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Survey Reveals Americans Support Blog Censorship
renai42 writes "A new survey has revealed that Americans overwhelmingly support strong censorship for blogs, even though a substantial amount have never actually been to one. Eighty percent of the 2,500 respondents did not believe that bloggers should be allowed to publish home addresses and other personal information about private citizens. However, more than one-third of respondents had never heard of blogs before participating in the survey, and only around 30 percent of participants had actually visited a blog themselves."
Yeah, it's easy to say blogs need censorship, but how is official going to censor blogs.
Are we going to see a rating on each blog? G, PG, M, R, and P? For PG Rating, mothers will have to read blogs for their innocent children.
It a blog's breaking laws, then there are already venues to take action.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
So what you're saying is that the majority of Americans polled have no frigging clue what "Freedom" is all about, even though they support elected leaders that use it as a pro-word? As a citizen soldier, I think I'm gonna be sick.
War isn't about who's right. It's about who's left.
I feel the same about people who read blogs as I do about people who read tabloids. If you don't want to read it, then don't look. If the information is a little too personal for you than never go back, it may be informative for somebody. At the very least blogging is a strong personal expression and in that sense they should be held in higher regard than tabloids.
This is my last post.
[6th Estate]
Are you sure these people understood the questions? Maybe they thought the survey takers were asking something more like "Do you think people should post other people's personal information in a blog?" Or perhaps, "Would you post other people's personal information in a blog?" Or even, "Would you like a cookie?"
People are generally stupid, after all.
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Who is a private citizen and who isn't?
Should it be illegal to post the personal address of politicians to organize a peaceful protest, or the CEO of a major company? What about members of your school board, church officials? Where is the line drawn?
The problem isn't me reading a blog entry about me. I already know where I live, what my ID numbers are, etc. etc. The problem is that I can't stop somebody else reading that.
This issue is bigger than just personal info valuable to strangers, too. I've had a bitter ex-g/f post intimate personal e-mails on her blog from the time we were going out, and with a large dose of editing, taking out of context, and outright lies thrown in for good measure. She knew damn well that several close friends of mine also read that blog, and would think less of me after reading what she wrote (or her adapted version of what I had once written).
The real killer is that despite the blog host being a big name, they didn't give a shit. In fact, after the ex made the post "private" (which didn't stop our common friends from reading it) when I wrote to her and asked her to remove the comments, the LJ admins then claimed (in response to my formal complaint) that they couldn't access that area of the database, and therefore couldn't do anything about the post. All of which helped me and my relationships with some formerly close friends not at all.
So, what am I supposed to do? I live in the UK, so I'm hardly going to pay hundreds of $$$ to hire a US attorney and pursue a defamation suit against my ex in the US just to get LJ to take the post down, am I? But without any official, international regulation of this area of the Internet, the damage was done all the same, and it hurt a lot more than posting any credit card number would have.
Freedom of speech is a valuable thing, but it is not the only valuable thing, and it is far too powerful to be an absolute.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I find it weird that this would even be put to a question. Might as well ask if people should be allowed to advocate violence against minority group N on their blog, and then wrap the results up into a free-speech issue.
The really nasty part of censorship isn't whether or not the worst stuff gets censored. You can argue about that one on ideological levels until the cows come home. The REALLY nasty part of censorship is when actually newsworthy stuff gets censored -- American soldiers coming home in coffins, for instance.
I think Americans just love the spirit of the fight, and the more unwinnable it is, the more people (and especially politicians) are willing to throw weight behind it as a rallying cry.
...and Transparent Society. It's pretty unreasonable to assume with the rapid advances in technology (both communication and surveillance) that we're going to retain the level of privacy these survey respondents seem to feel entitled to.
Then again, a lot of people seem to be their own worst enemy in this regard. A couple weeks ago I received a forwarded email from my shocked mother informing me of this frightening fact: if your address is listed in the phone book, someone can Google your phone number to find out where you live! [gasp]
If other reasons we do lack, we swear no one will die when we attack
</baffled>
This survey is more an indication that blogs are part of the moment's zeitgeist than a meaningful barometer of attitudes. It conflates the status of "blogs" with "privacy publication" in the amorphous public mind, so it's not really scientific. But it is telling that Americans have some kind of attitude towards "blogs" (rather than answering "I don't know"), which indicates a niche in the broadcast media that is defining them. And the survey itself indicates both the interest in funders of surveys, and the survey's own addition to the buzz, working to define blogs right now.
;).
The appearance of blogs on the media agenda is important to people who care about blogs. Because the broadcast media inevitably distorts, especially when its corporations and personalities perceive a threat. Associating blogs with privacy invasion indicates which way their propaganda will go, though this one tiny datapoint is a drop in the bucket. But the inevitable storms of public opinion, especially as people gradually grow more connected to interactive blogs than we ever were to broadcasts, will partly be formed by these butterfly wings flapping in Hollywood. We who consume blogs, especially we who hope blogs can replace the failed broadcast media in the essential task of journalism, rather than mere infotainverts, ignore these early warnings at our peril. You read it here first
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The right to free speech or the right to privacy.. If you can't keep both, which would you rather have?
It's not surprising that most Americans don't know what a blog is. The blog meme is still in a pre-inflection state.
