Demanding that someone takes something down and threatening legal action if they fail to comply is definitely the best way of stopping more people from being aware of that thing, Bis-Serjetà can confirm.
Bis-Serjetà was asked for its opinion on the controversial carnival float featuring a children’s home run by the Church that was involved in an abuse scandal several years ago.
“The float in question is a work of satire and therefore not something Bis-Serjetà has any experience in. But whenever someone has threatened us with legal action unless we remove content, this in itself definitely did not cause more people to become aware of said content,” managing editor Karl Stennienibarra said.
“Take our article about the Civil Protection Department issuing an ‘amber’ Franco Debono alert last February. It was a total coincidence that other news websites mentioned the article after CPD chief Emanuel Psaila literally ordered us to take it down and we published the screenshot of his message.
“Or our article about the song Xemx Wisq Sabiha by The Tramps being about heroin. The fact we have repeatedly re-posted the article on Facebook since it was first published has nothing to do with the fact that a relative of one of the band members messaged us saying he would take us to court and that he “had ways of finding out who were were”.
“Or more recently, our campaign to censor the children of politicians from photographs to protect them from ridicule has attracted some criticism, bit this certainly hasn’t caused us to be even more zealous and vigilant for examples of said photos.”
Stennienibarra added that, generally speaking, comments on the Facebook page demanding the removal of content were absolutely not akin to getting a shot of the same heroin that Xemx Wisq Sabiha is about.
“We can’t speak for the owners of the carnival float, but we want to reassure anyone who complains about a Bis-Serjetà article or image that we take their complaints very seriously, even if we never act on them. We’re very busy people.”
