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The Futility of Censorship
Artist Muntadas created "The File Room" (discussed in Steven Wilson's book Information Arts: Intersections of Science, Art and Technology as an archive of censorship, a living record of society's ceaseless efforts to control culture and values. The site uses the Web's global scope to collect and store essays, speeches and artistic works from all over the world which have been subject to censorship, from the Republic of Korea's criminal code to high school newspapers to art exhibits in rural areas city halls. "The File Room" classifies its growing holdings by location, date, media and so-called grounds for censorship.
Anybody can contribute new examples of censorship by filling out a short form on the site, which is also part of an art gallery in downtown Chicago.
The strange dichotomy is that the more censors try to curb information, the bigger and richer "The File Room" grows. Sadly, the site makes clear that the United States -- the creator of the modern idea of free speech -- has become one of the world's most ubiquitous censors. "The File Room" literally feeds off censorship, its archived categories growing all the time -- explicit sexuality, language, nudity, political/economic/social opinion, racial and ethnic, religious, sexual/gender orientation and numerous others. Many of these battles involve the so-called protection of children. The access to information and opinion the Net has given kids is one of the most terrifying ideas of the 21st century.
Beautifully organized -- with sections on visual arts, film/video, print, broadcast and electronic media, public speech, personal opinion, even commercial advertising -- the site has become a trove of ideas, opinions and artworks. It also carries an emotional punch. It's truly moving and outrageous to see some of the works (and thoughts) people and institutions are still trying to kill off. What a curious time -- the most sophisticated and open information machinery in history spreading like wildfire, and narrow-minded idiots all over the planet trying to turn back the clock. There are countless governments and institutions who still believe they can impose their views and values on their children and the rest of the world, if only they can practice censorship.
Online rights is a seminal issue, but the smaller fights sometimes obscure the new and much larger reality. Censorship as we used to know it is no longer a viable option as long as there is a World Wide Web.
But the questions is, who will archive this site when it is censored?
It hurts when I pee.
Anybody can contribute new examples of censorship by filling out a short form on the site, which is also part of an art gallery in downtown Chicago.
Cool... so how many people are going to report that whole moderation mess in the Oracle thread where the editors kept bitchslapping people who posted in there?
What? Is Jon Katz discovering the WWW for the first time? Does he have too much time on his hands? Please, please make him stop posting!
Motion Picture Ass. of America (MPAA) President Jack Valenti has made a veiled pitch for copy-control PCs in a letter to the editor published by the Washington Post.
While much of the letter is devoted to incoherent ranting about some dastardly cabal of "professors" who are trying to rip the guts out of Hollywood, and hysterical claims such as "some 350,000-plus films are being downloaded illegally every day," we do get an interesting wrap-up where the industry Ass. President alludes to the need for the PC to be transformed into a secure content-distrbution device along the lines of a set-top box.
"Computer and video-device companies need to sit at the table with the movie industry. Together, in good-faith talks, they must agree on the ingredients for creating strong protection for copyrighted films and then swiftly implement that agreement to make it an Internet reality."
Otherwise, the industry just can't make movies available for download and viewing on the PC.
The problem, we're told, is that Hollywood can't make a profit on its theatre showings and simply has to make it up on the aftermarket, with video and DVD rentals and such. The insecurity of Net distribution would simply choke off too much of that desperately-needed revenue stream.
"Only two in ten films ever retrieve their production and marketing investment from domestic theatrical exhibition," Valenti whines.
Well of course; but that's because they're ridiculously expensive cartoons that no one over the age of fifteen really wants to watch. But the obvious solution isn't hijacking people's computers and turning them into set-top boxes, but rather making cheaper movies that adults actually care to attend. And the great thing here is that the two go hand-in-hand. It's not an either/or proposition. Movies that involve such grown-up elements as good writing and dialogue and an imaginative story don't require spending of hundreds of millions on infantile whiz-bang special effects.
On top of that, good writers, being largely unknown in Hollywood, will be cheaper than the unimaginative alchemists who chuck together the stock blockbuster ingredients according to the same exhausted formula; and good actors, similarly rare, will be likely to work for a lot less than the no-talent beautiful people we're supposed to accept as plausible characters in these showy fiascoes Hollywood keeps turning out.
Now isn't that a fine remedy? Better movies that more people actually wish to attend, made more cheaply, equals bigger profit margins for the studios and more enjoyment for the public.
So there's really no need to get bent out of shape over 350,000 illegal downloads a day (chump-change at video rental prices in any case), or to re-engineer the personal computer either. All we need is for Hollywood to stop wasting such vast quantities of money as it's accustomed to doing.
"Why did they cancel my favorite Sci-Fi show? I downloaded ALL the episodes!"
See subject
no sig error.
Somebody who things the 'Net makes any kind of control impossible has never read Lawrence Lessig's "Code". That somebody should.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, but who has time for that?
The idea that the 'net can't be censored by anyone is WAY too optimistic. Yes, governments will have a hard time doing it because there's always some other government that makes it legal. But there are a lot of coprorations (AOL-TW, M$, etc) who are more powerful than governments, and will eventually manange to force the replacement of IP with a protocol which only lets you see what they want you to see.
oooooh this is just like George Orwell's 1984. Big Brother is Watching! "Those who can't get this quote right deserve neither sex nor hot meals" - Abraham Lincoln.--
Online rights is a seminal issue
Do you get the feeling he's let slip the real reason he's interested in this issue?
"The tighter your grip, the easier it is for people to slip through your fingers!"
I've found this quote is useful on all levels, including censoring (or to take a step higher, control). For example: Slashdot can delete posts all they want, and incur all types of censoring, but that just encourages people to try and break the system.
Look at the lameness filter. We've seen ASCII art pass by it, not to mention page lengthening/widening posts that get by this filter, and yet some people with perfectly legit comments get caught in it from time to time.
"Complete control" doesn't exist, we need to find a balance between "controlling" what people see and "freedom". Only then will people be content.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
And what about spam? Is there any way of effectively controlling spam that doesn't also allow the effective controlling of other content? Can we have unrestricted free speech without spam?
Off-topic, this is my one thousandth slashdot comment...
Best Slashdot Co
Sure, the medium has changed, but fascists were burning books well before the Internet came along. All of this talk of being so aghast that censorship is happening of the Web should really be taken with some historical perspective.
Its nice to be able to distribute political pamphlets (for instance) anonymously without fear of retribution or censorship, but its even better to be able to do it in a major newspaper or website and claim authorship knowing you have the freedom to do so.
My gut tells me a government totalitarian enough to curb free speech on the Internet could find ways around these tools and sites. Implementing the death penalty for anyone caught writing an anti-government editorial would have a chilling effect on free speach, simply because like all software, there will be bugs. Would you trust FreeNet enough to protect your life?
The more you know, the less you understand.
It's the first two words in the subject line that makes censorship on the web difficult. It transcends state and country boundaries. You can access content from servers almost anywhere in the world from the comfort of your home or office.
I'm not afraid of falling, it's the sudden stop at the end that frightens me.
It was only the other day that Slashdot posted an article about Cisco et all having a field day in China.
Surely, if the Chinese can control the Internet so well, other people can.
Granted, China is a completely different place to Europe and the US - speaking out against the Chinese government will get you on the frontpage of the newspaper, but for reasons entirely different than would be the case in other countries.
I put my books on Amazon, Smashwords, Demonoid, ISOHunt and Pirate Bay. Search for 'Michael Cargill'
IANAC (I am not a christian) but I do think it's cool that the bible is included in the list of religious/political censored works. it goes to show that they are not trying to stilt the censorship. It's also one of the few places on the net where you will find the bible listed right next to the satanic verses. yay!
This comment is fully compliant with RFC 527.
I just read my most. Now I know I need to take a break from
Censorship arises out of what I will say is a postive desire to protect our collective consiousness. Think of information as food. You can eat a steak, an apple, or some draino. Is it wrong to label the draino as toxic? I don't think so. Now is it wrond to make Draino unavailable to the public? No, it provides a function, and almost all information does.
Let us face the facts that some information, in the minds uncritical people, is dangerous. What is important is the discussion on the possible uses and function of this information. An attempt to censorship is a dialouge, and is an important freedom of expression itself.
(/local/home/curiosity)-#who -u|grep thecat|cut -c 44-49|xargs kill -9
The one thing the net is forcing us to do as a whole is making us define a global set of standards. No longer will a specific country's social ethics stand, but be replaced with a global ethic of what is offensive and what is not.
Obviously and not surprisingly, sexual material has become widely acceptable globally... and the taboo's of individual country's in regards to the "maturity" are being replaced with what nature has decided is "acceptable".
The same would be said for political and financial ethics. The ethics for money as a whole on the net are much more tightly restricted simply because people on a global scale are conservative about their financial resources.
Forget the U.S. as "the great melting pot", the net will do what no country ever could....DEFINE US!
Says who? How do you measure that sort of thing? How do we know it's not going down?
The more experience I get, the more I distrust blind assertions.
"The Internet regards censorship as a hardware failure and just works around it."
I wouldn't be so quick to assume that the 'net makes censorship "doomed to failure"... that sounds a lot like a recipe for complacency. It's far better, I believe, to assume that threats to free speech are real, and to work within the system to make sure they are promptly squelched.
One of the things I love most about America is our right to free speech. The ability to live in a country where we can publicly speak out against injustice and oppression is priceless. Where would our nation, and even the world be if Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was not free to challenge his people to practice nonviolent protest?
However, the issue of free speech is not so cut and dry. I hope that most people will agree with me that COMPLETELY free speech is NOT a good thing. For example, what if a witness was free to lie when testifying at a trial? Laws against purgery are technically "curbing" free speech. However, these kinds of restrictions are necessary in order to promote justice and freedom for all. Laws against slander, libel, death threats, and the proverbial "yelling fire in a crowded theater" fall into the same category. These laws are designed to protect the general public from the misuse of free speech.
So where do issues like pornography and hate speech fall? The question is, if purgery is prohibited in order to protect the public, could hate speech be prohibited for the same reason? And, exactly what constitutes "free speech"? I'm certainly no expert on the Constitution, but I believe that the first ammendment was put into place not to allow citizens to say and act whatever and however they please, but rather to act as a guard against the kind of oppression that was found in England at the time.
"Free speech" was intended to allow citizens to protest the actions of government when government overstepped its bounds, or was acting improperly. A prime example of this is the civil rights movement. I don't believe that the first ammendment was intended to protect individuals who want to post child pornography on the Internet.
And, although it's rather controversial these days, I don't believe it protects those who want to make copies of DVDs and CDs and distribute them over the net or to their friends. That is an issue of "Fair Use", not free speech.
What about the censorship that happened here on our very own Slashdot? I don't mean to sound like a troll, but for a site that promotes freedom of speech as much as Slashdot does, that thread definately seemed to be full of heavy-handed, editor-initiated censorship. Anyone else agree?
Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I'll never know.
The strange dichotomy is that the more censors try to curb information, the bigger and richer "The File Room" grows
We've seen this happen at Slashdot. The more the editors try to suppress posts and information regarding the moderation scandal, the louder and more numerous opposition becomes.
If Slashdot had been open and let the system work as it supposedly should, none of this would have happened.
Tired of being "punished" by the Slashdot $rtbl since 2002. I'm now over at http://soylentnews.org/ .
This is of course totally untrue. There might be a slight fallback, but think back a mere twelfe years and there was no freedom of press in the Soviet Block. Think back three hundred years and freedom of press was just a vague ideal of the enlightment movement.
Cool... so how many people are going to report that whole moderation mess in the Oracle thread where the editors kept bitchslapping people who posted in there?
If that is true, please provide links to the thread(s) in question or, if they have been removed, archives or caches of the material (if they exist).
