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Google Under Fire Over Racist Blogs
AcidAUS writes "Google is being accused of refusing to remove racist blogs targeting minority groups in Australia. Google, whose corporate motto is "don't be evil", says it will take the blogs in question offline only if ordered to do so by a court."
Are U crazy? The evil of censorship can be easily countered: There is NO evil in censorship according to our esteemed Attorney General. The COPA is meant to save the children and if it results in censorship so be it.
I read in the book Presidential Anectodes an incident about a US president and a European Prince visiting the prez: The papers, especially one specific editor was vitriolic about his anger and spewed venom in his paper against the Prez (venom that today would land him straight in Gitmo). The European prince was surprised and asked the Prez: "How do you tolerate such lies? Why don't you imprison him to shut him off?"
To which the Prez replied: "That my prince is his birthright: given under our constitution which i have sworn to uphold. As long as no blood is shed, he can write all he wants, and i won't lift a finger to harm him."
Fast forward today, we find editors sued and threatened with PATRIOT and other acts for pointing out illegal acts by prez (acts that surely would have resulted in impeachment in 1970s).
Atleast Google is standing up....
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
It's about as ridiculous as hating someone for the OS they choose to run ...
As a counterpoint, not in either of the places I've lived it's not. Melbourne and a small country town. I've found neither of these places to be racist at all, and in fact when people
:P
start with the racist crap, others tend to jump on them. (re: Gary Anderson)
Ah, but then again, neither Melbourne or Kerang are anywhere near Sydney
Just like in the Faurisson affair, where Chomsky wrote the following:
Faurisson's conclusions are diametrically opposed to views I hold and have frequently expressed in print (for example, in my book Peace in the Middle East, where I describe the Holocaust as "the most fantastic outburst of collective insanity in human history"). But it is elementary that freedom of expression (including academic freedom) is not to be restricted to views of which one approves, and that it is precisely in the case of views that are almost universally despised and condemned that this right must be most vigorously defended. It is easy enough to defend those who need no defense or to join in unanimous (and often justified) condemnation of a violation of civil rights by some official enemy.
Google is right, submitter is wrong for attempting to start a flame war. 'Nuff said.
Your sig(k) has been stolen. There is a puff of smoke!
IMO if "do no evil" is to be more then a clevert piece of marketting it does need to mean more then "do nothing illegal" and does need the owners of Google to enforce it regardless of the law.
Indeed, this is an important distinction which many people today could do with learning. A worrying example of people not making this distinction is the British Government and it's religious hatred laws which seem to equate a dislike of religion, which is a choice made by individuals, and racism which is not something you have any choice in. E.g. you can choose to be a muslim, christian, whatever but you can't choose to be born either black or white. Many muslims pressure groups also seem to not understand this distinction when they equate hatred of their religious choices as being racism.
If the article is correct and the blogs themselves are breaking the terms, then shouldn't google close them down?
Does it matter whether somebody is a serial telltale with an agenda or not if the end result is the same?
liqbase
"Real education"? Education is never free from bias. There will always be disagreement about what "real education" should include. It can't be defined in terms of results, either, because there's also no universal agreement about what humanity would be like if it were to grow.
You know, I am getting tired of people throwing the "don't be evil" phrase in their face all the time. It is old, tiring, and played out so many times in the wrong way.
I don't like racism, but in our country -and google is based in our country- our laws let people spew whatever trash they want to trash as long as it doesn't cause harm....and while racism may infuriate me, and hurt people's feelings - it does not cause actual harm (yes someone will argue it teaches young people to do stupid things, but the harm came from the young kids).
All in all, Google is correct for letting people have their free speech.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
>> Let's have the courts sort it out
The entire "west" is being turned into some godawful mixture of nanny state and police state precisely because of the influence of courts, judges, and lawyers.
The last thing we need is courts adding even more mountains of red tape and restrictions on communication.
Leave the courts to deal with actual physical events only, not with the ramblings of morons who are easily countered by reasoned argument.
This is a no brainer in my book, but apparently not in everyones. Making it difficult or illegal to discuss racisim certainly doesn't remove it.
The best strategy is to create an environment where being a racist is 'uncool' (for lack of a better word). This is one arena where the rest of world can, I think, learn quite a bit from the United States. Although the U.S. still has a huge racial problem, it has improved vastly since 1950. Maybe it's getting worse again under the new administration, I don't know. Anyone still in the U.S. have a comment about that?
In the U.S. you can spout whatever racial crap you want to. Free speech isn't attacked. Rather, the laws address concrete areas where racism directly affects minorities. If you are at home with your buddies, or writing a blog, you can call blacks niggers and the law won't do anything about it. Do it in the workplace, where it could bother a co-worker though, and bam, down comes the stick. Not a bad strategy.
Even that is subject to abuse though. For example a teacher suffered http://www.jacobsen.no/anders/blog/archives/2002/0 9/03/american_political_correctness_the_word_nigga rdly.html for teaching her children the word 'niggardly'.
Say somone writes a blog where they critisize the administration for censoring racist blogs. It wouldn't be outside of the realm of possiblity for this to be taken down for being pro-racist as well.
I think the best example of censorship failing is modern Germany, where right wing, pseudo neo-nazism http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spie gel/0,1518,357628,00.html (it isn't as bad as it sounds, but it's creepy enough) is getting trendier in Germany. It's become cool because it's anti establishment. As soon as you start censoring something, a large population is going to get curious about it. If racism is really an inferior point of view (and I believe it is), then it will lose out in the marketplace of ideas.
It's like Noam Chomsky says, freedom of speech means freedom to say things we don't like to hear. Even Stalin gave people the freedom to say things he liked to hear. It's our tolerance for unpleasant ideas that measures the degree to which we have freedom of speech.
Since you were both drunk, if she was on top, is she the one guilty of rape?
If your BAC was 0.20 and hers was 0.18, then you were more incapacitated than she was. Is she guilty of rape?
Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. --Mark Twain
Noam Chomsky correctly put it (paraphrasing): You are either for free speech or you are against it. There is no meaningful middle ground. Everyone is for free speech that they agree with. Even Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels agreed with that. The meaningful test is whether you are for speech that you disagree with. Blogger Brian Stokes wants to remove racist blogs. Therefore he is against free speech that he disagrees with; he is against free speech.
... giving the bloggers enough rope to hang themselves. If their opinions are so poisonous, they should be publicly aired so that everyone can see for themselves how pathetic and disgusting they truly are.
Should Google honor his wishes? Clearly they have a right and a reason not to. If you claim to be for free speech you must support their freedom to keep the blogs.
There is a simple rationale why the basic right of free speech has a public benefit in this case