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Venezuela's Contrarian TV Station Survives on YouTube
carlos_J writes "Ars Technica is running a story about RCTV, a Venezuelan television station whose broadcast license was refused renewal by the government. In response, the station turned to YouTube to get its message out. Says Ars, 'El Observador clips have been seen 175,000 times since May 28, and the channel is currently the most-subscribed channel of the week. While putting the station's shows on YouTube is an excellent idea, YouTube still lacks anything near the reach of over-the-air broadcasts. But the use of the site to avoid censorship is growing, and it's not hard to imagine a day in the near future when the site (or sites like it) becomes as essential as local TV stations. As that happens, YouTube will come into even more conflicts with governments that have an interest in controlling what their citizens see, It's already happening--Thailand's king, for instance, has a thing for iPods but isn't too keen on YouTube. Will Hugo Chavez show more tolerance? '"
A joke of a country that takes better care of its poor than the United States.
Fine, fine. How about we take your computer and redirect the money you spend on broadband and software and give it to the poor? After all, using your money to give food and shelter to the homeless is much more important than your "need" to post on slashdot, yes?
And please don't think I'm defending Chavez himself in any ways, but let's remember that Thatcher refused to renew the license of Thames Television. True, their license was lost for capitalist reasons (not being profitable enough), and RCTV was removed for political reasons, but many would argue that those reasons are not really all that different.
And let's be honest about this. In America in 2007, if CNN started taking an active role in the violent removal of Bush (who, while contraversial, was democratically elected), how long do you think the Bush administration would put up with that?
Chavez is authoritarian, heavy-handed and a bit megalomaniacal. But sometimes all of us need to take a good look in the mirror about the state of democracy here before we get all high and mighty about defending democracy elsewhere.
"A government that robs Peter to pay Paul will always have the support of Paul." --George Bernard Shaw
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
"Communism is man's exploitation of man. Capitalism is just the opposite."
Okay, I think that refusing to renew the license of this broadcaster was a bad move. BUT, under the legal theory that controls this sort of thing, it's pretty much a no-brainer.
i n_Venezuela#Events_leading_up_to_the_coup
Those broadcast licenses are *supposed* to be held in the public interest. This TV station supported a military coup against the democratically elected government.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Attempted_coup_
That's a pretty unambiguous abuse of the public trust. Can you imagine what would happen to NBC's affiliate broadcast licenses if they supported a military coup against our government? If they weren't tried for treason and shot, they certainly wouldn't be allowed to keep broadcasting.
Which brings us to the subject of restraint - actually, Chavez has shown a remarkable degree of restraint so far against those who tried to overthrow him militarily. They haven't even filed charges against the military officers - the man that the coup tried to install as President was Chavez' opponent in following last Venezuelan election.
I seriously doubt that he's going to try and block Youtube.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
I wish that were true, but it's a bunch of crap. Barring the use of fairly extreme measures on your part to preserve security, it's easy enough for the government to find you and send some men around to cart you off to someplace highly pixelated on google maps.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Let's pretend the government owns the airwaves as a public resource and licenses its use, ie the license to use the airwaves is granted by the government, not anyone's God-given right. Let's pretend a TV station who holds a government license for use of public airwaves sponsored a coup against a democratically-elected government. Let's pretend that coup attempt failed. Wouldn't the rule of law require that the people who attempted to overthrow the government be held accountable? Wouldn't a reasonable repercussion be that the TV station involved in the coup have its license revoked for its attempted overthrow of the government? Wouldn't it even seem especially charitible of the government to refrain from taking special action and simply refuse to renew the license when it came up for renewal?
Because that's exactly what happened here.
I have no sympathy for this station. Freedom of speech, my ass.
He isn't blocking RCTV
You're right, he only shut them down, confiscated their equipment, and some of his supporters have been filmed shooting at people protesting the station's shut down (see here).
But he's not blocking them, that would be something so monstrous only Bush would do it, right?
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Yeah, what a dictator. He was overthrown in a coup, and what did he do to the *lead organizer* of the coup (Pedro Carmona**) when he got back into power? Kill him on the spot? No, even worse: he was put under *house arrest*. Such strict, brutal house arrest that he was able to flee to Colombia. What a brutal dictator Chavez is!
Imagine how the US would react if Bush was overthrown in a coup and then got back into power. What do you think would happen to anyone even remotely related to the coup?
** By comparison, what was that great icon of freedom, the US-backed coup leader Pedro Carmona doing shortly after overthrowing the government? Why, his first acts were to dissolve the legislature, the judiciary, and abolish the constitution that was overwhelmingly approved in referrendum. But, in the strange world of the Right, he's a democratic hero, and Chavez is an evil dictator.
"Now," she thought, watching the dolphins adjust their bowties, "might be a good time to up my medication."
You must be skeptical, this tv station was just part of the opposition fireworks, If anyone can fake videos are them, specially if it is for self-defense.
Of course, for an European or American citizen this wouldn't make sense but in Latin America the media are just part of the good old corporative empire that was always allied to corrupt governments (aka the owner of the stations were family with the leaders OR even the leaders themselves) it is not hard to find a TV station owned by a political party in LA, seriously.
Of course, this doesn't mean Chavez is a saint, he is just moving his country's media from an over biased right to a biased left, both of which are very bad.
But seriously, this is not about freedom of speech, it is about corrupt media corporations battling a corrupt government.
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
So the question appears to be - is advocating and/or supporting the forced overthrow of a democratically elected government a legitimate expression of dissent or not? If it is, then clearly Chavez is in the wrong - but then so is pretty much every democratically elected government which has a treason offence on the statute books. But if it isn't, then Chavez has not "stifled dissent" at all, but has instead shown remarkable tolerance - far more than some Western governments, it must be said.
Moreover, I'm having trouble generally with the idea that anyone who supports a military junta is working to repair democracy, promote legitimate opposition, or make their country safe for dissenters. It seems to me that what they're advocating will have rather the opposite effect - after all, armies have not historically been known for their tolerance of divergent opinions.