As a longtime slashdot reader I would be very interested in this. Finally, if this can be documented in any way, why don't you report it. Censorship is censorship, and some of the worst forms of censorship come not from governments, but from corporations (such as the one slashdot is beholden to[1])
[1]Though I have no personal knowledge slashdot's parent company has ever engaged in this, beyond reading these allegations.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
The Spanish Inquisition joke would be appropriate now. How can he think that we are more censored than ever before. He has obviously never even picked up a history book let alone read it. maybe he's never heard of slavery, Salem witch trials, Spanish Inquisition, McCarthy and the Red Scare, Hitler, Stalin. I could go on for hours. I don't know why I even start reading a Jon Katz article. I see more intelligence out of my cat. At least he knows who feeds him.
I do not understand. i know its a bit offtopic but why should anything be censored at all. if you dont want to view/read something, then dont. i think humans have enough self control to deem what is apropriate for themselves.
can you think of something that should be censored? if so why?
to quote the famous line, "information wants to be free"
-
...at work. Seems some folks here at work have too much time on thier hands and so our company has started blocking sites. The first sites to go were job posting sites... then there was competitor sites... Now there seems to be no rhyme or reason. If you want to access a blocked site you have to submit a business case (I had to do this for HP!). I don't like it (yes, I could work elsewhere). In my management days, if you had time to surf it was your supervisors fault - they didn't give you enough to do. If you were caught with some p0rn or such on your monitor, well, that was also a case for disciplinary (sp?) actions. Not blocking.
I don't plan on filtering what my kids can surf too. I plan on being involved with them and having an open enough relationship.
They tried filters at the library but since they block proxy sites they really didn't block anything. The took the filters off and put the comptuers out in the open where folks could walk by and see what was going on. THAT was the best filter.
"If you are on fire you can just stop, drop, and roll. If you fall into Lava you are just dead." - my 5yr old daughter
http://www.justicetalking.com usually has some decent content...
this is getting old and so are you
blog
the Web is becoming a living, global archive of ideas people want to kill.
.. why on Earth would anybody feel the need to "protect" these ideas? They have been thoroughly rejected by decent society on all continents of the globe.
I know that folks like you don't like to hear this, but there are ideas that deserve to die. When I look at people promoting child pornography, Nazism, evolutionism, Holocaust denial, violent racism, etc., I wonder
It's not "censorship." It's good taste and morality.
There will always be someone who wants to control what you see and hear. The ones you know are trying to do it have already lost and are just making a fuss on the way out.
The ones who succeed are called "directors" or "producers" or "broadcasters" in today's society. The irony is, someone will outsmart them and they will be tied to the witch-stake of society and burned for their crimes while the one who defeated them takes their place commiting the same crime in new ways which are really just fresh paint on old ways.
It's the real-world. Let's stop worrying about it and just get on with our lives.
My $0.02 will always be worth more than your â0.02, so
. . .censorship as a contemporary idea is virtually impossible.
This is so untrue. So very, very untrue.
Mr. Katz, if you would read Professor Lessig's book _Code_, or even just think about this for a minute, you would realize that the technologies that enable unprecedented freedoms of communication also enable unprecedented censorship.
Technology makes it easier and easier to intercept communications and to punish those who initiated the communications and their intended recipients.
As a community, we (the well education, rich, techno-savvy, elite) like to think we have the moral high ground, and because we have the moral high ground we can sit back, complacent in the knowledge that the good guys always win. Or, we can sit back knowing "someone else" will take care of the problem.
That attitude will result in things getting worse before they get better, if they ever get better.
The lack of activism, the unwillingness to study the basics of law in our society, the hypocrisy, and the complacency shown by this community makes me very sad and I worry about the type of society in which my children will live.
The bottom line: censorship is more of a threat now than ever, and it is only vigilance and activism on our part that will stop it.
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
Traditionally "censorship" means only government supression of information, as you can see from all the definitions quoted on this web site. Only the quote from the touchy-feely "Academic American Encyclopedia from Prodigy on-line" suggests that "censorship" can be applied to non-governmental entities. The web site itself has quite a different idea, however. The idea that "subtle, pervasive, and often invisible psychological methods" of hiding information could be called "censorship" is pretty weak. If you expand the definition of the word to include corporations that supposedly control what you see, you're weakening the meaning of the word in its classical, and most dangerous, sense. Maybe the RIAA is somehow keeping me from hearing all the really good underground bands, but that's nothing compared to government repression of ideas that are "dangerous" (to the current government, of course).
I see various entities that seek to control the internet in some way. ICANN being the most recent and striking example. I think ICANN and other similar reptiles are going to get what they want. They're gonna get the control they want!
What are they getting. Control of the contiguous network of machines and networks that we call the internet. Domain names, perhaps routing control, taxation of content on that network.
And then people will say "Fuck you, ICANN." and "Fuck you, corrupted garbage internet." And splinter off to form various private networks that will exist in an essentially parralel universe to the old internet. This is when it will get interesting.
Will our government(s) try to make it illegal to form private networks as described above? I bet they do.
As [various parties] have belatedly grown interested in controlling networked computing..., battles over censorship and content ... have raged throughout cyberspace. That's why Chicago artist Antonio Muntadas' website "The File Room" may be one of the most significant sites ever created on the Web.
Is it just me or was that just a bit of a non-sequitur? I can't see anything more here than the assertion that censorship (and therefore a website about it) is one of the most significant issues on the web.
This argument seems to be self-defeating, since the author himself asserts that censorship on the web can't succeed. It's just not a big deal. Is it really that important for everyone to be able to say whatever they want? What about if you don't have access to the web? Or what about if you can say what you want, but no one else ever hears you? (Ironically, this comment could be modded down to -1 - I would still have so-called 'free speech', but chances are no one would hear me.) I don't think the reality lives up to the hype. And I don't think it really matters.
The proper quote is: The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.
You could also add an ellipsis to make it relevant, and still leave it in quotes:
The more you tighten your grip... the more star systems will slip through your fingers.
Of course, that's only appropriate if you don't substantially change the meaning of the quote. It would be improper to quote Yoda as saying "Adventure, Excitement, a Jedi craves... these things."
The strange dichotomy is that the more censors try to curb information, the bigger and richer "The File Room" grows. Sadly, the site makes clear that the United States -- the creator of the modern idea of free speech -- has become one of the world's most ubiquitous censors.
This criticism does not sound very well founded.
1. If the USA was actually a big censor state it would not allow the posts to get to "The File Room" in the first place, no matter where the posts originated. The Soviets, Chinese, Cubans, Germans and North Koreans (insert others here) were all very well skilled at this type of prevention. It is well documented that it is possible to some extent and it is obvious when it is happening.
2. In the USA one is protected from GOVERNMENT censorship ONLY, not the censorship by one's next door neighbor nor the censorship by the contributors to the local art gallery.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
Self-censorship is the real issue. Blame it on our education, parents, the media, whatever. People have accepted Candide's view of the world that this is as good as it can get.
Censorship is important only if you believe that people are really open to new ideas. Which I don't think they are. Sure, we CAN educate ourselves and communicate with eachother - but we don't. The net mostly clusters like-minded people together and encapsulates them safely - away from the rest of society.
So whoop-di-doo: I can look up censored materials at this guy's website. Is this going to change how the majority of Americans feel about anything? No.
We get the government that we deserve.
--
Long-term effects of Bush deficits
Personally, I find misinformation and omission much scarier than censorship. They're both far more of a threat to us here in the US.
Foucault used to say that he who controlled and influenced the way people think had the real power in the world, because he could control what is true and what is false, since the concepts really only exist in our minds. Media companies and governments know this, and not just in China.
For a modern example, think about Iran. Most Americans, when asked about Iran, would respond that they don't like the Iranian people, and think they're a bunch of terrorists. Why? The average American doesn't know any Iranians. How you can you hate them when you don't know the names of more than one or two at most? Because all you see on Television is Iranians burning flags, holding up pictures of militants, and holding guns. You never see the average Iranian farmer, or baker, or homemaker. You never see the normal, decent people of that country. Same thing goes for North Korea. People have these amazingly harsh opinions about people and countries they don't know anything about simply because of what they've been told by the media.
It works both ways too. Most of what those people see of us is our President saying mean things about them that get repeated over and over by their media, and the business end of our military photographed onto their front page. They never see the average Joe working his construction job, or Mom baking an apple pie.
So now you have two groups of people that barely know each other, but hate the other side with wild abandon.
Like I said, misinformation scares me more than censorship.
This tagline is umop apisdn.
Can't the same be said for spam? For all that people scream and yell about censorship, it seems that when spam is involved, they become just as tolitarian as those in the religious right.
http://www.thefileroom.org/FileRoom/documents/dyn/ DisplayCase.cfm?id=297
I did a google search out of interest to see if the site ever found a new home. I didn't find the site, but I did find out what became of the intrepid creator of the site, Daniel C. Robbins:
http://research.microsoft.com/~dcr/
Yup, he appears to be working at Microsoft as a 3D User Interface Designer. Strangely enough the BDSM site is noticably absent from his online CV ;)
The importance of the U.S. Constitution cannot be overemphasized when trying to regulate websites in the U.S.A. When people post material onto their website, they are making a willing expression of their ideals, which are protected under the First Admendment.
I know that I will encounter material on the Web that I find offensive, bigoted, and hateful. This is no different than walking through the wrong part of town or watching day-time talk shows. However, restricting the people behind this material will only restrict me in the long run. This is the irony of free speech, but we must not let it sour our attitude towards content on the WWW.
Censorship is never the solution. We just need to know when to avoid the dark alleyways of the Web.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
...as the Katz that cannot see.
He writes "Sadly, the site makes clear that the United States -- the creator of the modern idea of free speech -- has become one of the world's most ubiquitous censors."
1. The site makes no pretence of being a full or comprehensive view of censorship around the world.
2. The site is a US project based on the web. It is not surprising that many examples of US censorship are submitted
3. Even a moment's cursory attention or thought (we could only wish for such a thing) would have led our dear scribbler to the blindingly obvious fact that the US doesn't even get *close* to the top of the censorship list when the following countries and regimes are/have been around:
Syria
Afghanistan
China
the USSR
Zimbabwe
Each of these regimes has/had engaged in systematic and comprehensive efforts to control free speech. The scale of these efforts far outweigh anything seen in the US. Buying a copy of the Talmud in Syria, or hardcore porn in Afghanistan, or looking at a anti-government Tibetan website in China, or reading the Koran in the USSR or listening to the BBC in Zimbabwe--these are all illegal acts. *This* is the sort of censorship that should terrify us.
I would say that the world wide web gives corporations and the countries that they sponsor a huge incentive to build empires of influence. As long as someone nation out there somewhere is truly independant, those with Intellectual Property are threatened.
Ukraine's decision whether or not to embed tracking information in the CD stamping systems made there was important enough to the US that they bullied the Ukraine into changing their minds and pursuing a course contrary to their self interest.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
I would argue that even if censorship is going down the instances of censorship are more visible.
And if censorship is going down, why is that? Could it be because the forces of evil are winning and there are fewer voices speaking out?
I've already posted this comment today at another story, but it seemed relevant again :)
In the Netherlands, a big project is going on currently called 'kennisnet' (or, translated, 'knowledge-net'). The idea is to put all elementary schools (I hope I translated that good, schools for children from 4 to 12 years old) on a 'subset' of the internet. They will be linked together and have access to the internet too, but on a filtered basis. Every school may choose which filter they want to have activated (Filternet [schoolfilternet.nl] is the biggest one that claims 99% filtering), to ensure that the children don't see pr0n and such when the teacher is unaware of it.
Frankly, I find this quite a good idea. Ofcourse, I'll have a bunch of people replying on this that information shouldn't be censored and that filtering is evil, but think of this: how would you react if your child, aged 9, interested in technology, viewed this page and accidently clicked on a goatse link?
