Slashdot Mirror
Two Ways Not To Handle Free Speech
Two stories in the news offer contrasting approaches by Web companies to
questions of free speech. First YouTube: reader skraps notes that the Google
property has recently banned the popular atheist commentator Nick
Gisburne. Gisburne had been posting videos with logical arguments
against Christian beliefs; but when he
turned his attention to Islam (mirror of Gisburne's video by another
user), YouTube pulled the plug, saying: 'After being flagged by members
of the YouTube community, and reviewed by YouTube staff, the video below
has been removed due to its inappropriate nature. Due to your repeated
attempts to upload inappropriate videos, your account now been
permanently disabled, and your videos have been taken down.' Amazon.com
provides a second example of how to react to questions of free speech.
Reader theodp sends along a story in
TheStreet.com about how Amazon hung up
on customers wanting to comment on its continuing practice of
selling animal-fighting magazines. The article notes that issues of free
speech are rarely cut-and-dried, and that Amazon is doing itself no
favors by going
up against the Humane Society.
Update: 02/11 04:25 GMT by KD : updated Nick Gisburne link to new account.
Update: 02/11 04:25 GMT by KD : updated Nick Gisburne link to new account.
So some people are trying to silence magazines about a subject they object to, and Amazon refuses to be intimidated or allow them to intimidate others on their property. Sounds more like a good way to handle free speech to me.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Private parties can do as they please. You have *NO* constitutional right to say what you want on their services. It may not be "nice" to do, but no one can stop them from doing this. Your right may vary by state, though.
I know this is Slashdot, but did you read the summary? This Gisburne fellow posted quite a few videos about Christianity without any problems. It was only when he posted them against Islam that it became a problem, and that because a number of users flagged it. I'm guessing that what we are seeing here is not protection of religion, but protection is Islam - which Americans have an awkward relationship with right now due to the quandary posed by having a significant (and peaceful) Muslim minority while fighting against any number of predominantly-Muslim foes in the name of fighting terrorism. As you can see, it's the sort of fight that political correctness (in all its self-righteous glory) demands.
My other sig is funny.
OK, I think I get the gist of the OP but let me see if I get this straight.
You can make a movie called White Guys can't Jump but you can't make a movie called Black Guys can't swim (fill in swim with whatever).
You can make "logical arguments" against Christianity. You can even make jokes about the religion and it's Members.
But as soon as you breath a word against the Muslims you are silenced.
We have a new minority in America. It's call the muslims. Please, if you are a male white American, add to your list of people not to offend: the Muslims. But remember, anyone can publicly deride the whites, males, christians but never speak ill of the jews, muslims, blacks (oh shit! sorry -- African American), mexicans, or anyone else who didn't have an ancestoral basis in North Western Europe along the paternal lines of the family tree.
It's getting kind of crazy around here with all the people who are demanding both freedom of speech and respect for their own beliefs.
It's not the free speech, it's the hypocrisy. It's OK to bag Christianity, but not Islam? WTF is up with that?
I can tell you: Christianity is used to being harrassed, and Christianity has shown itself to be nothing, if not resilient to this kind of thing. Whereas Islam is extremely poor at handling criticism; you might find yourself dead, burned, having some bizarre rushdie-like death sentence on you, or being chased by a bunch of brainwashed muslims.
So no, you CAN'T make fun of Islam or point out the stupidity of living 14th century dogma in the 21st century.
It's telling too, because a confident religion doesn't care what is said about it. Witness what's been said about Christianity! No, it's only a scared religion which reacts poorly to criticism - and the main reason (I maintain) is because even "devout" Muslims KNOW that what they've been told is a load of stinking horse shit, but it is impossible to speak out against it.
Loud voices openly criticising Islam might start the tide against Islam, and that would result in the modernisation of that religion, and those who currently hold the power in Islam would see their power vanish almost instantly. So this issue continues to be about the power Islam wields over women, and other people. It's certainly got nothing to do with religion per se, in my view.
How many escape pods are there? "NONE,SIR!" You counted them? "TWICE, SIR!"
Indeed, the Mohammad episode concluded with a purposely blasphemous hodge-podge of Jesus crapping on people and the like. Comedy Central let it through. (The cut Mohammad scene was an innocuous three-second clip of Mohammad handing a guy a fish.) When the usual folks complained about the depictions of Jesus they were making South Park's point for them - there wouldn't be a violent retaliation for the completely disgusting and inflammatory images they had portrayed.
Well not anymore. They used to burn you at the stake, go on crusades, and generally kill anyone that was not christian.
I really shouldn't have used someone else's email address for this account.
> That's because Christians don't blow things up when you disagree with them
Your facts suffer from selection bias.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Rudolph
http://www.answers.com/topic/james-charles-kopp
The KKK
The IRA
et. alia. usw. et cetera et cetera et cetera
Wait a minute. Didn't I say that on the other side of the record? I'd better check
Aye, the King James version of the Bible does have some inaccuracies in the translation, but they have been corrected in more recent versions translated from the original Gree, Aramaic, hebrew, etc. and because the original texts in the original languages are much more available to common people than in the 1600's (I believe that's the right century...), they can't exactly hide any intentional mistranslations anymore- there are enough (though not a whole lot) of people who learn the old languages that could call them out. And I'd have to disagree with your thesis that the Red Sea scrolls would be more accurate gospels than the ones we have today, since the scrolls contained only copies of the Torah and other books which are now part of the Old Testament, and make absolutely no mention in Christ, as they were for the most part written before his ministry. They do, however confirm the accuracy of Old Testament texts to at least Jesus' time, which was heartening for Christians and Jews. As for the Gospel of Barnabus, I have no first-hand knowledge of the text, but from what I understand it was removed because its authorship is under scrutiny, and because it goes against the whole rest of the New testament in the basic tenets of the faith- basically the equivalent of Jesus saying to love your neighbor, then turning around and commanding his disciples to stone the prostitute, a practice which although unfortunately practiced by a lot of Christians, is not really in keeping with the faith. Oh, and I was not under the impression that Allah would have told Jesus to tell everyone he was the son of God, if he were only a prophet secondary in importance to Mohammed who would come later. Of course I also don't understand why Mohammed's followers would want to destroy those who follow another of Allah's prophets as infidels. I know the Christians haven't exactly been nice to the Muslims, what with the Crusades and all, but certain leaders inn the Muslim community do more than reciprocate- something that I'm sure is as much out of keeping with the Quran as the Crusades were with the Bible.
That is the point exactly. All the anti-Christian bigotry, like the posts here that just assumed that Christianity was the focus of the story because it "is" stupid, patriarchal, evil, stoned or burned people at the stake (hundreds of years ago, and don't pull up an isolated incident or two to say it still happens), feels no fear to express their opinion. They do of Islam, because a significant minority threatens or uses violence any time they feel Islam was insulted. For example, during the controversy of the Danish publishing some cartoons poking fun at Islam Islamic protestors carried signs like "Behead those who insult Islam". So this incident has nothing to do with religious freedom of speech and everything with Islamic radicals inhibiting freedom of speech through fear. Sadly, too many of the people here and other places that claim to be so for freedom of speech and expression stay qiuet or even support Islmalic radicals suppressing it. Usually because the west was colonial at one time or because Chimpy McHitler is still Us president.