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from the I-Disapprove-of-What-You-Say,-But-I-Will-Defend-to-the-Death-Your-Right-to-Say-It dept.
From an editorial in the Otago Daily Times out of New Zealand, Censorship a Trojan Horse:
It's an oft-cited maxim that the news media is the "fourth estate" upon which a healthy democracy stands.
It ensures the three traditional powers of state — the legislature, executive and judiciary — can be critiqued, challenged and curbed from quietly drifting into the arms of corruption and authoritarianism.
A free, fair, open and uncensored media is an antidote to state power and, for all its failings (and there are many), should be treasured as such. There are many countries around the world whose people would give anything for such a freedom.
Yet calls for the banning of certain opinion pieces, cartoons and commentary have risen in recent months, especially from those using social media, a world where such talk is becoming a trend. It is a trend we must confront.
Censorship is to suppress the harmful, the unacceptable, the obscene and the threatening from the media and other forms of public communication. Like a virus attacking democracy from the inside out, it was traditionally the tool of the dictator, though it is one used by many in power.
[...] It pays to query what those demanding censorship — be they celebrities, social-media activists or anybody else — see their ultimate goal as being.
To reduce hurt? To make the world a better place? Possibly, and those motivations are laudable. But the method employed to achieve them is not.
While censorship may be meant as a figurative horse upon which a better future rides, inside the belly of that horse lurks an army of conformity, quite capable of unwitting oppression.
History shows what happens when the fourth estate is no longer free to table all opinions.
It is a bleak picture. Without the disinfectant of exposure, power and ideals tend to corrupt even the most seemingly incorruptible.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02 2018, @01:32PM (10 children)
I find today's problems in media to be about extremism not censorship. The censorship is mostly self-imposed with the goal of attracting an audience and revenue. And towards this revenue goal, with self-censorship, the media becomes more extreme/one-sided.
The problem is that many people prefer a one-sided opinion about what happened, they are not interested in a balanced view that represents both sides. They want their media to be the judge and tell them the verdict on what happened.
This is easier than trying to get a balanced view. When in a discussion with a blinded one-sided opinionist, the balanced view can't "win" because it has to cede some points to both sides, while the extreme side doesn't have to do that at all. This comes across to some as the extreme version being more certain and more correct.
When I hear something interesting and want to know more, I have to spend time and effort to try and get a balanced view of what are the actual facts and what is opinion. Scouring different news agencies and media.
Let's take a recent example:
Extreme:
Kavanaugh raped someone, he should not be supreme court judge due to his criminal behavior.
Balanced:
Someone accuses Kavanaugh of sexual assault a very long time ago. A trial would definitely be problematic due to lack of evidence after all these years. However, he is running for supreme court judge, do we want our supreme court judges to be impeccable, free from all blame and accusations? If we do, then it becomes far to easy to sabotage any candidate, if we don't, the public may lose trust in the supreme court....
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday October 02 2018, @02:17PM (3 children)
Like Matrix - the sequels were all VFX and no story, but they sold.
Stop! I admit, it's too bad they never made any sequels
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Freeman on Tuesday October 02 2018, @04:05PM (2 children)
I rather liked #2, it's just that the end of #2 turned it into magic instead of Sci-Fi. Which really killed #3. There may have been some other holes / crazyness, but that's what really killed the series.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Tuesday October 02 2018, @04:54PM (1 child)
Well it was either magic or they were all still inside the Matrix, it just had a special level for minds that tried to escape. But that also renders the whole exercise pointless and the movies nihilistic so that isn't a good answer either.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday October 02 2018, @07:43PM
They could have explained #2's "magic ending" in #3 by saying they were still in the Matrix, and then going from there. Instead, they decided that Deus Ex Machina was a great way to go about finishing their 3 movie series. More like a sure fire way to bury the series.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02 2018, @04:51PM (3 children)
Balanced is overrated. Often the truth is not "balanced".
Not any candidate, just the crap ones. The real problem is the corrupt politicians the voters voted in will only want corruptible judges. And the Republicans in particular appear to have rather shitty standards.
It's like a bunch of fratboys picking their judge. Of course they're not going to pick a some strait laced nerd, that would be stupid. They'll naturally pick someone from their fraternity.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02 2018, @10:58PM (2 children)
QED.
You're making his point for him. The truth is never balanced, it is absolute. The problem is knowing what is the truth is.
You are following the democrat herd and rejecting BK based on an unsubstantiated accusation of something a drunk teenager did 35 year ago.
There are far better reasons to disqualify him*, but this insane focus on a single unprovable accusation will probably put him in office when it is dismissed. You would almost think it had been planned by his supporters.
*duckduckgo Kavanaugh perjury and start reading.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday October 03 2018, @03:50AM
[follows instructions, reads]
Well, seems that's more of same.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/09/brett-kavanaugh-confirmation-perjury-claims-totally-baseless/ [nationalreview.com]
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 03 2018, @09:17AM
There's plenty of provable stuff on Kavanaugh that shows he's not good Supreme Court material. He even provides some of it himself.
You're the one with the "insane focus on a single unprovable accusation".
Go troll elsewhere.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 03 2018, @12:09AM (1 child)
When AM talk radio drifted conservative, partly due to right-leaning oligopolies forming, Republicans did away with FCC "fairness" rules, saying that "regulation of speech bad". Now many Republicans want similar regulation BACK for Internet companies. I see political hypocrisy.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday October 03 2018, @04:22AM
Lets see, you managed to get pretty much ALL of that short post wrong.
Rush and AM-Talk arose as a result of the "fairness doctrine" being junked so you get the causality wrong. With the Fairness Doctrine in place it would have been illegal to carry The Rush Limbaugh Program. Fairness you know... doublespeak. And despite AM radio being a bastion of the Right, lefties are free to try, several well funded attempts have been made and had no issues signing affiliates. Their problems came when the first ratings book was issued and every one after until they pulled the plug. Humorless scolds who can't even tell a proper joke for fear of offending someone can't hold anyone's attention for a three hour block when taxpayer funded NPR offers the same boring service without the endless annoying commercials that AM radio is plagued with.
AM talk radio succeeds in spite of the problems with the format because it is almost alone in the broadcast world for people of a certain traditional Right viewpoint. The Internet is of course rapidly encroaching upon its listeners except for the grays who can't figure out how to stream or download podcasts and will keep listening to Rush and Hannity until one of them (listener or host) dies.
Now as to the hypocrisy charge. We don't want CNN banned, we don't even want lefties banned from twitter. We want a level field, especially when monopolies exist, like social media. And that is actually what the laws say, a social media company can't exist as a publisher because the legal consequences would quickly crush them. So platform they must be to escape liability, that means they can't pick and choose, they have to act as a common carrier.