Dell responds to accusations of censorship
Dell says it is not censoring IdeaStorm, merely responding to IdeaStorm community requests to “merge” ideas.
Commenting in response to our post Dell censors IdeaStorm Linux dissent, Dell spokesperson John Pope said that the company isn’t censoring dissent on IdeaStorm.
“If ideas are submitted and they turn out to be the same, we have been asked by the IdeaStorm community to merge them — as well as any votes cast and comments logged — for simplicity,” said Dell spokesperson John Pope.
“To be clear, all votes and comments tied to an idea are added to the merged idea — they do not go away. In this case, that is exactly what happened.”
According to Pope, IdeaStorm is moderated by “open-minded individuals who do not censor”.
Pope did make the point that Dell has the right, as per the site’s terms of reference, to delete input that is not an idea or merely a “digital reprint” or link to a news article on its IdeaStorm web site.
While I applaud Pope for engaging with the wider Internet community, by selectively “merging” and deleting ideas, the company is in fact manipulating how ideas are presented to the public, and that is censorship.
I just searched IdeaStorm to see if I could easily find Beer28’s Feb 28 ”idea” merged into another entry. Beer28 articulates a specific argument that involves concepts like economic theory, Steve Ballmer, the Department of Justice, and closing factories. For all intents and purposes, Beer28’s ”idea” of Feb 28 is not there.
If it’s been merged, it’s been merged into oblivion. Contrary to IdeaStorm’s tag line “Let your ideas reign”, Beer28’s idea has not had the opportunity to reign, or even to ne discussed, or corrected (if that’s what needed to be done).
IdeaStorm is Dell’s site, and of course the company can edit and manipulate the content according to its discretion. I can understand that Dell might “merge” ideas that contain profanity or are overly rude, but Beer28’s article was neither of those things. Though I do admit that it was controversial.
Why doesn’t Dell follow a laissez-faire approach?
Let the community decide what’s important and what’s not; that’s how most social news sites work. Articles that add little or no value are soon forgotten.
At least for the rest of us, it’s become very clear how the IdeaStorm web site actually works.
As a final aside, some wag has posted this idea on IdeaStorm: http://www.dellideastorm.com/article/show/64341/Heres_an_idea (I can assure readers that the person who posted this is not affiliated with TECH.BLORGE.com).
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March 1st, 2007
I think you’re being too harsh on Dell. It is their web site, NOT Digg, and they have every right to remove content they deem inappropriate.
March 1st, 2007
Dell is under no obligation to implement every suggestion. If someone makes a suggestion on Dell’s website and Dell decides not to implement it, then what’s the problem in moving on? If moving on means deleting the comment then what’s the harm? The vast overreaction to this by Linux advocates simply makes Dell look like a responsible parent who is trying to quiet a screaming three-year old in a nice restaurant who is throwing a tantrum because he didn’t get peanut butter for dinner like he wanted.
March 2nd, 2007
I guess we can agree to disagree on what constitutes an idea and censorship. But at least the facts are on the table and people can, and will, decide for themselves.
March 2nd, 2007
I think this has been blown way out of proportion. IdeaStorm was meant to be a place where customers could suggest ideas for Dell to improve their products and services, not simply vent about the way Dell chooses to go about achieving their capitalistic aims. Dell’s IdeaStorm is not an open forum — the discussion there is restricted to products and services. It made sense, then, to delete the off-topic post. I’m sorry, but as much as everyone wants to take a bite out of the Big Evil Corporation, IdeaStorm is simply not the venue. For all intents and purposes, Beer28 was trolling IdeaStorm and harrassing the company in an inappropriate venue. Naturally, his idea was deleted. It would have been more appropriate for Beer28 to find the discussion thread related to the preinstaled-Linux option and voice his thoughts in there. However, I suppose he was under the influence of that 28th beer, and this didn’t occur to him at that moment.
This is probably hard for you to hear, but this is not the big deal that everybody is making it out to be.
March 2nd, 2007
Well…. I was going to tailor a computer for SUSE, then read about Dell’s idea to certify a machine, Oh Joy! Out of the box. I have never owned a Dell and now it looks like I never will……..
March 5th, 2007
I agree that the poster Beer28 was not posting an “Idea”, just a RANT. I applaud Dell for “merging” the post and would prefer they just DELETE it.
Rants belong on blogs (like this one) and not on functional websites like IdeaStorm.
Will Dell act on every idea, probably not. But that’s their business. It’s up to them to make profits while satisfying as many customers as possible. They’ll never satisfy 100% of people…
BTW, in case you’re wondering, I’m a die hard Debian user and only use Windows to play a few games that I haven’t been able to get working under Wine…
March 3rd, 2009
Bullshit: Dell (or the contractor) is censoring that site like crazy.
As a random user, they purposefully edited my suggestion (which has a decent +vote) to remove hints that they have not tested their keyboard/trackpad paint for toxicity and carcinogenicity.
Granted, the deleted post in question was a rant and deserved to be taken down. However, they *do* censor the Ideastorm site.