According to informed sources, a kol koreh (proclamation or ban) is being prepared in Lakewood and signatures are being solicited to:
- Ban all internet talkbacks, comments and forums
- Ban any news that is negative about any Jewish individual or group, by name or by hint
- Require every website to name its rabbinic advisor (i.e., censor)
- Require every website to name all authors and owners
If adopted it will force every website to defy the ban or convert itself into a pixilated equivalent of the heavily censored Homodiah and Yated Neeman. Even Matzav would have to drop its pseudonymous Rabbi Gavriel Rivlin and comments. Yeshiva World News would have to drop its popular and lively Coffee Room forums. Others affected would include the Jewish Press, Mishpacha Magazine, and Cross Currents. For that matter, we don’t even have any named rabbi-censors for any of the approved newspapers.
Here are some of the topics that could no longer be discussed:
- Child and spouse abuse (Rabbi Noach Oelbaum)
- Spouse abuse, substance abuse, and internet porn addiction (Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski)
- Alcohol abuse as addressed last Purim (Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetsky)
- Financial fraud as keynoted at the Agudah Convention in 2009 and acknowledged in an Agudah sponsored event with the Spinka Rebbe.
- Children at-risk of school failure
- Shalom bayis (marital) problems
