Nancy Pelosi vs. the Internet

selil writes "A story popped up on the ChicagoBoyz Blog. It says 'Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who would like very much to reimpose the old, so-called, "Fairness Doctrine" that once censored conservative opinion on television and radio broadcasting, is scheming to impose rules barring any member of Congress from posting opinions on any internet site without first obtaining prior approval from the Democratic leadership of Congress. No blogs, twitter, online forums — nothing.'"

Comments

The Hen or The Egg

[eddy]

Does politics bring in the idiots from the streets, or does politics create idiots from sane stock? Discuss!

Re:The Hen or The Egg

[edmicman]

What constitutes "official" content? If a congressperson writes a personal thought or opinion in a public setting, is it only "official" if others deem it so? If a member of Congress says something, what does it matter if he says it in a public forum, or on the golf course, or in a pickup game of basketball, or in a bar? Why should anyone, be they elected officials or Joes on the street, need approval by anyone of their thoughts or opinions, no matter where they are made?

Re:Direct link to the letter in question

[flaming error]

Forgot to mention - any IT guys looking for work in the Washington, DC area should write to Mr. Capuano and tell him you know how to set up a video server. Seems this all started because the House has lousy IT.

Re:Anyone read the actual sources?

[spun]

I guess to some people, anything left of Reagan is left wing. I've never had the impression Slashdot was in any way left wing. Slashdot is and always has been centrist/libertarian. Try mentioning that the government should raise taxes to cover more social programs and see how fast you get modded into oblivion. Or try saying we should seize the property of the rich and nationalize it. Left wing/communist my ass.

Re:hradek

[Atrox666]

Liberal, Democrat, Republican, Conservative it doesn't matter who tells you what the corporate agenda is. The corporations are still in charge.
They are the "elite" the "haves" that like to make your decisions for you..or rather make your decisions for their profit.
Anyone that supports the current system of corporate rule are the enemy no matter what party they support. Most people won't believe this and that is why they are winning the class war. Unfortunately the bulk of people like to have someone else think for them which is why democracy won't solve this problem.

Fraud Alert: Slashvertisement?

[Futurepower(R)]

Fraud Alert: The Slashdot story seems to be without support elsewhere. It may be a paid Slashvertisement.

Also, if you read the PDF of the letter mentioned, it is about technical limitations of U.S. government support for internet access. The rules proposed seem very sensible. The letter says NOTHING about Nancy Pelosi.

Re:Fraud Alert: Slashvertisement?

[nomadic]

Thats strong language considering you clearly have no idea what you're talking about. How about reading some history http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine and never speaking again?

And here comes another another semiliterate. The same damn article you point me to explains that the Fairness Doctrine was created to target communism. Hmmmm...tell me again that it was created to target conservative viewpoints.

Re:Fraud Alert: Slashvertisement?

[Lost Engineer]

Who decides? So I'm a radio station. Throughout the day I have different hosts with different opinions, however none of them approve of Pres. Bush. So now I have to go find someone who does? How many hosts must I find so that every viewpoint on every controversial issue gets airtime?

It is censorship. If I want to stand on my soapbox all day long and the government says I can only do so from noon to 6, that's censorship.

Just to follow up

[weston]

I was genuinely interested in seeing if anyone could reference actions attributable to the fairness doctrine that effectively suppressed any point of view. According to the wikipedia entry, the Fairness Doctrine:
merely prevented a station from day after day presenting a single view without airing opposing views. The Fairness Doctrine had two basic elements: It required broadcasters to devote some of their airtime to discussing controversial matters of public interest, and to air contrasting views regarding those matters. Stations were given wide latitude as to how to provide contrasting views: It could be done through news segments, public affairs shows or editorials.

It seems likely to allow broadcasters freedom to espouse any point of view they wish while simultaneously giving some access to minority or marginalized points of view, and I'm having trouble imagining how this would play out in such a way as to bury any point of view, conservative or otherwise.

But I'm aware the law of unintended consequences has an amazing reach, and it does say the Supreme court found it had a "chilling effect" on speech. I just don't understand the mechanism and am unfamiliar with any specific case, so I figured I'd *ask* for incidences where the Fairness Doctrine was abused to the suppression of conservative views.

Re:The democratic party in a nutshell:

[aurispector]

It seems to me that the growing consensus is that neither party serves the interests of the average American, possibly due to the variety of information available on the internet, along with the more blatant corporatist leaning from the democrats we've seen over the last decade.

Seems that the time is right for a 3rd party to step up to the plate, but it would require a really charismatic candidate to pull it off.

Re:The democratic party in a nutshell:

[indifferent children]

so much that I bet few of you even know who their candidates are.

Oooh, I know: Mr. Unelectable#1, Mr. Unelectable#2, and Mr. Unelectable#3!

Has it ever occurred to anyone else, that the "third" parties are a ploy by the two big parties to siphon-off people who demand change, into irrelevancy, so that the big-two aren't forced to change at all to accommodate these 'extremists'?