Slashdot Mirror
Publications Divided On Self-Censorship After Terrorist Attack
New submitter wmofr writes: Major U.S. and British publications refused to publish related satirical cartoons, at least those about the "prophet", after the terrorist attack in Charlie Hebdo's office, which had 12 people killed. An editor of the Independent said:"But the fact is as an editor you have got to balance principle with pragmatism, and I felt yesterday evening a few different conflicting principles: I felt a duty to readers; a duty to the dead; I felt a duty to journalism – and I also felt a duty to my staff. I think it would have been too much of a risk to unilaterally decide in Britain to be the only newspaper that went ahead and published so in a sense it is true one has self-censored in a way I feel very uncomfortable with. It's an incredibly difficult decision to make." But still many media organizations bravely publishing those cartoons, declining self-censorship.
Charlie Hebdo's surviving staff say the magazine will publish again next week, saying, "stupidity will not win." Meanwhile, cartoonists around the world have published strips in response to the attack. The Onion has a poignant take as well. With regard to the attackers, one suspect turned himself in to police, and the other two remain at large.
If you're afraid of people in your own nation, then you have bigger problems than a political cartoon
If every newspaper in France were to re-print some of the more controversial cartoons form Charlie Hebdo, or offer to print and distribute next week's issue as a special insert, it would send a strong message to terrorists that the "Streisand Effect" is real.
I've already seen one mainstream American daily run a bunch of Charlie Hebdo cartoons in its online edition, including some depicting Mohammad (yes, THAT Mohammad). Without the mass murder, a lot fewer people would've seen that image.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Perhaps the best strategy in this case would be for all creative artists and writers to produce as much content as they can and Creative Commons license it, so the content can all be broadcast everywhere and we all agree to post and publish it in every medium on every forum possible. That way, anyone who would take offense is so inundated they can not possibly respond.
If you're a profiteering advert monetizing clickbait pandering mainstream outlet with a mandate to deliver ROI on content and ensure channel marketing buy-in consistently realizes revenue, then please work to censor all 11 forbidden media words as well as any overt references to political, social, or religious figures that may impact quarterly earnings, subscribership, and total time of view. Also take note that wearable technology is fashionable this year.
if on the other hand you're an actual newspaper, journalist, podcaster, or god forbid television news programme that works to inform viewers objectively and spark meaningful discussion of current events be they political, social, or religious regardless of their tie-in ability to a product or service, please accept my sincere condolences as this type of response has always been a threat to your work. now that someone has actualized it, the real question is, are your convictions still genuine when tested?
Good people go to bed earlier.
....you do not want to print the pictures because you are afraid for your own life, those of your staff or relatives, well I am sorry to say that the extremists have WON.
No to mention if it gives the slightest hint that it worked, would invite others to act like that to silence further opposition with those with dissenting views.
Who talks like that?
Islam... in layman's terms
Here's how it works:
As long as the Muslim population remains under 2% in any given country, they will, for the most part, be regarded as a peace-loving minority, and not as a threat to other citizens. This is the case in:
United States -- 0.6% Muslim
Australia -- 1.5% Muslim
Canada -- 1.9% Muslim
China -- 1.8% Muslim
Italy -- 1.5% Muslim
Norway -- 1.8% Muslim
At 2% to 5%, they begin to proselytize to other ethnic minorities and disaffected groups, often with major recruiting from prisons and street gangs. This is happening in:
Denmark -- 2% Muslim
Germany -- 3.7% Muslim
United Kingdom -- 2.7% Muslim
Spain -- 4% Muslim
Thailand -- 4.6% Muslim
From 5% on, they exercise an inordinate influence in proportion to their percentage of the population. For example, they will push for the introduction of halal (clean by Islamic standards) food, thereby securing food preparation jobs for Muslims. They will increase pressure on supermarket chains to feature halal on their shelves -- along with threats for failure to comply. This is occurring in:
France -- 8% Muslim
Philippines -- 5% Muslim
Sweden -- 5% Muslim
Switzerland -- 4.3% Muslim
The Netherlands -- 5.5% Muslim
Trinidad & Tobago -- 5.8% Muslim
At this point, they will work to get the ruling government to allow them to rule themselves (within their ghettos) under Shari'ah, the Islamic Law. The ultimate goal of Islamists is to establish Shari'ah law over the entire world.
When Muslims approach 10% of the population, they tend to increase lawlessness as a means of complaint about their conditions. In Paris, we are already seeing car-burnings. Any non-Muslim action offends Islam, and results in uprisings and threats, such as in Amsterdam , with opposition to Mohammed cartoons and films about Islam. Such tensions are seen daily, particularly in Muslim sections, in:
Guyana -- 10% Muslim
India -- 13.4% Muslim
Israel -- 16% Muslim
Kenya -- 10% Muslim
Russia -- 15% Muslim
After reaching 20%, nations can expect hair-trigger rioting, jihad militia formations, sporadic killings, and the burnings of Christian churches and Jewish synagogues, as in:
Ethiopia -- 32.8% Muslim
At 40%, nations experience widespread massacres, chronic terror attacks, and ongoing militia warfare, as in:
Bosnia -- 40% Muslim
Chad -- 53.1% Muslim
Lebanon -- 59.7% Muslim
From 60%, nations experience unfettered persecution of non-believers of all other religions (including non-conforming Muslims), sporadic ethnic cleansing (genocide), use of Shariah Law as a weapon, and jizya, the tax placed on infidels (yes, there really is such a thing) as in:
Albania -- 70% Muslim
Malaysia -- 60.4% Muslim
Qatar -- 77.5% Muslim
Sudan -- 70% Muslim
After 80%, expect daily intimidation and violent jihad, some state-run ethnic cleansing, and even some genocide, as these nations drive out the infidels, and move toward 100% Muslim, as has been experienced and in some ways is on-going in:
Bangladesh -- 83% Muslim
Egypt -- 90% Muslim
Gaza -- 98.7% Muslim
Indonesia -- 86.1% Muslim
Iran -- 98% Muslim
Iraq -- 97% Muslim
Jordan -- 92% Muslim
Morocco -- 98.7% Muslim
Pakistan -- 97% Muslim
Palestine -- 99% Muslim
Syria -- 90% Muslim
Tajikistan -- 90% Muslim
Turkey -- 99.8% Muslim
United Arab Emirates -- 96% Muslim
100% will usher in the peace of 'Dar-es-Salaam' -- the Islamic House of Peace. Here, there's supposed to be peace, because everybody is a Muslim, the madrasses are the only schools, and the Koran is the only word, as in:
Afghanistan -- 100% Muslim
Saudi Arabia -- 100% Muslim
Somalia -- 100% Muslim
Yemen -- 100% Muslim
Unfortunately, peace is never achieved, as in these 100% states, the most radical Muslims intimidate, spew hatred, and satisfy their blood lust by killing less radical Muslims for a variety of reasons.
