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EFF Looks At How Blasphemy Laws Have Stifled Speech in 2012
As part of their 2012 in review series, the EFF takes a look at how blasphemy laws have chilled online speech this year. A "dishonorable mention" goes to YouTube this year: "A dishonorable mention goes to YouTube, which blocked access to the controversial 'Innocence of Muslims' video in Egypt and Libya without government prompting. The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, a group based in Egypt, condemned YouTube's decision."
All I said was that this piece of halibut was good enough for Jehovah!
I am officially gone from
Using the term "Blasphemy" serves to moderate what is truly an abomination: the fanatical intolerance of Muslims for anything that even smacks of an insult to the so-called prophet and they outrageous response that ultimately ends up getting people killed. Ironically, the people getting killed are usually Muslims.
Well, infinitely powerful God apparently needs humans to kill off his political enemies. Censoring them ain't no thang.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
that is not why anyone got killed. the problem was between the left ear and the right ear of religious whackjob killers. they will kill again for no reason
Radical Islamic Fundamentalism is to Islam as the KKK is to Christianity (as paraphrased from The West Wing). Let's call out those who hate and oppress, and leave the rest of the members of a religion that preaches peace alone.
"Free speech incorporates the right not to say things just as much as it incorporates the right to say things." You reminded me of something Abraham Lincoln said: “To sin by silence, when they should protest, makes cowards of men.”
Just because Google can do what it wants doesn't mean it is above criticism for its actions. Any racist shitbag can spew whatever racist nonsense they want. At the same time, I can call them out as a racist shitbag all I want.
It doesn't, but I and the EFF can use their free speech rights to criticize them.
It isn't about religion, but the decline in Moderate thinking.
With the internet people in general get caught up in a competition on who is the best in their group.
I don't have the citation and it has been a few years (and I am too lazy to look it up for a slashdot post), but there was a study that shows the stricter groups (Religions, Parties...) have a better retention and growth rate then the groups that are a bit more moderate.
So a Religion that says you are going to Hell unless you follow these commandments are more popular and tend to last longer than a religion that states if you are good of heart than you will be saved.
The same thing is happening with political parties, Parties are creating stricter guidelines to say what it means to be in the party. The difference between a republican and democrat isn't as simple as Small Local Governments vs. Large Centralized government. But to an array of policies often contradictory to each other that define the groups stances.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Not saying something for fear of some group of asshats using it as an excuse to kill people is being a coward. These people would have killed even if the film hadn't been made. It was nothing but a convenient excuse.
For residents of countries where separation of Church and State is upheld, Blasphemy Law is clearly one step too far.
What interests me is the tensions which exists between Free Speech, Privacy, Intellectual Property and Slander. There are Non-Trivial Tradeoffs involved, making this a domain where opinions are more divergent and definitions far trickier to formulate. Attacking an Idea or an Institution is quite a different story than attacking a Person.
... try being a right-leaning prof in a large, prestigious college (or in Hollywood), or a skeptic of $prevailingOpinionOnHighlyPoliticizedTopic in the scientific community.
Just something to keep in mind.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
For a moment there, I thought you were talking about Salman Rushdie, but then I realized that he just wrote an unfunny 'let's stir some shit up' book, not a movie.
My bad.
So wait, which one do you think deserved to die again?
(I think I still have Satanic Verses in the bookshelf somewhere, just that I can't be arsed to crack it open.)
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Considering the UN's liberal agenda of stifling free speech, and the US submitting to trampling over its constitution, we are facing another step closer to an Orwellian dystopia. See where the slippery slopes lead?
That word doesn't mean what you think it does. I suspect you use it often.
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
the problem was between the left ear and the right ear of religious whackjob killers. they will kill again for no reason
So, umm, what valid reason did these guys have then?
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Youtube's blocking of that video was an effort to save lives. I'm not convinced that the production of the "Innocence of Muslims" wasn't intended to have the effect it had. Perhaps as a people those who are murderously offended by such things need to grow up and get a thicker skin. I'll grant that. But any words, religiously themed or not, which are intended to offend are reprehensible. And I applaud Youtube for taking steps to mitigate the disaster that video initiated.
Beyond this, so many people (Americans especially) have this "I may not like what you say, but I'll die to defend your right to say it" attitude that sounds good on the surface, but which denies a basic fact, which is that words which are intended to be hateful do hurt. There is no place for any action which is intended to harm, whether that action is picking up a stick or a pen. There is a difference between an unpopular idea expressed in good faith, and one intended to offend. And while differentiating may be difficult, in an age of instant global communications, at least Youtube stood up and tried. They made a call with what they will allow on a network they own. No one should have gotten murderously angry over this video, but the fact is some people did. And you may not like suppressing ideas, but there may be some people alive today who wouldn't be if that video wasn't turned off for a time. Which of those people is the EFF going to tell shouldn't be alive today?
