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ClearChannel Plays It Safe
mertzman writes: "Rather than wait for the government assaults on civil liberties to reach full steam, ClearChannel, one of the nation's largest radio networks, has decided to do some censorship on their own! According to F***edCompany, ClearChannel has created a list of banned songs with "questionable content" in light of the recent tragedies. Stuff ranging from Drowning Pool's "Bodies" to Nena's anti-war hit "99 Red Balloons" have made their list." ClearChannel owns many radio stations, so this probably affects you. Update: 09/18 18:30 GMT by M : The San Francisco Chronicle has more on this - ClearChannel says it isn't an official mandate, just some sort of internal memo circulating. Update: 09/18 23:18 PM GMT by T : Fuzzy points out that "snopes.com has an explanation of the ClearChannel hoax. ClearChannel has also sent out a press release saying they have released no such list."
Bah to it all. Why can't people just realize that human adults censor what is inputed in to their brains to begin with? I mean, come on! How does censoring music that has some relation to the NYC bombing help anything at all? Those people died for certain liberties and rights sort to speak- why take away what they died for just to try to soften the impact that they died?!!
If I died in a terrorist bombing in the United States, the supposed country of freedom, I would be rather offended that this country of freedom that I died in is now restricting it.
They took away the second amendment, but I didn't complain since I had no guns.
They took away the fifth amendment, but I didn't complain since I had nothing to fear from the courts.
They took away the first amendment, and I couldn't complain.
--- Ãther SPOON!
Hey, they own those stations, so they have a right to choose what to play. If they think something is in bad taste, the won't play it. That's not censorship that's choice. The government hasn't told them not to play questionable songs, they decided it was in their best interest as a business or maybe in their interest as humans. This is not censorship this is a business esercising it's freedom to choose to do what it wants.
As x approaches total apathy I couldn't care less.
This Song is ANTI terrorism and was originally written about an act of terrorism.
I mean the lyrics go "I cant believe the news today" and continue "How long must we sing this song?"
Its the perfect song to be the Anthem of the whole anti terrorism campaign.
It appears they are just stopping playing everything that could possibly remind people of the whole event. Songs about war,terrorism,suicide and fire. Even when the majority of these songs are against these things.
Will they ban wacko and spears duet which they are recording to raise money for the relief efforts as it will remind people as well?
I noticed in the list: "All Rage Against The Machine songs"
you've got to be kidding me. This seems like blind censorship to me. I'm doubtful they've listened to all of Rage's songs.
"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch." - Jack Nicholson
No. Your repeated postings seem to indicate an inability to differentiate between "censorship of the American public as a whole" (for example, the FCC declaring that you can't show bare breasts on broadcast television) and "censorship by a corporate entity of its own content" (for example, Fox Family channel voluntarily censoring the word "damn" as part of the more family friendly programming they want to produce).
Now, just because something isn't government censorship doesn't mean it's not censorship. However, just because something isn't government censorship doesn't mean it's a good thing. It also doesn't mean it's a bad thing. Each case must be examined on its own merits. Also, it being a bad thing is not synonymous with illegal. For example, if a given publisher chose to stop carrying stories on Linux, that wouldn't be illegal (as far as I know), but it would certainly be a bad thing. They would receive certainly criticism (rightfully so, IMO) for their non-illegal censorship.
Of course all that being said, things get a little more interesting. Clear Channel isn't on equal footing with other companies. Like Microsoft, they enjoy a rather large market share. Furthermore, they've been granted the right to use a limited, public resource (part of the radio spectrum) by the government. This places there actions under much greater scrutiny. Unlike, say, the widget manufacturing industry, a new-comer can't decide to pop into the radio market and start playing the songs in question. As such, their situation is closer to government censorship. However, regardless, their overall actions are still censorship and should be scrutinized by consumers.
Yet more evidence that censorship always backfires...