--
If code was hard to write, it should be hard to read
Online rights is a seminal issue, but the smaller fights sometimes obscure the new and much larger reality. Censorship as we used to know it is no longer a viable option as long as there is a World Wide Web. [tell that to the average saudi or chinese user... ]
online rights is certainly an issue, but as this exhibit (the fileroom website) points out, it's part of a larger problem. in my opinion, it's an important part, but not the largest part. i'm not sure that jonkatz intended it as such, but it seems to me that online censorship is the "smaller fight" to civil liberties' "much larger reality."
Seems like half your columns are about censorship and how it's killing the net. Hell, most of /. loves talkin about how hard it is going up against government bodies and individuals as well as businesses who impose censorship.
Now, this.
Which is it?
____________________________
What did the Buddhist say to the hot dog vendor?
"Make me one with everything."
Where would our nation, and even the world be if Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was not free to challenge his people to practice nonviolent protest?
Wait - he wasn't free. Go read "Letter from Birmingham Jail" which he wrote while in Birmingham Jail.
The "system" fights every reform and then when it loses, and progress is made, it says "see - the system works!" and we all get taken in by it.
--
Long-term effects of Bush deficits
Some people spell pergery "perjury."
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
It's all to easy to see this issue as "the man" keeping down free speech, but what if I desire to limit what I see? In the book of Job in the Bible, Job says "I have made a covenant with my eyes not to look at a young woman" (presumably in a lustful way.) Like Job, I have no desire to see anyone naked besides myself, my wife and my kids (when bathing them.)
I am coming at this issue from a Christian perspective, but devout Muslims feel strongly about this, too.
Yet, it is extremely difficult for me NOT to see lewd and crude images displayed on my PC.
Some will say - "just don't go to those sites" but the fact is that I receive dozens of SPAM messages with pornographic images each week. These are unsolicited, and unwelcome. They appear in all of the mailboxes that I have, whether or not I use those addresses to post to usenet groups or websites.
Finally, I have tried implementing controls within my browser to respect the self-imposed ratings on web sites and have found that to be relatively worthless because most sites do not participate.
I was SHOCKED to find on my work PC running Linux with xscreensaver that one of the screensavers (it's configured for random mode) contains a photo collage in which one photo depicts a woman penetrating herself with a vibrator! Regardless of my personal convictions on this issue, I could be fired for having that on my PC!
For my house, I'd like to limit the information that is delivered to my home. I don't watch "R" rated movies anymore, (unless the content is so compelling that it calls for me to watch - something that has occurred only once or twice) so why should I allow R and NC17 materials to enter my home through other means?
I want to have good tools for limiting access to that kind of material. Isn't that permissible, or does your picture of "free speech" include jamming whatever content you feel like generating down my throat?
Regards,
Anomaly
PS - God loves you and longs for relationship with you. If you would like to know more, please email me at tom_cooper at bigfoot dot com.
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
PS. The Pope is a cunt.
There are so many screaming idiots on the Internet that their voices are effectively muted.
Get a free ipod.
but not possible.
Two items:
1) What is censorship and who defines it, as well as what it should be applied too? This has been tackled through out human history. Only in the "information age" has it been tackled so much by so many people, countries, religions, and ideologies.
Censorship, at it's core, is the masking of ideas and concepts that mainstream majority deems counter to their own standards of "right" or moral "good". This is a rough definition, but sound none the less. You could refine this based on situation, replacing majority with words like "those in power" or "the moral majority" or a litany of other things.
Censorship takes so many forms. From "understandings" in free societies that frown upon certain ideas and their expression by others, to formal laws and punishments or activities that curb "dangerous" thought or action that would otherwise upset the accepted norm or vision of society/government/organization that a group holds.
In the US we have a right to be free from censorship, or so the ideal goes. The reality is that a great deal is censored daily and that censorship is a common allowance in our laws dating back to the articles of federation and the constitution itself. This is not wrong, rather a political necessity.
Why is necessary? Free thought and ideas that run counter to the needs and stability of a nation, religion, or culture are always censored. Moral and ethical censorship follow the same preceipt, if for different stability issues. Censorship serves a purpose.
The problem lies in determining what should and should not be censored, at least in open cultures and societies. Should comments and ideas that run counter to sexual norms be allowed? Should that which exposes change to meet the needs of a minority group be allowed? Etc...
I think it boils down to the simple fact of who gets hurt by ideas and actions stemming from them? I would think that 99%+ of you here would agree that censorship of pedophilic ideas and materails should be banned (censored). Far less of you feel that way when confronted with free thought on politics or law, for instance the concept of anarchy and the "anarchist state" (you may not agree, but our general "rights" as citizens allow us to explore and understand these thoughts and ideas at a bare minimum, if not act on them in a way that threatens the current government and the nations stability).
The democracies of the world, in varying ways, are extremely "free" of censorship, when compared to other types of governements and political organizations. This does not mean that the US is free of censorship, nor could it be and hope to exist. Counter culture ideas and concepts are constantly filtered out by censorship (law making and punishment of "crime") to ensure a level of stability in the governement and society it is built upon.
Indeed, you can extend this to the concept that all crime and their associated punishments is a cycle of censorship. Society deems murder incorrect and puts into place laws and punishment towards the individual who perpetrates such activities. This curbs the spread of murder (okay, so this is a upfront and simple example, but you get the point).
2) Technology is the great equalizer. For every technical innovation that can assist in censorship efforts, a counter technology is developed and made public to ensure that censorship in the "information age" is not entirely viable. Only with penalty against the individual can censorship enjoy any practical advance (crime and punishment).
OK, I've been giving Jon Katz the benefit of the doubt for a long time now, but this is too funny, or maybe just simply sad.
You moron, Katz! In your above tirade, you explain how certain debaucheries are considered 'free speech.' Well that's great, but when people scream their 'free speech' by using keywords that attract search engines kids and naive people are using, into their hate and smut infested website, I don't give them the benefit of the doubt anymore. Is it great that this country has free speech? Absolutely, but the the right to free speech is not the right to cram filth down people's throats. And just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
Are you promoting pedophilia, Jon? Are you promoting email spam? No? Then why do you belabor this point about censorship?! Hell, even this website, slashdot.org, censors us all to a small degree. We're not allowed to 'scream' our ideas about how "gay linux" is, or how stupid the "slashdot janitors" are without first waiting 2 minutes to hit 'Send.'
This site is getting pretty pathetic with their posts of "oh, whoa is me!" with regards to censorship, when it does the same things to its own. Is it a stretch to say child pr0n = slashdot crapflood filter? Of course it is, but it's still censorship.
Let's quit making such a big deal about it, and discuss technology and nerd news, not your poorly thought out ultra-leftist ideals, Jon. Same goes for michael and his hatred for people that frequent and post to this newssite so much, like myself and many others.
P.S. Why the hell do I get 'could not contact ad.doubleclick.net' error messages because of my hosts file filters when I sometimes refresh slashdot, and yet doubleclick.net is the bain of every internet users existence according to the slashdot crew? You guys really don't think cohesively sometimes!
Slashdot addresses the question of censorship in moderation in their FAQ.
The very definition of the word "censorship" is "to remove or suppress what is considered morally, politically, or otherwise objectionable" (dictionary.com). As is demonstrated by the other posts in this thread, the concerned posts still exist on the slashdot servers!
All that happened was the editors chose to draw attention away from these posts. While this could be a questionable practice, it is not censorship!
Everyone should get on the same wavelength and figure out what they're fighting before they start fighting it.
I've only ever seen slashdot remove comments from its site twice, both DMCA related. So the other day i was surprised to find 3 of my comments deleted, and replaced with an explination which said:
/.'s fault. Its that ****ing pig-****er Bush's fault. I'm gonna **** that ****. Ok, i can understand why a threat to the president of America could be dangerous - the secret service need to know whats going on. But why censor it? is that not protected speech?
"This comment has been removed since it was clearly in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 871 (Threats Against The President) and / or Section 875 (Interstate Communications: Extortions / Threats). You can Read More Here. We're sorry to have to do this, and while we don't necessarily agree with this, it is still the law. When the Secret Service gets involved, we don't have many options. We appreciate your understanding in the matter. Please call (202) 406-5000 if you have any questions."
slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=28127&cid=3023341
Now, don't get me wrong, its not
Let me put it another way: If i throw a brick through the whitehouse window saying "Die Bush" on it. That is a threat to be taken seriously. I would be a threat, i should be arrested. Now, if, i write an comment on a web site a thousend miles away, that tells people what i think of a certain someone, it is my right to free speech.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
The strange dichotomy is that the more censors try to curb information, the bigger and richer "The File Room" grows.
Wow, a web site that catalogs what it considers to be censorship grows every time they find a new instance! That is a strange dichotomy, indeed!
It's hard to censor something that changes so often. Broad sweeping generalizations will get you no where. Sorta like sterotyping people. It doesn't work.
I believe if a large company, say AOL or MS, starts censoring information, people will do one of two things:
1) complain heavily, gaining the attention of the government
2) not care.
I am betting on #2.
Sent from your iPad.
The very definition of the word "censorship" is "to remove or suppress what is considered morally, politically, or otherwise objectionable" (dictionary.com). Moderation does not remove or supress information, it merely highlights parts of the information. I know this one is just a joke, but I think slashdot readers should be aware of this fact.
There is a difference between free speech and the aura that the general population / post-modernism has created surrounding it. Free speech is not the right to say or express whatever you desire and where; it is exactly the right to keep the government in line and was first legislated to allow emphasis upon a democratic society.
Censorship is merely a partial means to control the path society takes, and is part of law.
org9
see my Earlier post.
The poster seems to be confusing free speech with criminal speech. Criminal speech includes such things as perjury, threats, sexual abuse, and libel. These are not, and have never been deemed protected under free speech laws.
On the other hand, the supreme court has repeatedly upheld citizen's rights to express their opinions no matter how unpopular, to display art no matter how distasteful, to research and publish biographies of public figures no matter how embarrassing. I believe it was Judge Oliver Wendell Holmes who first stated the still current opinion that "The constitution is only necessary to protect speech that the public finds offensive!"
There are criminal uses of speech, but freedom of speech is not conditional.
"there ought to be limits to freedom"
Some people also know that English is a bastardization of the many languages that came before it. So to argue how something is spelled today is actually very silly. Did you know that even famed physicist, teacher Richard Feynman argued that English should be taught as a phonetic (the irony of that word) language (see "Meaning of It All : Thoughts of a Citizen Scientist").
Perhaps free speech is more of a choice issue. You have the choice to listen to an idea or ideas (speech), or to broadcast/speak your ideas to others. However, the listener or speaker does not have the freedom to make you listen or prevent you from listening to one or more specific sets of ideas.
Therefore, it would be censorship of free speech if an outside source prevented you from listening to an idea. It would not be censorship if you set your computer to block out ideas you personally found offensive and did not want to hear about. Provided the citizen has the freedom of choice to speak (or not speak) his or her particular ideas, without forcing others to listen to it, I don't think censorship is an issue. As long as freedom of choice is there, I think all is well.
There is of course, an exception to this, in that if the freedom of speech exposes one to unnecessary danger or can endanger others, then perhaps it should be censored. This is where I think most of the arguements over censorship occur, as one person's censored material is another person's prized free speech. Pornography is one example. Racist speech is another. Some of us want it, and others don't. One side says its harmful, the other claims its their right to tell dissenting views. Ultimately, its up to the majority to decide what should freely open (dissent and agreement) and what should be either censored or relegated to fringe (you have to put effort into finding it, hearing it, not freely available).
Countries where Censorship have existed or do exist block choice, and therefore, block the freedom of speech in both directions. The US doesn't do this for the most part, so I think we're fine.
-When going for broke, go for Ithaca!
Now, I firmly believe real censorship is wrong.
However, when you widen the definition too much then you lose the battle when something that really is censorship comes around... For instance, the ACLU has supported the same suits the Christian Coalition has. However, for a good amount of people, they see some of the cases they suppport and then decide it's *all* a bunch of nuts.
But I digress...
(I can't believe I'm posting in a Katz editorial...)
