Why is Everyone Afraid to Denounce the Bullying Behavior of the Ethiopian Review Website?

Source:http://www.geocities.com/~dagmawi/Zebenya/08/ER.html
Ethiopian News and Views October 6, 2007
The Ethiopian Review website - http://www.ethrev.com/ - has published enough incitement to violence, lies, defamation, propaganda, deception, distortion, etc... that it should be denounced. We should not meekly watch as this bullying behavior gains influence and insinuates itself into the top levels of the Ethiopian movement for democratization. We should demand accountability.
In the past few years, Ethiopians have developed new websites that provide information on current events. These efforts need to be redoubled. Many of these new websites are quite mature and responsible. They seem to recognize the existence of journalistic standards.
We should encourage these websites to continue their growth. With the new advances in technology, it will soon be possible to develop information networks that totally bypass government control and provide news to a wide spectrum of people of Ethiopia. Networks of reporters inside Ethiopia can be established. These developments will offer the Ethiopian people relief from the monotonous propaganda of the government news monopoly.
However, with opportunity comes responsibility. The easy road is to distort, fabricate and tamper with the news in order to achieve a desired result. This is fraud. Nobody wants to be provided with false news. People want the truth. The reason some websites manufacture fake news and disseminate rumors, is to influence people to take action they would not otherwise engage in if they knew the truth. This is fraud.
The example, par excellence, of such fraudulent activity is the Ethiopian Review website. In addition to fraud, the website disseminates a high level of material designed to incite and inflame public opinion. For example:
Defamatory attacks against a wide array of opposition individuals including even Berhanu Nega and activists who worked to pass HR 2003
Dissemination of complete lies
Open incitement to armed insurrection
Inflamatory assertions that the Ethiopian Orthodox Church "orchestrated" the slaughter of Christians in the Jimma area
Dissemination of Eritrean government propaganda
Dissemination as fact of wild rumors concerning events in Ethiopia
Active encouragement of the Shabab terrorist group in Somalia, cheerleading their attacks on Ethiopian soldiers, describing them as freedom fighters
Gleeful response to the ONLF attack at Abule (where dozens of civilians were lined up and shot)
Public request to the OLF and ONLF to conduct a similar attack at the Lega Dembi gold mine.
The above is just a list compiled from memory. It doesn't convey the nasty, violent, hateful tone of the website, which has infected the Ethiopian public debate. A western research agency recently used the word "rabid" to describe this website. Quite accurate.
Despite the constant outrages from this website, there is only a muted response from the Ethiopian public. Recently, the respected blogger "Ethiozagol" even saw fit to express thanks to the "Ethiopian Review".
While I support the Ethiopian Review's right to free expression, I condemn it as the most irresponsible, unprincipled, and destructive of any major Ethiopian website. The bullying behavior of this website is out of control and people should not be afraid to publicly call this behavior to account.
The values and "principles" that are evident by the behavior of that website are consistent with what we see in the government media. They are not consistent with the principles advanced by the opposition movements for democracy. - Dagmawi