The Futility of Censorship

Here's the great irony: There's more censorship -- all kinds, everywhere, involving more media and culture -- than ever before. But it's doomed to fail. As the Net and Web become more commercial, and as parents, government, schools, politicians, churches and corporations have belatedly grown interested in controlling networked computing and the speech and intellectual property therein, battles over censorship and content -- from school blocking filters to music wars to efforts to curb sexual imagery -- 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. 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.

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.

Comments

Great site

[TheGreenLantern]

But the questions is, who will archive this site when it is censored?

Meta-mod

[spellcheckur]

Censorship is just the government abusing it's unlimited supply of moderator points. Unfortunately (in the "free world"), too many voters don't take advantage of their meta-mod capabilities.

I just read my most. Now I know I need to take a break from /.

who'd have thought it

[skunkeh]

I found this quite amusing. One of the cases detailed in The File Room describes how Brown University closed down a site hosted there called "The Bondage, Domination, Submission, Sadism, & Masochism Web Page". The University computer support staff deemed the content inapropriate:

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 ;)

Sicko Jesus Freak Alert!

[Anonymous Coward]

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!