I wish people would read the First Ammendment before they reference it. The Constitution guarantees you the right to not be stopped by the government from speech ("Clear and present danger", fire in theatre, laws aside).
It does not guarantee you a podium, your right to buy a podium, or an audience.
If you are using the equipment owned by even the government - a library or school - and they limit what you can "hear" or "say" over their equipment, feel free to disagree with it, say it's pointless, a bad idea, etc.
But don't say it's censorship. The only legitimate Constitutional gripe I think anyone has for these type of things is if they would filter unevenly, esp. regarding religion - i.e. let pages promoting Islam come through but ban pages promoting Buddhism.
As for ISPs...
They are corporations and as such have one goal - making money for their shareholders. And before anyone wants to generally comment on corporations being evil, I suggest they dump any 401(k) plans they have.
ISPs are going to make policies to keep members from posting things that are going to harm their image, which affects the bottom line when they can.
I'd think that often they might do so not because of policy but fear of being sued by anyone "hurt" by a customer's speech. Of course the gov't can legislate they have to apply any such policies equally as a civil rights issue.
But the bottom line is this - it is not censorship when a private group tries to stop speech. If you have the right to say "I think I should be able to say X" then doesn't someone else have the right to say the opposite?
If they resort to illegal means you can call it vandalism or property destruction but that's something else. It is also not censorship when the owner of the computer or network connection you are using, public or private, limits speech access, especially if it's done equally.
It is censorship if the government makes a law or enforces the idea that you can't make or receive certain speech on your own time with your own capital. And that's about all it is.
********************
I object to Intellect without Discipline.
A system is never 100% perfect, and if people want something, they will find a way round it. Defending and enforcing censorships is a far, far, more difficult problem than finding your way around it.
For instance, use a strong, public encrypted steganography, and put up a censored text up on a site hidden in plain view. Or use an encrypted P2P network like Freenet. Or one of a hundred different ways of getting past these things.
Whatever new protocols are introduced (and it's very unlikely in my mind that any company could introduce this - for one, free OS's like Linux and the BSDs would still have the libre net for themselves...) how can they possibly check for every trick a user could create? Unless they want to have a system that takes at least a few weeks to check through each packet, it's completely unworkable.
You could build an OS entirely closed, and cut off from any user interfering (again in theory - I doubt it would work that well in practise) - but it's too late for that anyway. Such an OS would just mean the rise of other that didn't block access, and hasten its own demise. Or, with the rise of cheaper computers, surely even if the OS were totally sealed, and if for some reason you didn't want to part with it (Killer app?), you could still have a spare computer with a open OS, for those times when you want a taste of freedom.
How appropriate for this article. Note to Lameness filter specialists: Getting rid of the Gaper is futile. Perhaps ESTOAG could make his way to the File Room?
Liberate your mind in two clicks or less.
Katz, you suck. You vulgar little maggot. You worthless bag of filth. As they say in Texas. I'll bet you couldn't pour piss out of a boot with instructions on the heel. You are a canker. A sore that won't go away. I would rather kiss a lawyer than be seen with you. You're a putrescent mass, a walking vomit. You are a spineless little worm deserving nothing but the profoundest contempt. You are a jerk, a cad, a weasel. Your life is a monument to stupidity. You are a stench, a revulsion, a big suck on a sour lemon. You are a bleating foal, a curdled staggering mutant dwarf smeared richly with the effluvia and offal accompanying your alleged birth into this world. An insensate, blinking calf, meaningful to nobody, abandoned by the puke-drooling, giggling beasts who sired you and then killed themselves in recognition of what they had done. I will never get over the embarrassment of belonging to the same species as you. You are a monster, an ogre, a malformity. I barf at the very thought of you. You have all the appeal of a paper cut. Lepers avoid you. You are vile, worthless, less than nothing. You are a weed, a fungus, the dregs of this earth. And did I mention you smell? Try to edit your responses of unnecessary material before attempting to impress us with your insight. The evidence that you are a nincompoop will still be available to readers, but they will be able to access it more rapidly. You snail-skulled little rabbit. Would that a hawk pick you up, drive its beak into your brain, and upon finding it rancid set you loose to fly briefly before spattering the ocean rocks with the frothy pink shame of your ignoble blood. May you choke on the queasy, convulsing nausea of your own trite, foolish beliefs. You are weary, stale, flat and unprofitable. You are grimy, squalid, nasty and profane. You are foul and disgusting. You're a fool, an ignoramus. Monkeys look down on you. Even sheep won't have sex with you. You are unreservedly pathetic, starved for attention, and lost in a land that reality forgot. And what meaning do you expect your delusionally self-important statements of unknowing, inexperienced opinion to have with us? What fantasy do you hold that you would believe that your tiny-fisted tantrums would have more weight than that of a leprous desert rat, spinning rabidly in a circle, waiting for the bite of the snake? You are a waste of flesh. You have no rhythm. You are ridiculous and obnoxious. You are the moral equivalent of a leech. You are a living emptiness, a meaningless void. You are sour and senile. You are a disease, you puerile one-handed slack-jawed drooling meatslapper. On a good day you're a half-wit. You remind me of drool. You are deficient in all that lends character. You have the personality of wallpaper. You are dank and filthy. You are asinine and benighted. You are the source of all unpleasantness. You spread misery and sorrow wherever you go. You smarmy lagerlout git. You bloody woofter sod. Bugger off, pillock. You grotty wanking oik artless base-court apple-john. You clouted boggish foot-licking twit. You dankish clack-dish plonker. You gormless crook-pated tosser. You churlish boil-brained clotpole ponce. You cockered bum-bailey poofter. You craven dewberry pisshead cockup pratting naff. You gob-kissing gleeking flap-mouthed coxcomb. You dread-bolted fobbing beef-witted clapper-clawed flirt-gill. Fuck you!
Perjury: : the voluntary violation of an oath or vow either by swearing to what is untrue or by omission to do what has been promised under oath (Source m-w.com)
So, perjury has nothing to do with free speech. Perjury probably falls closer to items like contract law. It also has to do with swearing an oath and there are even protections in the Constitution against self-incrimination to help protect yourself in said situations.
Other restrictions to free speech are related to injurious statements. Slander and libel are both statutes that cover the improper use of free speech. In those cases it is deliberately using false-hoods or misstatements to injur a person or their reputation. Later these protections were extended to cover corporations as well. Death threats are covered under criminal intent. Finally, the "yelling fire" one is covered under criminal intent as well. In that case you are deliberately attempting to cause panic and probably end up indirectly injuring someone during the resulting evacuation.
The problem is in the realm of "potential harm". This is where bad laws like COPA and ratings associations step in. Using laws to "protect" us from content that we can very well protect ourselves from is absurd. First, a law is far too inflexible to deal with this dynamic world, second it leads us to the level of the "most easily offended" people dictating to the rest of the world.
Finally, if it can't be identified cleanly and completely, it shouldn't be restricted. This is why "Hate Speech" is protected. Give me a strong definition of Hate Speech and what the boundaries of it are. Where is the boundry between a misguided bigoted rant and a dangerous hate group's manifesto drawn? The test of "most reasonable people will agree" is not quantitative enough to allow laws to be written that cannot be abused in the future.
In all cases of restricting free speech we should strongly err on the side of the cautious and only restrict when absolutely necessary and with very clearly defined limits to the restrictions.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
I'm not sure why people are so shocked/outraged/stunned/hurt by Cisco working with China on a firewall.
"After reading about how the Chinese got Cisco, et al to cooperate in the Great Firewall, I had the realization: War is just a matter of lining up all the smart people on both sides, the side with the most driven and smart people will win."
Cisco is a company, if someone comes to them with a project, and offers them money, why would they say no? Because of the "Freedom" they are taking away from the Chinese people? Nonsense.
The freedom isn't taken away by companies, it's taken away by the Government. If China is putting up a firewall, don't blame Cisco for it, blame the Chinese Government for it. If people in India lose the right to a rice because ADM patented it in India, don't blame ADM, blame the Indian government for it.
It seems to me that it's much easier and "hip" to blame a Company for the woes that befall someone than the Government of the Country in which it happens.
Except in the United States, everything is blamed on the Government of the United States, even when they have nothing to do with it.
The DeCSS issue is a matter of free speech, because the right to post the DeCSS code, which can be considered a form of speech, is being repressed. The idea being that the DeCSS code is no different than a bomb recipe. Bomb recipes, I believe, are generally protected speech. It is the making and using of the bomb and the use of the DeCSS code to make and distribute digital copies of DVDs that are illegal. The problem is with the DMCA and the fact that it makes it illegal to share that recipe.
In my opinion, it would be more justifiable to censor those who would share bomb recipes than to censor those who shared DeCSS code, because of the real possible cosequences that the former could have on our society. However, for some strange reason, our lawmakers seem to be placing a higher priority on the "right" of content producers to maximize the profitability of their IP than having a safe, secure society. Not that I believe either should be censored, mind you.
.
Well, if this is what was happening, I'd not have too much of a problem. Of course, to actually keep people from sharing information with their friends, you'd have to install a policeperson in each and every person's house. And, after doing that a good 25% of the country would be hauled off to jail each year for copyright violation. If that's the kind of world you want to live in, that's fine.
But, that isn't what's happening. The distributors know that the public would never stand for enforcement on that level. So, they go after software and hardware that enables people to do these things. That IS a free speech issue, particularily in the case of software.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
This is one of the worse and most overused cliches, almost as bad as the constant use of "For the first time since ..." Ideas change over time and what's acceptable follows. At one time what was very much acceptable may not be now, in reference to within the USA. I have examples of newspaper comic strips which were syndicated and widely distributed in the 1930's which would herald a flood of outrage letters to features editors if run today, simply because they may depict a child getting drunk. Very much the same, Foster Brooks was funny as a drunk on TV, but that's unacceptable now, but lovers talk of jumping from bed to bed and not knowing who the father is, etc. is now acceptable, at least to network censors.
One of the primary reasons, IMHO, why there's the appearance of so much censorship in the USA is because there are a lot of people coming up with ideas. Rather than out in the field or factory all day, and coming home too tired to care, americans have lots of leisure time, also it is one country which has embraced the internet rapidly, bringing millions into it. Trolls or artists, that's up to the reader to decide. Censorship is usurping the readers freedom to decide, perhaps acceptable in cases regarding children, but it's the symptom of subcultures populated with people who don't consider who may be in their audience (or are just to damned to care) and despotic people who would project their own set of values on everyone. As hard as one extreme pushes, equally hard the other pushes back. The context of the battle changes, but the field remains the same and always will.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
When the issue of internet censorship pops up (which of course is unfortunately frequently), i always find myself wondering why it's not ok (or in many cases "legal") to say on the internet what is perfectly ok or legal to say in person.
If i was to say "G.W.Bush sucks cause i don't like his haircut." to a friend of mine on the street while hundreds of people walk by, that would not be a crime, or worthy of censorship. In fact, nobody would give it a second thought. Granted, that sentence is rather ridiculous, but content aside, i'm trying to make a point. Now if i were to post that same comment on the internet, on my own personal web page, am i still allowed to do that? Am i defaming Bush? Am i going to be censored? Maybe, it all depends who sees it and who takes offense. I find that rather incredulous. I can stand on the street, and speak defamation and obscenities to all who pass by yet all that will come of it will be those who agree or get a chuckle out of my ranting, or those who think i'm a social deviant or want to beat me up. Still, i CAN say it. I just can't write it. Is it the perception that the internet is no longer individual voice but rather it is in fact a form of mass media?
Lets say i do the exact same thing, i stand on the street spouting off all my ill-gotten opinions on whatever subject i like, to hell with political correctness. Only this time, a local news crew shows up and broadcasts my rant. Should i be silenced then? What if it were a national news crew? I think the likelihood of someone seeing my rant on national news is far more likely than someone finding my one little page among the endless quagmire of web pages.