Again, they didn't kill because of the film. Almost none of the people outraged by it had even seen it. It was used as an excuse for why they were killing people. Nothing more. If the film had not existed something else would have been used as the excuse. You're ether incredibly naive or stupid to think that stifling free speech in some misguided attempt to appease a bunch murderers is the right thing to do.
It's not "saving lives" it's rewarding intolerance by showing sensitivity to intolerance. It also creates a precedence that says that you recognize their intolerance and will react affirmatively to it again in the future, guaranteeing another intolerant reaction.
Is it wrong to purposefully offend someone? Sure, that's Ethics 101.
But Ethics 201 asks more questions about what intent means and what it means to be offended and how far you can go to react to that offense.
By most civilized standards, rioting and killing people in response to a video is also unacceptable.
Tolerating the existence of "people ready to kill over an insult" is the problem, not the insult itself. But how do you get rid of those people without becoming the person that can't be tolerated? That's why people like Dawkins come in and say things like "every one of you who tolerates the belief in a supernatural power makes this problem worse, because these beliefs are always going to be mutually incompatible." His point is to start from the viewpoint that everyone who believes in the supernatural is defective, and should be fixed instead of tolerated.
So I'd say you're exactly half right. Insulting people's religions is antisocial. But if it's part of an attempt to get rid of it, it's not irresponsible.
John
Blasphemy is for wimps. Real men use heresy or apostasy to distinguish themselves from the common infidel.
The nuttier religions may be about to crack. In the US, the number of people reporting "no religion" has doubled in the past decade. There are now more than twice as many atheists and agnostics (4%) in the US as Jews (1.7%). "Unaffiliated" is at 16.1%. Islam only has 0.6% market share in the US, and Mormonism is at 1.7%. Total US "Christian" is at 78%, but that's self-reported. The number of people who say they go to church is about twice the number churches report showing up.
Some religions need a high level of coercion to maintain market share. For most of the period since the decline of the Roman Empire, Catholicism was the worst offender. It took several wars in Europe to overthrow that tyranny. Today, militant Islam (and its mirror image, ultra-orthodox Judaism) struggle to keep their members in line and coerce their children into their grip.
That isn't about religion. It's about power. Political power. The religions that fear "blasphemy", demand obedience, and want theocracy are political organizations. They should be treated as such. They have no moral right to demand that they not be criticized. Indeed, citizens have a duty to point out their failings and fight their excesses.
So keep that "blasphemy" going out. Religious leaders, not their followers, should be afraid. (And up the production value; "Innocence of Muslims" was ineptly executed. Read "Florence of Arabia" for what's needed.)
History I believe furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose. - Jefferson
Sounds like insecurity is ripe within Islam.
We should, though. Nothing worse than a dry flag, I say.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Of course you already knew this.
I have no idea what the American definition of "liberals" is, since I experience serious cognitive dissonance whenever they use it. The only thing I've been able to work out is that they use regularly it in contexts in which I'd use the word "douchebags". Of course, that doesn't mean that it's just a generic synonym for just that, with no other meaning attached. So, no, I didn't.
Ezekiel 23:20
I have jsut as much right to be irrational as the other irrational people and claiming that somehow i need to be less irrational because they are more irrational is pretty irrational.
Good-bye
No one is helping them do anything. They are making up flinsy, post hoc justifications being murderers. Stop being an idiot thinking that this film gad anything to do with their actions. It didn't. It was merely a red herring.
This film didn't push them to do anything. The "outrage" over the film wad nothing more than a post hoc excuse to try to deflect that the were murdering people.
Have you read the Koran ? Do you know its teachings to make judgements?
And the answer is: YES
There's a reason why non-Moslem suicide bombers are the exception that proves the rule. Islam.
There's a reason why fundamentalist Moslems want to literally wipe Israel off the map and commit genocide. Islam (Don't believe me? Grow some nads and Google "dar al-Harb")
There's a reason why Al Qaeda bombed Spain, er, al-Andalus. Islam.
There's a reason why you can Google "honor killing" and see reports of way too many women who were murdered for committing the crime of being raped. Islam.
Hosting a video that is solely intended to cause outrage is bad for business and YouTube should remove it if it causes trouble. What does YouTube gain by hosting this video? This is not a US First Amendment issue, since the producer of the film is quite welcome to have the film hosted and published by some other means. Put it on vimeo your own web site or even host it via The Pirate Bay. Free speech does not mean that a company has to help you to spread your message.