QUOTE:
"Be
Do you have nothing against Islam?
Then you have nothing against stoning, amputations, flogging, female genital mutilation, suicide bombers, beheadings, "honour" killings, repression of free speech, abolition of Parliament and its replacement with Shariah, banning of music, banning of beer and wine, banning of pork, dressing women in burkhas, beating of wives, mutiple wives, killing of rape victims, persecution of Jews and Christians, child brides, repression of reason and questioning, islamic police states, burning of churches, killing anyone who leaves islam, killing anyone who questions the teachings of islam, total intolerance of other religions, inferior status of women, violent Jihad against non-muslims, arranged marriages, acid attacks, public hangings, mutilations, rewriting of history, denial of islamic atrocities...
Here are folks in the Muslim community and what they say about the attacks.
And here is a Muslim cleric justifying it. And he is doing a better job — while these outraged Muslims are simply denouncing the attack as contrary to their understanding of Islam, he provides Koran quotes objectively proving the opposite:This is because the Messenger Muhammad said, "Whoever insults a Prophet kill him."
Thus, I tend to think, that these good people are either ignorant, in denial, or just lying — either out of fear of persecution or to advance their cause.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
But, when all that is said, is it in any way sensible that you go out of your way to stir up the shit?
Yes. Everything must be open to scrutiny.
And if you provoke a terrorist attack that gets a lot of innocents killed - are you not partially to blame, for all your freedom of speech?
No. Absolutely No.
Short answer: no. If you leave your door unlocked, you are not responsible for your house being burgled. If you (as a woman) dress up nicely for a night out on the town, you are not responsible for being raped on the way back home. Even if you pull down your bra and jiggle your jugs in front of a particularly drunk and horny looking individual in a dark alley. It's not wise, but that's statistics, not morality.
Charlie Hebdo have been threatened before (their office was firebombed if I recall correctly). Should they have stopped making their funnies then? Should we stop making fun of anyone when they threaten physical bodily harm? There are folk out there who, as someone put it, are offended deeply if their ligher doesn't work; should we cater to their whims too? I'd prefer to live in a society of laws rather than whims, and I for one am rather sad to live in a world where a movie like "Life of Brian" probably couldn't be made anymore, especially if they picked Mohammed as a target this time.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
I know it's really easy to just lambast the publishers as cowards for refusing to publish the cartoons (as you post anonymously or semi-anonymously on slashdot, you brave soul), but it's not an easy choice to make. It's been clearly demonstrated that by publishing mohammed cartoons, there's a non-zero chance that some nut-job will break into your building and murder a bunch of your staff. Are you as an editor willing to take that chance? Are you willing to put your staff at risk, even for a minimal chance of violence against your station? It's sooooo easy to criticize them for not publishing offensive cartoon, but I really doubt that the majority of you would post a crude drawing of mohammed on your facebook accounts, or drop off a few thousand copies of an offensive cartoon in your neighborhood mailboxes (with your personal address listed). Because then you're truly willing to take the same upon the same risk that these cartoonists (and their publishers) take.
From a litigation standpoint alone, is it worth publishing an offensive cartoon? Probably not if you're in a litigious friendly nation. If you're the editor, and if some shit goes down, and there's the slightest possibility your organization could be held liable for the deaths of your staff because you totally *knew* this could happen, and could have avoided it by not publishing the offensive article - you bet your ass they'll get sued by the families of the victims. That risk probably isn't worth whatever benefit they get for being more ballsy in the eyes of the viewer. The editors know this and factor this in their decision making.
Whether to publish or not is more of a Prisoner's dilemma than it is Streisand effect as mentioned elsewhere in the comments here, except with more than 2 "prisoners" (publishers - assume not publishing is equivalent to testifying in the analogy). The better move for yourself is to not publish and have no risk. But the better move for the collective is to publish. If all the publishers decided to publish, that would be the greatest overall benefit for freedom of speech, because it demonstrates they're not afraid of terrorism. It also minimizes the risk for each publisher, because terrorists don't have the resources to target all of the publishers in existence. They might even give up completely, realizing there's too many people offending their religion. But if nobody publishes cartoons out of fear, it reinforces the idea that threats of violence work (and the censored SouthPark scene in the "I learned something today" segment is true). If only handful of publishers decide to publish offensive mohammed cartoons, then it still reinforces the idea that threats of violence work (because most publishers aren't doing it, clearly because they're afraid of terrorism), AND it puts these few publishers at a much greater risk of terrorism. It fucking sucks, but the only way this is going to work is if a large majority of publishers decide to print these cartoons as a response.
Global warming and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking number of pirates - Gospel of the FSM