My point is, it's ok to think freely. It's okay to voice your opinions freely - but on a small scale. Our freedom to express our ideas was curbed long before the net came along. It's all about how many feathers you ruffle, and to whom those feathers belong.
You piss off 1000 average joes in downtown Chicago, so what. You piss of one person that for whatever reason decides to have you silenced, well... it could be the 1st or the 1001st person you come across. So to what lengths do our freedoms really exist with respect to free speech? Is the censorship on the net really a new brand of restriction on our percieved right to free speech, or is it just the line that was always there resolving itself into something more distinct, more perceptible to us all? I'm arguing it's the latter. I'm arguing that our right to free speech is just local at best. We can think whatever we want, we can say whatever we want, just so long as we say it quietly.
There is an exception to that rule, and while this exception has become the agent of many a revolution for good, i'd argue that it's become the agent of tighter censorship on us all. That exception is that it's okay to speak out, IFF you can find enough people that agree with you. You want to end slavery? Fine, so do a whole bunch of other people. Great, speak out, slavery's gone. Phew - dodged a freedom bullet there. But wait, now we've gone and reinforced the idea that you can't speak out against anything unless you can get a bunch of people that agree with you.. You can have free speech, but not as an individual. I think that idea has very ominous ramifications, and this is what we're seeing now on the net. An individual or small group cannot post ideas that will ruffle feathers, else, you face censorship. Welcome to the new age, America.
The idea of protecting the public from certain kinds of speech is a good argument and a flawed argument; a person is free to lie, yes, but not for the purposes of stealing money. That's fraud, not free speech. The public is being protected from criminals, not from the speech itself. And if people were not allowed to say and act as they please then wouldn't there be oppression as was found in England at the time of the writing of the 1st Amendment?
As for the CD/DVD copyright issue, let me make it clear:
Playing "Cop Killer" by Body Count is free speech
Copying "Cop Killer" by Body Count onto another medium for the purposes of back-up is fair use
Copying "Cop Killer" by Body Count for re-distribution and profit is stealing from Ice T. Major uncool, and dangerous if T finds out that you're jackin' him.
Useless opinions, worthless observations, and more!
So by your own definition using unlimited moderation to attempt to surpress something is Censorship.
That it failed for various reasons does not preclude it from being censorship, after all nearly every instance of censorship or prohibition fails in some way.
Actually, that's pretty damn ironic.
"Enough of this wretched, whining monkey life." -- Marcus Aurelius, _Meditations_, Book 9, 37
That's why I always say Kill your TV. And then people view such advice as snobbery. This is real, folks. You need to get a grip and not let these scumbags into your head. Oh, you're immune from being brainwashed? I beg to differ. People in general are very susceptable to brainwashing. Flip through your history books and then catch up on your scientology reading. Kill your TV.
Apparantly one or two of our denser moderators believe that talking about the disappearance of a discussion on Slashdot about censorship by Slashdot editors can't have anything to do with a story about censorship and the internet.
I'm sure this is a "user generated stories disappear after a while" problem and not "this particular story is being suppressed", but it still sounds ontopic enough for me.
"Despite relentless efforts to curb art, speech, software, writing, thinking and the free flow of ideas, censorship as a contemporary idea is virtually impossible. The Net killed it, and now the Web is becoming a living, global archive of ideas people want to kill. "
It maybe impossible to completely censure everyone. However the ability to squelch the vast majority is undiminished as it has always been.
Just now instead of speech being heard - being more a function of political or monetary abilitym now on the internet it will be ones technical ability to circumvent censorship filters or knowing where to go to see all the available information, rather than just someone elses view of what should be seen or not.
Example might be, in Kansas City there are multiple library systems in the metro area. 7 counties, city libraries, colleges, etc. One area decides to only make available filtered internet access. Another does not filter any content, a third asks a question of what type of access is desired.
The technical knowledge of what library offers what access determins what can be seen.
Beware, Tom the Jesus Freak is haunting the boards once again, hoping to convert the non-believers and push is puritan values on us.
Ban him, his heretical. He likes to see his kids naked, and he knows what a dildo is... ban him!
"So where do issues like pornography and hate speech fall? "
That's easy. There's no such thing as either of these ideas.
I find it disturbing that people consider the mating act by humans pornographic. People who think that must hate themselves and their parents because everyone on this earth was created by a "pornographic act". I mostly pity people who think that way.
As to hate speech, again, there's no such thing. Hate speech is loosely defined as "speech that makes me uncomfortable". To which I reply "Grow up".
Really, these ideas you expressed are juvenile rantings. They merely wish to control other's thoughts. In some people's worlds, they want to control what other people think and see.
Its the mark of a stunted personality. "These ideas are dangerous because (insert idea here). No one must be allowed to express them. They're hateful".
Censoring is great. The DCMA, RIAA, and all Jesus Freaks around the world out number and out holy you little computer geeks. Don't let satan win... support censorship of all non-holy things. Isolate yourself from "free thought" and the "internet" as they are tools of the devil promoted by demons in human flesh.
....but I got high
I was goin' to post a story, but then I got high
I was goin' to make some sense in article, but then I asked why?
then I got high, then I got high, then I got high
My name's JohKatz, and I get high
I don't make sense, when I get high
I'm a fucking moron and I know why
cuz I got high cuz I got high cuz I got hi-i-igh
Click on my sig, journal entry has a brief run-down. Links exist, as well.
It's good to be capped, baby.
l
In the USA one is protected from GOVERNMENT censorship ONLY, not the censorship by one's next door neighbor nor the censorship by the contributors to the local art gallery. The government is by the people. If you are the only one in town who views pr0n as art and the other 99 people view it as filth, and the town leadership represents the 99%, you will have to defend your right. This may take your time, your money (in hiring an attorney to defend you, or to fight whatever local statute you've had your collection siezed, possibly court fees) and you may ultimately lose any goodwill among your neighbors. So it's not just a matter of law, it is financial and political.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
MOD THIS UP.
Did you write this? Excellent and insightful, even though somewhat OT.
but my company's proxy won't let me go there ...
Freedom is less about being allowed to do things that everyone thinks are a good idea and more about being allowed to do things that just about everyone thinks are a bad idea. Free speech is about being allowed to say things that most people don't want to have said. That's why freedom is a hard issue.
But tell that to the Chinese government. Or the Austrailian government. Or many other governmental or corporate organizations out there. As long as there exists the desire in some to control what others see and hear, then there will be censorship. It's human nature. The effectiveness of censorship, on the other hand, will never be perfect. If someone is determined enough, they'll overcome it.
The government of the USA has already enacted a law putting a carnivore unit in any ISP they want. How hard would it be for them to start firewalling certain kinds of information, like the Chinese already do. This kind of thing is only one law away from reality, the infrastructure is already there to do this.
The article mentions ingeneious hackers finding a way around censorship... he forgets that goverment employees can also be quite ingeneious when paid enough.
Sorry to say, this article is optimistic piffle. The facts just don't bear out the assertion that "Censorship is dead".
Censorship is dead! Long live Censorship!
So far, so good.
The ability to live in a country where we can publicly speak out against injustice and oppression is priceless.
In theory at least. For all it's great moral principles of life, liberty, and pursuit of hapiness, the U.S.A., in practice, has seen some very ugly violations of same: slavery, McCarthyism, internment camps, etc. I suppose nobody is perfect, and mistakes serve to teach lessons.
Where would our nation, and even the world be if Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was not free to challenge his people to practice nonviolent protest?
Well, his freedom got him murdered, because he dared assert it. But, the point is made: his assertion of his principled right to liberty paved the way for greater freedoms for others. If we defend liberty, perhaps only some of us will enjoy it, but if we don't, then none of us will. It takes a while, but I, too, have come to the conclusion that I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees.
However, the issue of free speech is not so cut and dry.
Oh, oh! I sense waffling ahead.
I hope that most people will agree with me that COMPLETELY free speech is NOT a good thing.
Er, I don't.
For example, what if a witness was free to lie when testifying at a trial? Laws against purgery are technically "curbing" free speech.
No, laws against purgery serve to punish those who lie under oath. With the narrow exception of a sub-peona, no one is forced to testify. And, even then, no one can be forced to testify against themselves.
I think you are confusing a right with the freedom to voluntarily give up that right if you chose (and, indeed, you would not be truely free if you couldn't).
However, these kinds of restrictions are necessary in order to promote justice and freedom for all.
Again, no. A functioning judicial system may require those making use of it to accept certain rules of order. You are free to not accept those rules if you chose to not prosecute, and you are free to not testifiy in a manner that would be self-incriminating. In any conflict, we see contrary "freedoms" clash, and resolution requires either the making of war on one another (something neither party is likely to want), or accepting terms of a neutral intermediary to settle the dispute. The jurisdiction of a court is accepted because it is much better than the alternative, not because it is an unwanted restriction on our freedoms.
An extreme example might help: in theory, I should be free to go around killing people. But, then, it would stand to reason that others would likely go around trying to kill me. It does not take much to realize that giving up the "right" to kill people in exchange for not getting killed one's self, is, er, a pretty good deal.
Still, there is no law of physics that prevents me from commiting murder. I'm "free" to do this if I really want to. Obviously I don't want to.
Laws against slander, libel, death threats, and the proverbial "yelling fire in a crowded theater" fall into the same category.
You're (a) mixing two different things, (b) expressing a common misunderstanding about the "yelling fire in a theater" case.
First, prescriptions against deceitful or threatening speech exist because such speech causes harm (loss of reputation, or a rational fear for one's life). Even then, the standard is high: truth is a defense against libel, and the expression of an opinion as such is always protected.
Second, yelling "fire!" in a crowded theater is not prohibited... if there is, in fact, a fire. The reason is that the resulting panic, as bad as it may be, is presumed less harmful than an actual fire, but more so than no fire at all. Because there is no time to weigh the merit of the word "fire!" under those circumstances, it can't quailfy as an opinion, and so, the misleading expression of a state of immediate emergency is unlawful.
These laws are designed to protect the general public from the misuse of free speech.
This is a perverse way of looking at it. Such laws prohibit actions that are likely to harm, not speech per se. Except in the case of a threat, the nature of the harm is that of, at least, fraud. Arguing that this is a restriction on speech is like arguing that a prohibition against stealing is a restriction on trade.
So where do issues like pornography and hate speech fall? The question is, if purgery is prohibited in order to protect the public, could hate speech be prohibited for the same reason?
I fail to see how pornography is "hate" speech, though some might find it's general objectification of women as degrading. And, indeed, if it can be shown that the intent of publishing pornography (literally, "evil writing"), is to degrade, it can be restricted. However, there are no scientific studies which suggest that erotic displays of the naked humab body are harmful to any normal person exposed to them, even children; for all the anecdotal evidence that has been presented to support these claims. In fact, there is compelling evidence that social norms that are sexually repressive cause more harm, espescially to children, who grow up with all sorts of hangups or obsessions about things taboo.
Of course, this does not mean that anyone should be forced to be exposed to images they do not wish to see, either in their homes, or public places where such images would be "out of place". Again, prohibitions against such displays can fall under the fraud stautes: no one expects an X-rated show in place of a kid's magic show, for example.
As for "hate" speech, or speech which is unpopular, that generally deserves the greatest protection: if it exposes blatent corruption, it needs be told; if it is ugly, it will be ignored. I've written this before, and I'm sure I'll do so again, but the idiot standing on a street corner yelling racial epithets is less harmful than the guy who (secretly) won't give you a job because of the colour of your skin, despite all the appearances of offering "equal opportunity" employment. Yup, fraud, again. At least you can see the bigot for what he is.
And, exactly what constitutes "free speech"? I'm certainly no expert on the Constitution, but I believe that the first ammendment was put into place not to allow citizens to say and act whatever and however they please, but rather to act as a guard against the kind of oppression that was found in England at the time.
Er, the oppression of which you speak, was state restriction of unsanctioned expression: criticism of the state, non-approved religeon, etc. Which does raise an interesting issue: it is the government which is prohibited against restraining speech, and not private individuals. This is why business establishments can enforce a code of conduct, and employers can fire people for expressing undesirable views, even if true.