? st artup=/miner/preinflection/blogDejanews.png
http://www.realmeme.com/miner/preinflection.php
The sudden drop in 2004 is almost certainly due to data anomalies in Dejanews itself. It shows up quite often in my graphs.
If you grab all the studies in the area and look at them in search of truth, all you are really doing is rewarding consensus. If all studies were your golf ball example, then looking at ten of them with that phrasing would be *less* helpful than one. As soon as this becomes the common way to do this, the guys wanting to raise golf ball taxes will simply commission more studies (months in advance, unpublicized) and they'll all come out over the course of two years, gradually swaying public opinion.
You would be a fool to believe that this is not occurring constantly.
If they don't know what a blog is, then why is their sample point counted? I'd be more interested in the opinion of those who have actually visited a blog.
The question, as has been pointed out, is obviously designed to elicit a specific answer and should be considered in that context.
I'm more concerned about this part:
What are we defining as "personal information"? Addresses, phone numbers, yeah. I can see that. What about history about the politician? Spouse's name, business dealings (especially for politicians)? You could make a case for all of these as being personal information.
Since when, in the United States, do traditional journalists have MORE freedom of speech than ordinary citizens? IANAL, but methinks the Australians might have a misunderstanding as to what freedom of speech for Americans means. It's not for some Americans, it's for ALL Americans.
Actually, on a tangent. Reminds me of a discussion I got into with some Canadian friends of mine a couple years ago. They simply couldn't understand why I was so against censoring "objectionable" speech. In this case, speech deemed to be "hate speech."
sigh Anyone want to help me buy an island for libertarian refugees?
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Find out who paid for the poll! Then you'll know which party's agenda is behind the slant.
Wasn't Senator Clinton recently asking questions about censoring bloggers?
Sigh. Yes.
.us domains.
But then these same people who are trying to enforce some rules (such as this) on blogs turn around, and are for forcing you to publish your own address, and aren't you also a Private Citizen? It's already happened for
That is what I call "backwards", if you ask me.
For context, click Parent.
The classic example is the "National Service" theme of "Yes Minister":
Sir Humphrey: "You know what happens: nice young lady comes up to you. Obviously you want to create a good impression, you don't want to look a fool, do you? So she starts asking you some questions: Mr. Woolley, are you worried about the number of young people without jobs?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Are you worried about the rise in crime among teenagers?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Do you think there is a lack of discipline in our Comprehensive schools?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Do you think young people welcome some authority and leadership in their lives?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Do you think they respond to a challenge?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Would you be in favour of reintroducing National Service?"
Bernard Woolley: "Oh...well, I suppose I might be."
Sir Humphrey: "Yes or no?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Of course you would, Bernard. After all you told you can't say no to that. So they don't mention the first five questions and they publish the last one."
Bernard Woolley: "Is that really what they do?"
Sir Humphrey: "Well, not the reputable ones no, but there aren't many of those. So alternatively the young lady can get the opposite result."
Bernard Woolley: "How?"
Sir Humphrey: "Mr. Woolley, are you worried about the danger of war?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Are you worried about the growth of armaments?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Do you think there is a danger in giving young people guns and teaching them how to kill?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Do you think it is wrong to force people to take up arms against their will?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Would you oppose the reintroduction of National Service?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes!"
Sir Humphrey: "There you are, you see Bernard. The perfect balanced sample."
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Wow. The public really is blind.
- Nobody can stop anyone from posting information on the internet. It's simply impossible.
- The internet isn't governed by the US government. There's nothing the governement can do to stop people posting information, except to lock down the entire internet like the Chinese do. That won't happen because the media in this country is too powerful.
- It doesn't matter if bloggers are journalists or not. If I write something on a piece of paper, photocopy it, and give it to 100 people, am I a journalist? The socially acceptable opinion would be: "No". The real question is not over journalism, the question is over trust. And nothing, absolutely NOTHING on the internet can be trusted, because it's damn near impossible to tag any piece of information definitively to a person. So the answer becomes: choose who you trust carefully.
The big piece of all of this is the slow realization that it's becoming no longer necessary to go to school for 20 years to learn the "proper" way of doing something. Not when people have a resource like the net, and can quickly become an expert in nearly any subject (highly technical subjects still probably require degrees.) Where "journalists" are getting pissed off is simply a lack of acknowledgement that the times have changed and the barrier to entry has become much smaller then they would like to admit.
The McCain-Feingold act really hurts third party candidates, to whom publicity is very expensive. Dems and Reps already have all the publicity they need, but if you're coming in from the side, you'd better have a lot of financial support. This act stop that support and effectively chokes out all but the two major parties (big surprise it's a bi-partisan law, huh?)
Then, there's the fairness doctrine. It makes radio stations devote equal time to both sides of every issue. Therefore, a liberal talk radio show would have to give equal air time to conservative hosts, and vice versa. Obviously, if a station is predominantly liberal or conservative, it will lose viewers and thus advertising dollars. Since conservative talk radio stations are more common than progressive ones, you will see Hillary Clinton support this act because it hurts them.
People have a view of censorship that the men in uniforms will swoop down on you if you say or write the wrong thing, but hitting peoples' wallets is far easier, more subtle, and less likely to be resisted.
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