Powell Parody

Is the Rudin Family the Mother Teresa of real estate ? Really ?

The artist and political commentator Suzannah B. Troy has fun with Michael Powell, a reporter for The New York Times, about how the Bloomberg administration exerts control over the press.

'' At least since the Republican National Convention of 2004, our police have grown accustomed to forcibly penning, arresting, and sometimes spraying and whacking protesters and reporters. On Monday, The New York Times and 12 other organizations sent a letter of protest to the Police Department. 'The police actions of last week,' the authors said, 'have been more hostile to the press than any other event in recent memory,' '' wrote Mr. Powell.

Google Censors Louis Flores - Update

Google Issues Apology ; Tries To Explain Away Censorship As ''A Processing Error.''

Following the censorship of the No Third Term blog, which triggered the suspension of all of my blogs, I spread word about the censorship and asked all my friends to write to Google, asking that they restore my blogs and reïnstate my account. Following is a great YouTube video by Suzannah B. Troy :

I also received help and support from Queens Crap, who posted a blog post about the occurrence of political censorship.

The suspension of the blogs took place before 5 a.m. this afternoon, and the blogs were fully restored shortly after 1 p.m. this afternoon. Here is Google's apology, with no other explanation :

Hi Louis,
Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We have reviewed the account and determined that the blogs were removed due to a processing error. The blogs have now been reinstated. We are sorry for any inconvenience or misunderstanding this may have caused.
Best,
Rachel
Google press team

Thank you to everybody, who contacted Google, to ask them to restore my blogs. I am very grateful to you.

True News From Change Blog Has Been Restored

Breaking News ! Update on True News From Change NYC Blog

Gary Tilzer's blog, True News From Change NYC, about New York government corruption, political reporting, and other commentary about government transparency, has been restored. Earlier today, it had been discovered that the True News blog had been suspended by Google for inexplicable reasons overnight. The suspension of the blog had become a focal point of support today by many New York bloggers and activists. No reason for the suspension is yet known, but New York bloggers suspect political censorship might have been one motive behind the removal of the blog.

CENSORED : True News From Change NYC Blog

Update : True News From Change NYC Blog Has Been Restored

Google Blogspot Blog Has Been Removed For No Reason ; Blogger Community Suspects Political Censorship ; Call To Action

Please send an e-mail to press@google.com and copy Gary Tilzer, the owner of the censored blog, at Gtprinter@aol.com -- demanding that the True News blog be restored.

True News is a blog dedicated to reporting about government scandals, politics, and transparency. (Here is the cached version of the True News blog.)

This is not the first act of censorship against Mr. Tilzer. Before the 2010 election, a YouTube video that Mr. Tilzer produced was banned by NBC/YouTube and had to be replaced with an edited version. In the last couple of years, others have faced incidences of cyber censorship or retaliatory activity. One and a half months before the 2009 election, the YouTube channel owned by the artist and political commentator Suzannah B. Troy was likewise censored, until bloggers and a lawyer intervened on her behalf. In 2010, this blogger was attacked by computer viruses 3 or 4 times, including on the day this blogger reported to the New York Department of State Committee on Open Government an act of censorship committed by Brad Hoylman.

Flashback : Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hailed Internet freedom as tool to ‘spread truth and expose injustice’

We need your help to keep courageous bloggers, like Mr. Tilzer, doing what they do. If you are reading this, it is because you are turning to the Internet for reliable information. For it to be here, bloggers, like Mr. Tilzer, have to be able to do their work without fear of retribution or censorship.

NBC censors Doug Biviano on YouTube

NBC works behind the scenes to ban a candidate's YouTube video which asks the Media to cover the political challengers during this year's election season.

According to a breaking news flash published by the blogger and artist Suzannah B. Troy this evening, NBC or somebody affiliated or employed by NBC has been contacting YouTube in order to remove a political candidate's controversial political Michael Moore-inspired mini-documentary about media bias. The controversial YouTube video was produced by Doug Biviano, who is challenging Joan Millman in Brooklyn's 52nd Assembly District.

Here is a new version of the banned video :

How can a news network commit censorship against a candidate during an election year ? NBC is being biased in favor of the incumbent as long as it is blocking political coverage of challengers. But it doesn't just stop there. Here we see NBC interfering with the freedom of speech of a political candidate. What if political candidates censored NBC ? How would NBC like that ? It is upon a slippery slope that NBC or its employee has put us all by contacting YouTube to ban this video.

Mayor plans to cut more first responders. Next up : street artists.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who already has a record of decimating other first responders, such as laying off firefighters and closing firehouses, laying off police, doing nothing to save critical hospitals and emergency rooms (such as St. Vincent's Hospital), has now turned his attention to the latest heroes of New York : street artists.