"Free speech" was intended to allow citizens to protest the actions of government when government overstepped its bounds, or was acting improperly. A prime example of this is the civil rights movement.
Actually, it is broader than that. Free speech means that the government can't restrict what you can express, unless the act, independent of the speech, is harmful. While this includes critical speech, it is not limited to it. This is important because it allows the expression of statements (i.e. Clinton got a blow job from a White House intern) without having to frame them as critical of government, and letting others decide what they think.
I don't believe that the first ammendment was intended to protect individuals who want to post child pornography on the Internet.
Drop the "child". Child pornography is prohibited generally because it encourages exploitation of children against their will, or without their consent, or understanding. Frankly, I always though that a legally emancipated 16-year-old (or whatever the relevant age is in one's jurisdiction) should be free to permit erotic images of herself to be published. The presumption is that she has demonstrated that she is capable of acting as an adult in society and understands the issues. There are, in fact, a small number of just-under-18 professional models who were prohibited from displaying their naked breasts in "calender" style publications. Since their income is derived from their appearance, and the earning years for this profession are generally limited, it could be argued that this was unlawful restraint of one's freedom to earn a living (the idea being that the popularity would increase with a bit of "skin", espescially if it was a calender displaying different models, most over 18, and bearing their breasts, placing the 17-year-old at a popularity disadvantage for future publications).
One can argue that is isn't the best way to make a living, and shouldn't be actively encouraged, and I'd tend to agree. But, it is not for me to decide what other adults, or people considered adults under the law, do as long as it is peaceful.
So, that leaves prohibitions against pornography in general, and the case for those has already shown to be flimsier than a g-string.
And, although it's rather controversial these days, I don't believe it protects those who want to make copies of DVDs and CDs and distribute them over the net or to their friends. That is an issue of "Fair Use", not free speech.
The idea here is that is not your speech to be freely "spoken". But here too, the first ammendment trumps the temporary protections offered by copyright in the end. Of course, lately, we're seeing a rather unusual definition for the work "temporary".
You could've hired me.
If censorship on the internet is so futile, explain this, this, and others. Right here on slashdot itself. Not to mention the rampant censorship that happens every day all over the internet.
Foes of various content generally go directly to the ISP hosting the offending material. (Just ask the guy running this site.) That gets things shut down really quick. Just because it's not always the government shutting something down, doesn't mean that is doesn't qualify as censorship.
Futile indeed. Having been censored myself on occasion, I'd hardly say the efforts were as such.
One future, two choices. Oppose them or let them destroy us.
Why is stopping my children going in to strip clubs not considered censorship, and in fact the correct thing to do, but blocking adult web sites and getting upset about pornographic spam viewed as being bad?
Well, I don't have children yet, but they're on the horizon. I find much of the spam I get offensive and certainly wouldn't want it in my child's inbox. I'm against censorship and I will do my best to educate my children properly. But I can't hold their hands the whole time, and unlike the real world, none of the crap on the internet has a bouncer on the door to keep minors out.
It's easy to see why so many people have become rabid and sponsored the installation of censorware. I'm very computer literate, but I'm not sure yet how I will deal the issues. With that in mind, how are the great unwashed masses supposed to handle it?
Until somebody finds a way to give children the same protection on the internet that they have in the real world, then what Jon is calling "censorship" is not going to go away. Without any kind of self-restraint and moderation by the offensive parties on the internet, the censorware lobby will not show any either. The battle will not end, and I suspect it will only get worse. Yet again, your head is in the clouds with your idealism, Jon.
...try: http://www.thefileroom.org/FileRoom/documents/Cate goryHomePage.html
It will save you some mindless clicking.
As for the USA being #1, let me offer several observations.
1. Many of the USA incidents were artists feeling "oppressed" because the owner of a private space refused to show their work. What would it say about censorship in the USA if owners of private spaces were compelled to show works they did not like? Isn't my blank wall or un-defiled Madonna also freedom of expression? Now, if the gallery is public it's a different story, but it's still not censorship. After all, you take a government hand-out, you play by the governments rules. True censorhip is when the government refuses to allow you to publish that which you are capable of publishing yourself, or takes your money to support views opposite yours. So, why isn't the public school system listed as a form of censorship? I takes money from Christians, and refuses to allow the preaching of Christianity in the school. Anybody who opposes censorhip must support vouchers for this very reason.
2. Reports for countries that are genuinly oppressive cite fewer incidents because the censorship is against broad classes of speech. For example "no religion". This type of censorship is far more damaging than the single localized incidents cited in the USA. If you took all the USA reports on libraries and simply wrote a brief "Libraries are often pressured by community groups over sexual material" the result would be "people who really want it use their own Internet connection". There would be a lot fewer incidents in the USA category.
3. Reports from other countries are harder to obtain. Duh! They're censored. This also proves the point
4. People in other countries won't even try some of the things that people do in the USA. The flag thing is a great example. The penalty for desecrating the flag in some of these other countries is probably death. No wonder nobody has tried such "art" over there.
Distilling things down to the number of reports and saying the USA has the most is unscientific to say the least.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
"The access to information and opinion the Net has given kids is one of the most terrifying ideas of the 21st century."
Giving children chances to think for themselves. No longer being able to force-feed them Americanized television. Maybe it's just me, but having access to vast amounts of information is what is making the younger generation smarter than ever before.
Tell me, JonKatz, when's the last time you went to the BBC's website, or IndyMedia.org and read about what really happens in Israel/Palestine? The fact that US Media doesn't present all the facts may not be "censorship", per se, but the ability for todays young people to get the whole picture if they choose to do so is invaluable, not terrifying.
Along those same lines, as a young person (19) I also take offense to your statement. JonKatz, young people today are much more involved and aware than you could ever possibly imagine. You should get your story straight before you babble things that contradict things said only a paragraph up.
-kwishot
Just a few notes, with the usual disclaimer - I'm not a lawyer. So take this for what you will.
Legally, pornography is 'free speech,' that is, it is protected by the First Amendment, until it reaches the level of the obscene. When's that, you ask?
Beats the hell out of me. This is the source of the famous quote on obscenity, "I know it when I see it." But that's that - something that is simply lewd is protected by the First Amendment; something that is obscene is not.
As for fair use, it cannot so easily be divorced from the idea of free expression. Several legal scholars, including Lawrence Lessig, Yochai Benkler, and Nimmer - a famous authority on Copyright - have argued that the IP clause of the U.S. Constitution is limited by the First Amendment.
That's to say that Congress's granting of "exclusive rights" for the advancement of progress in "Science and the Useful Arts" is limited by the often opaque First Amendment analyses for which the Supreme Court is famous - there's a balancing test between the government's interest in propounding the regulations or legislation in question and the public interest in free expression.
This is what is afoot in the Eldred v. Ashcroft case that the Supreme Court recently agreed to hear (on the Mickey Mouse Protection Act). While it will be some time before arguments are made, you can be sure this issue will come up, and you can be damn sure that someone (probably a dissenter) will be making the arguments that the public interest in free expression constitutes a boundary limiting Congress's power to grant exclusive rights.
Anyway... that's my inflation-adjusted $.02, take it for what you will.
It may be cold, but at least it's clear.
That wasn't censorship, it was editing.
Censorship is what governments do.
Editing is what editors do.
This is a privately-run forum, the content of which is largely decided upon by a handful of editors.
That thread was a brute-force attempt to change the subject of a pre-decided topic - one that had no relation to "the forbidden topic".
It was offtopic and moderated as such.
If it was even like censorship, the posts would have been deleted. They weren't, last I checked. Anyone who wants to set their threshold so low that they see this sort of irrelevant crap can go read all of the posts, exactly as they were typed in.
Sure, it was an active thread, but it was only popular with a few hundred of Slashdot's half million or so readers. The people who came to read about the Oracle story probably couldn't care less about what this vocal minority was talking about. I doubt that most of the readers of this site give half a crap about trolls and Penis Birds and goatse guys and Natalie WhatsHerFace and whatever she has in her pants.
Some of us come here looking for stuff that matters to them, not stuff that rightfully gets modded down.
If this "Troll Investigation" were so important, it should have been submitted as a story. If it got rejected, it should have been sent to ZDNet or Salon or put up on a free Geocities page. For God's sake, print out a few hundred copies of this "story" and pass it out in front of your local city hall. You'd see then just how little people care about this particular non-issue.
As for heavy-handed editors with unlimited mod points, get over it. Any publication either thrives or fails due to its editorial guidance. I'd say that Slashdot would quickly become completely unreadable if people with too much time on their hands were allowed to hijack a story in which they had little interest to go on a rant about something of so little interest.
Having a moderation system in place lets me filter out unrelated junk - that thread included. It's not perfect, but it works well enough for me.
Calling it censorship doesn't strengthen its importance. It shows a mis-understanding of the term. Why not just call it 'Terrorism'? That term is getting mis-used a lot lately with good results...
JMNSHO...
-- My Weblog.
I really think that this **censored**. I mean, any **censored** can see that **censored**. Is it really that big a deal to have **censored**?
**censored** can only **censored** **censored**.
Really people!
**censored**
The former is a crime. The latter, I suspect, is the practice of puking. (Bleeaaaaagh!)
Congrats on your 1000th comment!
Heeewacko!
You just ran one hell of a great ad for a very good site that is doing something mildly important.
Okay, now are you a marketer, or are you a journalist?
Surely, you're aware that people have collected censored works since, well, since censorship began occurring. You can find accusations of possessing banned information dating back pretty much to the first examples of written language.
When you're dealing with censorship, and protecting the ability of people to access information, you have to realize that you cannot look at it from the point-of-view of the technoliterati or the intelligentsia. You have to go down to the people.
The Internet isn't so much more difficult to censor than any media has been. All of network television in America is controlled by, what, 5 companies? So, censorship is easy. How many backbone routers have to be reconfigured to censor an internet site for an entire country, Jon? How many companies would you have to contact to have them censored? Here's a hint: not very bloody many.
The File Room is difficult to censor in the same sense as an activists library of banned materials is difficult to censor: it's small, and it can migrate, and other people can choose to copy the works and possess their own library, which others can access and copy. Oop! We're talking about P2P, here, another meme that's a favourite of yours -- so why didn't you connect them?
The File Room is largely meaningless. It's a good resource for people like us to use to access censored information, okay. How much does it help the guy in North Korea, though? He jumping on board to read those censored documents? He probably doesn't have a computer, Jon.
The Internet is fragile. It can be controlled on a regional level, because 99% of any populace will be using optic lines that are basically under the control of the government. Sure, you'll have a couple of people hitting a dial-up server over international long distance, but those people have always existed -- they were the people who kept private libraries, who published anonymous newsletters, etc. This is NOTHING NEW.
Why an advertisement, Jon? Why not look at the efforts of various governments and corporations (cease and desist!) to censor the internet, and real media to boot? How successful have they been? Are people aware that things are being censored? Do they care?
What, really, does all of this ballyhoo about freedom of information and censorship *mean*? What does it mean to people who are fighting for their freedoms? What does it mean to the people trying to take it away?
Internet penetration is highest per capita in countries that are already pretty permissive about information sharing. To the people who really have few freedoms, who really want more, I don't think the Internet really matters. D'you? Tell me why. Don't give me an advertisement for a website that I find occasionally enlightening, but mostly annoying. The criteria "Stuff that somebody somewhere finds offense" makes for an awful lot of muck.
-l
But i thing the net can help here as well. Hopefully if people get more of their information from the net, and if they stop watching network news it will be very hard to control public opinion. Lying to the public will be almost impossible if their information comes from a multitude of sources many of which cannot be controlled.
Protection from the government, in my post, is protection from government power and authority.
Your statement is a very good example of the abuse of government power, authority and resources but you mix in "the people" as if every neighbor has a badge, gun and a jail cell waiting for you. The Constitution makes a distinction between the two: people and States have rights, the central government has power and authority. I am making the same distinction.
I did not say that your neighbors are not allowed to disagree with you, dislike you or even hate you for your beliefs and if they do it is not censorship either.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
here ya go:
)
You forgot a close-paren up there.
You're welcome.
Give me my freedom, and I'll take care of my own security, thank you.
this is censorship without a doubt.
"second it leads us to the level of the "most easily offended" people dictating to the rest of the world."
Amen. I wonder where people got the idea in their stupid heads that they have a right to not be offended?
BlackGriffen
Congratulations! Now do you feel like the slashdot old-timer you are with your 5 digit uid?
I did not say that they suppressed anything. All they did was move the content to the end of the page. (Read it with -1 enabled, you'll find it eventually)
You can hardly call moving content around (something I actually believe that they were in their right to do) suppressing the material!The post was blatently off-topic, and was arranged as such.
You don't see news broadcast being acused for censorship when they don't show the story about the girl who found her cat, do you?
It's not nearly as bad as some other posts that I have read. It really isn't that difficult at all to display all the comments and scroll to the bottom of the page. It's certainly not "locked away".
But wherever control can be organized censorship can occur. Did you know, for example, that pror to the September terrorist attacks on the USA, AG John Ashcroft was planning a massive prosecutorial attack on pornography? A lot of people on sites like Slashdot seem to think that with a few exceptions (i.e. kiddie porn) you can say anything you want and get away with it because of the First Amendment. But the First Amendment doesn't apply to "obscenity" and obscenity is defined by the entirely subjective principles of community standards and redeeming social value. Don't think censorship ended with Larry Flint, and don't forget what happened to Mike Diana. With the "new" threat of terrorism you should, in fact, expect things to get worse for certain kinds of information and expression.
And let's consider the case of DeCSS (to get out of the seedy stuff at least somewhat). They haven't made much headway with that code as expression argument yet, have they? That's a whole 'nother can of worms, where communication that contains NO proprietary elements and is not intrinsically obscene or dangerous (in a here's how to make a bomb in your shoes sense) can nonetheless be made illegal. Thank you DMCA, for building prior restraint into the constitution.
As long as people are being successfully sued, prosecuted, punished and imprisoned, censorship is occuring and it is far from "futile" from the points of view of those that practice it.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
What exactly was the "oppression as was found in England at the time"? Also... did the freedoms set out in the US Constitution just suddenly appear from nowhere 250 years ago?
IIRC, "obscenity" is to be determined by the community the "obsenity" was displayed in. The reason I remember something to this effect was that some judge ruled that nothing could be considered obscene in New York City (this was before Rudy, I think).
BlackGriffen
The Media gets it's information from the Government (who is the largest single entity capable of mass dissemination of information in time for hourly broadcasts and updates). If the Media, through many factors such as ownership, income (advertisements), and viewership can limit itself to only pushing a certain agenda (not forcing Corporate Accountability, because the corporate advertisers would then pull their sponsorship), you effectively have the 'Party Line' pushed hourly to your public.
Anyone who thinks outside the limited spectrum allowed above, must not have the ability to dominate air time. As long as they do not dominate, you can put them on Prime Time shows, give them 15 minutes to talk (8 minutes of that being commercials) and you effectively remove their ability to say anything useful. You can't say, and back up, in 2 spots of 4-6 minutes each, that the world as people know it is a sham. You can only say what is already accepted, again because you have no time to go through the proof.
Marginalization much much easier and more efficient than outright Censorship. And it's already in place and has been working for a very long time (longer than most would expect)
You need to open your mind and surf the web a little more. Pornography simply the act of pro creation by humans? I guess you only visit playboy.com. Fact is that "porn" includes things like bestiality, pedophilia, etc. Not just Mike and Mary doing the nasty in their bedroom.
/. is not a free for all, and most are happier for it. "Pornography" and "hate speech" DO EXIST. Just as "inappropriate posts" exist here. Just because YOU don't think a particular thing is porn, doesn't mean that the group as a whole does not think it is.
"speech that makes me uncomfortable"? Uhh, ok. I guess that includes you finding that type of thinking "disturbing", by your definition the concept of "hate speech" is to you "hate speech".
You seem to like looking at life simply, perhaps a bit too simply. This often comes from wanting to view things from an idividual perspective. Fact is is that we live in societies, groups of peoples with widely differing interests and motivations, some which are not compatable. In order for these groups of people to coexist happily, concessions are made on ones personal freedoms to attain this group, uh, "harmony". Just as
So, if you "find it disturbing", then perhaps you should "grow up". Perhaps it's your personality that is stunted"?
-- "It's obvious that you're intolerant of my intolerance." - Dogbert to Dilbert --
My question to the /. community is, do we really need him? He is either formulating his opinions on purpose, for the sake of the discussion, or he really is that clueless. Either way, he makes people around here think and reaffirm their beliefs. So knowingly or not, he is an important part of /..
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
I heard a commercial on the radio the other day for some beer company's winter party in Miami. The whole crux of the commercial was that they were going to air the "censored version, too hot for tv" over the radio.
Yes it's stupid. But it does illustrate the fact that apparently the American public sees such censorship as commonplace and therefore completely acceptable - acceptable enough to use it in a sales pitch for lousy beer.
I'm a 2000 man.
but Slashdot IS.
Gotta go!
It seems to me, at a quick glance at files 1995+, in the US, in the archive, that when a censorship case is taken to the courts the censors lose.
So censorship isn't a problem as long as the courts respect the constitution and the right to free speech.
And yes, it maybe be necessary to keep fighting for those rights. But then thats the point isn't it -if its not worth fighting for it shouldn't be a right.
If people are getting locked into proprietary [msn.com] interfaces [aol.com] with built in censorship
Hmm, AOL was a "locked in" environment. Then there was an email gateway, then you could load www pages in the AOL browser windows, then you could minimize the AOL window and use any winsock client (IIRC, the order may be slightly different).
Sounds like a history of ever greater openness and interoperability to me. Some of the AOL paranoia just astounds me. AOL is just a connection client (albeit heavy) with a built-in browser you may or may not choose to use.
So to argue how something is spelled today is actually very silly. Actually, it is not silly. I'd currently an English major on my way to being a secondary school English teacher and I see poor spelling, grammar, etc. every day. A person's writing skills can mean as much as their appearance. What if you were applying for a job and happened to spell a word incorrectly? I know if I were an employer your application would be sent to the bottom of the pile. Perhaps English should be taught as a phoenetic languange, but it isn't, and until it is, we need to try to put our best foot forward.
Alive Contains A Lie
Here's to your 1000th post! Your friends in trolltalk wish you the best in getting to #2000 before long.
--Vlad
from "WHY BOTHER? Getting a Life in a Locked-down Land" p35
"Why would a hard-won democracy willingly drift in such a direction? One reason is that if one is going to tolerate a growing divide between rich and poor, between those with power and those without, it is necessary to deal with the anger and alienation that results. If the traditional democratic approach - making the system fairer - is ruled out, then some form of oppression is ruquired."
I refuse to respond to this obvious troll.
"Just because YOU don't think a particular thing is porn, doesn't mean that the group as a whole does not think it is." -- And just because the group as a whole thinks it is does not make it so either. Right now in the United States, the group as a whole might say that being homosexual is a sin against nature and therefore should be purged from society. And much personal pain has come from that view. By your logic, it seems that gay people should defer to the majority. It is a fallacy to belive that the more people think a particular thing the more that idea becomes correct. I will defend a Klansmen's right to express his views, even though I don't agree with him. Child pornography should be stopped not because the images are distasteful (I'm sure the consumers of it would disagree), but because one must harm a child to produce it. The idea that outlawing the product will stop it's production is laughable. You can't legislate demand. You are correct in saying that we must make concessions to live together. But what concessions are made should be up to the individual. Actually, it is a self policing system. If someone makes no concessions to anyone, that person will not have many, if any friends. If a person spews extreme rhetoric, not many will listen thereby limiting the effect that rhetoric will have. Basically, I am an adult and I don't need anyone telling me what ideas or images or whatever are harmful to me. I can make that decision for myself. we must stop seeing ourselves as separate from "society". I am society. And so are you.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
I suppose you just emailed the poster's IP address and details to the SS, too?
~~~
Censorship is becoming irrelevant, there is so much data out there that people only go to their accustomed places. The recent examples of societies and cultures that have completely different outlooks on things and no matter how voulminous the amount of info they will not change their minds is more of a danger.
The 9/11 attacks were a Jewish conspiracy, or planned by the CIA (ask anyone in Saudi Arabia)
The Russians were cheated out of Olympic medals (ask anyone in Moscow)
The recent story about taxpayers in the US being victimized by confidence men who insisted that they knew how to apply for the slavery reparations in the tax code.
People generally listen to things that agree to wha they already agree with and do not want to be challenged on those beliefs and as the internet gets more prevalent as a medium for news delivery it actually makes this more dangerous not less.Self-censorship or viewer choice is the future
Just remember to set the preferences so that you only see what you want to
--- Ron
Governments can and will censor (no matter what the medium), and one always has to be vigilant. Let's not pat ourselves on the back and get complacent just yet.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
If that's true, then why the hell aren't we getting any royalties for licensing the Idea of Free Speech to other countries?
Dammit, if these rogue nations aren't going to pay up for the privilege of using our idea, we'd damn well better shut them up until they do! Otherwise all our intellectual properties will become vulnerable to the idea thieves!
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Thanks for the link to the file room. It is nice to know that there are some things being archived as censored which my at a later date be freed to somewhat more open minds.
However, the article is misleading in that you are attempting to prove that censorship is decreasing because a site such as this exists. What makes you think that the next version of censorware won't block it? Regretfully the net has/is becomming more commercialized each day from companies moving more of their daily operations online to the small family at home that got their first computer for Chrismas and signed online for the first time to aol/msn, and each group wants a certain point of control to help manage the flood of information, and this can only come in the form of censorship thus forming my first point.
My second point is that the Internet exists with computers, and running a server costs money not just in electricity, but also the bandwith, staff to keep the content up to date and maintain it from parts going bad to fixing hacks made by crackers thinking that it would be fun to take over a site. These things are not cheep. Slashdot and salon are several of numerous sites that had to go the way of banner ads and sponsorship to help remain afloat, and these things will also take a chunk out of liberty because we don't want to bite the hand that feeds us. Now salon and kuro5hin has gone to a membership fee thing for some of their better articles, but as of right now, these methods have had little affect against the massive infrastructure bills.
Lastly, like it or not, we (in the United States that is), live in a brain dead society where the thinking process of most people is the extent of what's on TV, and care about nothing else. Now I'm not too sure about the rest of you, but I'm pretty scared that there is one company that owns a lot of power in the media from movies and tv (roughly 10 stations where I live) to even the world's largest isp, and yet most citizens here not only see a problem with this, but think it's a great idea. Also, these same couch potatoes who have also started into the brave new world of dvds don't even realize the encryption technology embedded into the dvds and how some dvds won't play on specific players (not just dvds on Linux, but also on the hardware players) because one company has a grudge against another company.
So while our society has opened up with regards to what we consider acceptable within not just the past 10 years, but the past century, we are still undergoing and will always endure some kind of censorship regardless of how big and small
Censorship isn't the problem. In countries where censorship is real the citizens of those nations are quite aware of what is being censored and why. Only the most clueless insist, in a censored country, that censorship doesn't exist.
/.), establish the perception that the target is a tiny minority, and further the claim by suggesting that the reason it's such a tiny minority is that only unstable folks in need of medication would say such things in the first place.
The more insidious tactic, taken by governments in the First World, is to divert attention from a view that the government doesn't favor. One way is to create a larger crisis that overshadows the first (e.g., terrorism!), another is to drown the offending message in noise, and still another is to make the annoyance appear to be part of a tiny minority or even in need of professional help.