The Huffington Post explains the impact of the mayor's proposed cuts to street artists, not in terms of the loss of arts and culture in New York City, but in terms of national security :

"Right now, the Bloomberg administration wants to reduce park art vendors by a whopping seventy-five percent. If the city follows through with its plan, only 18 vendors would be allowed in Union Square, for example, down from the 100 or so that set up shop now on busy weekends. While the proposed changes would result in more elbow room, the regulations would also mean eighty fewer pairs of eyes that can "say something" when they "see something" suspicious in a crowded park on a summer afternoon, an appealing soft target for people bent on inflicting the most mayhem with minimal effort. Think of your typical vendor as a living, breathing time-lapse camera, attuned to subtleties we don't stick around long enough to notice. Can we really afford to risk losing so many ?"

The return of the YouTube Hater, Online Bully, and possible Identity Thief

Anonymous YouTube Hater profile hoochee003 (possibly aka BloombergForLife, CIoeBuckingham, LordCarruthers, hoochee002, et al.) strikes again.

On YouTube, we all know about members who leave nasty comments. We call them, "haters." But some members cross the line, like the owner of the anonymous profile, "hoochee003."

During the 2009 campaign for New York City mayor, hoochee003 posted many harassing comments on the activist YouTube videos that were made by Suzannah B. Troy and I. Some of hoochee003's comments were inane and harmless, but the volume of comments were sometimes great, and the fact that hoochee003 would jump from one activist's YouTube account to another showed that his intention was to harass and bully online activists.

Since many anonymous comments were posted on our videos leading up to last year's mayoral election, it has become suspicious that so many hateful, nasty, and negative comments could be generated in such a short period of time from a series of anonymous YouTube profiles. One of the anonymous profiles even represented that he was Tony Avella, the former New York City Councilman. At times, it has been thought that all of these anonymous profiles were the act of one person working under different YouTube usernames. After Ms. Troy informed the real Mr. Avella of the suspected identity theft, action was taken to suspend the fraudulent account.

As a result of the way Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the New York City Council denied voters a referendum on term limits last year, an internet community was created, in opposition to the unethical and highly questionable official acts by the Mayor and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. Because many online activists were linking to each others' blogs, online posts, and YouTube videos, these anonymous profiles were able to stalk the opposing online activist community. There is evidence to show that the owner of an anonymous profile would jump from one activist's message to another's, in a series of coordinated actions, the sole intention of which could only be described as harassment.

This week, one of those anonymous YouTube profiles has returned to further post hateful comments.

If the Internet is all about the democratisation of communication and interconnectedness on a massive, world-wide scale, then there is something wrong when the likely owner of a series of YouTube profiles abuses the platform that is supposed to facilitate a two-way conversation over the Internet. Where the owner of these anonymous profiles may cross the line is that his or her actions can be deemed harassment, because the hateful comments are perpetual, there is no way to have a meaningful conversation with the profiles' owner, and the one-sided nature of the offensive comments only causes frustration and are clearly intended to disturb or upset the productive online community. It threatens to disturb, silence, or censor the independent voice of online activists, who are trying to make a positive contribute to the online community and to New York society.

From September 22-23, 2009, Ms. Troy's YouTube account was suspended by YouTube for reasons that were never clearly explained. This possible act of censorship by YouTube (many of Ms. Troy's videos involve the subjects of her art, her reviews of the arts, and her views of politics) is in striking contrast to how YouTube tolerates anonymous users like hoochee003 (and other online bullies), who post pejorative, racist, sexist, offensive, and homophobic comments.

How can YouTube respect hoochee003's freedom of speech, when it clearly lacks the integrity to respect Ms. Troy's ?

YouTube censors Blogger

WEEKS BEFORE NYC MAYORAL ELECTION, YOUTUBE.COM SUPPRESSES FREE SPEECH

YouTube.com has censored the artist-activist-citizen journalist Suzannah B. Troy by suspending her entire account (300 videos).

Suzannah B. Troy, a New York City-based artist, citizen journalist, and blogger, has had her YouTube.com account inexplicably suspended by the popular video website.

http://www.youtube.com/user/Suzannahartist

First Suzannah B. Troy, next us.

Ms. Troy has spent months creating, editing, and posting hundreds of original citizen journalist videos focusing on the controversial election this year of local candidates running for third terms in office. In particular, Ms. Troy's videos have been highly critical of the New York City Council and Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

The nature of the videos on her YouTube.com account have ranged from breaking news-quality videos of voter demonstrations, to video blogs of her commentary on the elections, to artistic interpretation of news events. There is no reason for her account to be suspended by YouTube other than for the political and artistic nature of their content.

Please write to Youtube at: press@youtube.com and ask them for their official policy of suspending accounts of artists and citizen journalists.

We are only weeks away from an important election, which shall decide if City Council Members and Mayor Bloomberg will thwart the will of voters' two referrenda on term limits. And missing from the free exchange of ideas during the critical debates that will be taking place in the time leading up to the election will be Ms. Troy's body of work.

Without you stepping in to blog, publish, or report about this questionable suspension of Ms. Troy's YouTube account (as well as the potential of loss of hundreds of videos), other citizen journalists may face the same sad fate : cyber suppression.

Please consider the importance of voter participation in free and open democratic elections.

UPDATE: After pressure, YouTube.com restores Blogger's account

The blog site Queens Crap is reporting that YouTube has restored Suzannah B. Troy's account.