And it isn't government that has an exclusive on these tactics. Other groups are willing and eager to play the same game if it destroys or renders powerless an opposing viewpoint. If you own the local paper but don't want to be accused of censorship, go ahead and print that damned story...on page 47 of section C.
This isn't censorship. Censorship is too obvious. By comparison this more evolved kind of suppression goes completely unnoticed by the majority of would-be listeners because they can't find the message in the noise, or assume the message comes from highly questionable, minority sources.
Censorship would be nearly impossible to accomplish on the internet without someone noticing and making a fuss - x-file conspiracy freak theories notwithstanding. But suppression...suppression is a piece of cake. Suppression using one of the above methods becomes economical, even. Drown the target in noise and negative opinions (e.g., MS hiring folks to misrepresent themselves as average 'linux sux, dood' losers here on
Who needs ham-handed censorship when suppression through misdirection and lies is so much more effective?
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
And just because the group as a whole thinks it is does not make it so either.
...". Homosexuality, while viewed dimly by many, is at a minimum tolerated by most.
/., but the fact that the drones in the Windoze world exist makes this fact obvious. Many people do need a little help to remind them that certain things are harmful. Some drugs are addtictive, chemically, if you are not warned, how can you be expected to successfully avoid becoming dependant. Remember, we are products of our environment, and we know what we are taught (not just in school, but taught by life). And no one I know is so uber intelligent that they know everything that can be harmful to them.
Well, yes and no. Since we're talking about something that has no absolute value (some religous folks would disagree with this) anyway, by definition the groups opinion does make it so.
By your logic, it seems that gay people should defer to the majority. Nope, never said anything about deferring anything. Again, we're talking a concept that has no absolute rightness or wrongness, they would not have to defer, but they do have to understand the situation that they live in and behave accordingly. Now don't contrue that last statement as having to "bow" to the system. Rather, if you are living in an environment that is openly hostile towards you, you have to be smart about how you choose to interact with that environment. Be careful about your statement about "Right now in the US
Child pornography should be stopped not because the images are distasteful (I'm sure the consumers of it would disagree), but because one must harm a child to produce it
Right, but that's the point isn't it. It is "distasteful" because it is harmful, that's the whole crux of the matter. The majority of "morals" derive from protecting individuals and groups. Now of course not all morals are this way, but most of them are. Your statement is actually redundant. Murder is "distasteful" because it harms. Robbery is "distasteful" because it harms. Now some would say that homosexuality is harmful as well. As a matter of fact, those who are most vehementaly against it are the ones who think that it actually produces harm (which of course is the crux of pro/anti homosexuality arguments).
The idea that outlawing the product will stop it's production is laughable
An extremist argument. It's an obvious statement that you can't "elminate harmful things". And anyone who says that outlawing say drugs will somehow remove drug use is obviously delusional. However, would you rather live in a society where murder is legal or illegal. Making it illegal, obviously, does not prevent it from happening, but it does help to provide a baseline for most of the members of society to follow.
If a person spews extreme rhetoric, not many will listen thereby limiting the effect that rhetoric will have.
Tell that to the Jews after WWI. Tell that to the people working in the WTC on 11 Sept. Tell that to anyone who has been a victim of gang violence.
Basically, I am an adult and I don't need anyone telling me what ideas or images or whatever are harmful to me.
A grossly simplified view don't you think? Like it or not, many people suffer from the herd mentality. Maybe not people who hang out on
I hate these types of conversations on this type of medium. It's a wonderfully interesting topic to discuss, but it works better for me to be more interactive in discussion. There is so much I'm leaving out to keep things as succent as possible. Anyway, I don't think that we're too far off from each other, more a issue of understanding definitions and clarifications of assumptions.
> However, the issue of free speech is not so cut and dry. ... Laws against slander, libel, death threats, and the proverbial "yelling fire in a crowded theater" fall into the same category.
n dness.com/FREEDOM990628.htm
*sigh*
Yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater is NOT an issue of free speech.
Please read this link and learn why.
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.fatalbli
> And, although it's rather controversial these days, I don't believe it protects those who want to make copies of DVDs and CDs and distribute them over the net or to their friends. That is an issue of "Fair Use", not free speech.
Correct.
...thanks for saving me the effort.
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
...getting front page press play for his mindnumbing grasp of the obvious, whilst all the highly interesting and insightful crap I submit gets shot down in due deliberate fashion? I mean, I could accept that the moderators did'nt think my stuff amounted to hill of dried lima beans, or shot it down because I was the fifth of 2,000 /.'ers to submit it, but it pains me deeply to know that a stunning idjit like Katz gets on the front page for simply vocalizing what any 10 year old knows to be true, or worse, what we all know to be crap.
Can we have unrestricted free speech without spam?
I think this question highlights an issue central to the discussion of censorship in any medium. To wit: (I've always wanted to say that) control of Spam has nothing to do with free speech. It only relates to DELIVERY of that speech. If mary275382@yahoo.com.ru wants to tell 5 million undisclosed.recipients about Viagra for Women, under our laws she is free to do so. However, certain laws and company policies may prevent her from using certain servers/pipelines to deliver her urgent message. When it comes right down to it, she may have to resort to doing it the old fashioned way: one person at a time in the town square.
We've reached a point where "speech" includes technology that requires others to take actions to help distribute MY speech. Mary can say anything she wants in the town square, but she doesn't have the right to stick a note to my back so I unwittingly help spread her message.
In summary: yes, we can have free speech without spam.
Evil is the money of root.
What's the point?
- The editors have always claimed that Slashdot is a user-moderated site. After all, in the moderation story, they describe how they could no longer handle the sheer number of comments and moved from an edited site to a system where users would periodically get a small number of moderation points. The collective actions of those users would result a community consensus.
- As a result of the modflood, lots of legitimate users took karma hits for no reason other than that they happened to post a reply in a thread that the editors didn't like. This would likely not have happened if all of the moderations had come from users.
The funny thing is that if the editors had just let that thread die, it would have quickly faded into memory and nobody would be talking about it today, months after the fact. As a result of what they did, it has become infamous. Lots of people who missed it the first time around read it after the uproar started. There was even a front-page story on Kuro5hin linking to the story. I would imagine that the whole nested thread has been archived in a thousand different places on the Web. The mass-moderation accomplished nothing that it was intended to (quite the contrary!)The thread in question got a large number of "Offtopic" points from the user moderators, but by and large it got more positive moderations. This is because the afore-mentioned community consensus was that the thread was worth viewing. What the editors essentially did was reverse the "user-moderated" policy, nullify the community consensus, and robomod hundreds of posts to -1 with an unlimited supply of points. This is diametrically opposed to any claims of user moderation.
Moderating (and meta-moderating) Slashdot is not that enjoyable of a job, you know. It takes time and effort to find quality comments to knock up a point or two. When the editors completely disregard the will of the moderators (who are essentially unpaid employees) and start "fixing" things with an unlimited supply of points, they're basically saying "Thanks for the effort, but go screw yourself just the same." It is for this reason that I'm no longer willing to moderate (see sig.)
Additionally, I presume the main reason that everybody was moderated down was to hide the comments from default anonymous readers and prevent the comments from becoming part of the static page. To accomplish this, it would have been sufficient to mark those posts at zero. However, everybody got hit with -1's, and you can argue that this is just vindictive and disrespectful of a large number of users who really did nothing wrong.
Now, are a couple of karma points and a mass-modded threat worth whining about? Probably not. But there are legitimate reasons that a lot of people were bothered by what the editors did to that thread. I suspect that we probably won't see anything like it again anytime soon; after the resulting PR fiasco, one would think that the lesson had been learned. At any rate, it isn't much worth losing sleep over.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
And its effects have been described in literature at least since 1949.
I can't think of any military offenses that weren't natively described and strategized as "defensive" maneuvers. Germany had to "defend" it's territory from Allied Forces. France had to "defend" Indochina from the Indochinese. The U.S. had to "defend" Vietnam from the Soviets and Vietnamese.
It's not possible for the United States to take offensive military action because the U.S. citizenry would reject it with the ultimate veto of electoral power. Therefore, all U.S. miltary action has to be defined as "defensive" or "peacekeeping".
Similarly, foreign capitalist governments which remain open to U.S. trade are described as "democratic" if they were elected, or "moderate" if not, however repressive or totalitarian they may be. Governments which close themselves to U.S. trade are described as "totalitarian" if they are unelected, and "revolutionary" or "communist" if they were chosen by their citizenry.
Most American citizens don't even realize they're applying these terms selectively. The doublethink happens naturally, and without concious effort, because, in general Americans are decent folk who believe in what America stands for. Therefore, it's inconceivable that we would do anything but the right thing in any given circumstance. So whatever we are currently doing as a nation is the "right thing" by definition.
Of course, if we didn't do the "right thing," we certainly wouldn't enjoy the standard of living we currently enjoy, so obviously, it's the "right thing" for that reason too. Pretty much you just got to accept it, or fight the uphill battle against everyone who truly believes in their heart that our current level of economic and cultural success is really based on freedom and strict adherence to democratic ideals.
Think about this for a second : if the government is spending all its time and money censoring the internet or telephone communications, it just makes said governemnt MORE vulnerable to citizens protesting the old fashioned way.
"If a person spews extreme rhetoric, not many will listen thereby limiting the effect that rhetoric will have. Tell that to the Jews after WWI." Nazi Germany is a great example of what I'm talking about. There was a situation where what most people thought was ok ended up being quite detrimental to a whole group of people (maybe they didn't think it was all ok, but they did buy into it at some level). Many people DO suffer from the herd mentality. That is why individual freedom of expression is so important. You are correct to say that we are products of our environment and school and life lessons. That is why we must be free to learn these lessons. Not just have the answers given to us (which is what censorship tries to do), but to figure out for ourselves what is good or bad for us. A friend of mine once said, "I want the freedom to make a mistake". Hear hear! I also agree with you that this is not the best forum for this discussion. We are probably not far off in our outlook, and you seem to be an intelligent poster. Cheers!
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Because I want to make my own mistakes, I also want as much info as possible available to me. even if most of it is crap.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
I'd currently an English major
I think that this would make a nice sig, how about you?
Censorship works pretty well when it's a police state you jerk off. Give Ashcroft about two more months.
I agree completely with your first point, and the one thing I thought was worth considering was updating the FAQ to reflect these 'policies'.
However, I don't agree with your second point. While I honestly have no idea what the editors' opinions are on this, if I were them, I would not care in the least about the 'PR fiasco' or the 'karma hits'. Slashdot is still read by lots of people and karma is re-gained quite easily if you want it.
Regardless of what the moderators thought, when I see an article on Oracle Databases (I think that's where it happened), I don't want to see a debate going on about the moderation system. There are plenty of other places to discuss these sort of things (You mentioned the feature in Kuro5hin, or user journals) that I could seek out if I wanted to learn about this. Even better, I could stop whining and do something about it by emailing the editors or contributing to Slashcode.
Back to my earlier points, I don't care if the thread exists, and is linked to from Kuro5hin, then I can find it there. The mass-moderation was intended to take the material of the related (when it was actually un-related) story, not to genuinely obscure it.
Oh, and no single post deserves that many moderations. I know it was a kind of moderation-war, but people should just let it die, find something unrecognized to moderate rather than moderating the same post over and over and over.....
Finally, arguing about post scores (-1 vs 0) is really trivial, please don't tell me that you are only offended because the posts were knocked down ot -1, and that you would be perfectly happy with 0. It is not begin extra vinidcative or disrespectful. It's just a moderation! No, it's not worth losing much sleep over.
And as a final note, it hasn't been "months after the fact", it's been one month, and it only was mentioned at this rare opportunity to post on-topic on the issue.
I would have moderated those posts as off-topic myself.
If any of your kids are male and over the age of 11, you are almost certainly wrong.
Human nature will not be denied. None is so blind as will not see. Nothing is so irresistible as forbidden fruit, and nothing is so fascinating as that which is imbued with mystique.