There have been increasingly vocal calls for Twitter, Facebook and other Silicon Valley corporations to more aggressively police what their users are permitted to…
There have been increasingly vocal calls for Twitter, Facebook and other Silicon Valley corporations to more aggressively police what their users are permitted to see and read. Last month in The Washington Post, for instance, MSNBC host Ronan Farrow demanded that social media companies ban the accounts of “terrorists” who issue “direct calls” for violence.
This week, the announcement by Twitter CEO Dick Costolo that the company would prohibit the posting of the James Foley beheading video and photos from it (and suspend the accounts of anyone who links to the video) met with overwhelming approval. What made that so significant, as The Guardian‘s James Ball noted today, was that “Twitter has promoted its free speech credentials aggressively since the network’s inception.” By contrast, Facebook has long actively regulated what its users are permitted to say and read; at the end of 2013, the company reversed its prior ruling and decided that posting of beheading videos would be allowed, but only if the user did not express support for the act.
Given the savagery of the Foley video, it’s easy in isolation to cheer for its banning on Twitter. But that’s always how censorship functions: it invariably starts with the suppression of viewpoints which are so widely hated that the emotional response they produce drowns out any consideration of the principle being endorsed.
It’s tempting to support criminalization of, say, racist views as long as one focuses on one’s contempt for those views and ignores the serious dangers of vesting the state with the general power to create lists of prohibited ideas. That’s why free speech defenders such as the ACLU so often represent and defend racists and others with heinous views in free speech cases: because that’s where free speech erosions become legitimized in the first instance when endorsed or acquiesced to.
The question posed by Twitter’s announcement is not whether you think it’s a good idea for people to see the Foley video. Instead, the relevant question is whether you want Twitter, Facebook and Google executives exercising vast power over what can be seen and read.
It’s certainly true, as defenders of Twitter have already pointed out, that as a legal matter, private actors – as opposed to governments – always possess and frequently exercise the right to decide which opinions can be aired using their property. Generally speaking, the public/private dichotomy is central to any discussions of the legality or constitutionality of “censorship.”
Under the law, there’s a fundamental difference between a private individual deciding to ban all racists from entering her home and a government imprisoning people for expressing racist thoughts; the former is legitimate while the latter is not. One can, coherently, object on the one hand to all forms of state censorship, while on the other hand defending the right of private newspapers to refuse to publish certain types of Op-Eds, or the right of private blogs to ban certain types of comments, or the right of private individuals to refrain from associating with those who have certain opinions.
The First Amendment bans speech abridgments by the state, not by private actors. There’s plainly nothing illegal about Twitter, Facebook and the like suppressing whatever ideas they choose to censor.
But as a prudential matter, the private/public dichotomy is not as clean when it comes to tech giants that now control previously unthinkable amounts of global communications. There are now close to 300 million active Twitter users in the world – roughly equivalent to the entire U.S. population – and those numbers continue to grow rapidly and dramatically. At the end of 2013, Facebook boasted of 1.23 billion active users: or 1 out of every 7 human beings on the planet. YouTube, owned by Google, recently said that “the number of unique users visiting the video-sharing website every month has reached 1 billion” and “nearly one out of every two people on the Internet visits YouTube.”
These are far more than just ordinary private companies from whose services you can easily abstain if you dislike their policies. Their sheer vastness makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to avoid them, particularly for certain work. They wield power over what we know, read and see far greater than anything previously possible – or conceivable – for ordinary companies. As The Guardian‘s Ball aptly noted today in expressing concern over Twitter’s censorship announcement:
Twitter, Facebook and Google have an astonishing, alarming degree of control over what information we can see or share, whether we’re a media outlet or a regular user. We have handed them a huge degree of trust, which must be earned and re-earned on a regular basis.
It’s an imperfect analogy, but, given this extraordinary control over the means of global communication, Silicon Valley giants at this point are more akin to public utilities such as telephone companies than they are ordinary private companies when it comes to the dangers of suppressing ideas, groups and opinions. It’s not hard to understand the dangers of allowing, say, AT&T or Verizon to decree that its phone lines may not be used by certain groups or to transmit certain ideas, and the dangers of allowing tech companies to do so are similar.
In the digital age, we are nearing the point where an idea banished by Twitter, Facebook and Google all but vanishes from public discourse entirely, and that is only going to become more true as those companies grow even further. Whatever else is true, the implications of having those companies make lists of permitted and prohibited ideas are far more significant than when ordinary private companies do the same thing.
Another vital distinction is between platform and publisher. As Ball explained, companies such as Twitter have long insisted they are the former and not the latter, which means they are not responsible for what others publish on their platform (just as AT&T is not responsible for how people use its telephones). Demanding that Twitter actively intervene in what speech is and is not permissible blurs those lines, if not outright converts them into a publisher. That necessarily vests the company with far greater responsibility for determining which ideas can and cannot be aired.
If, despite these dangers, you are someone who wants Dick Costolo, Mark Zuckerberg, Eric Schmidt and the like to make lists of prohibited ideas and groups, then you really need to articulate what principles should apply. If, for instance, you want “terrorist groups” to be banned, then how is that determination made? There is intense debate all over the world about what “terrorism” means and who qualifies. Should they use the formal lists from the U.S. Government, thus empowering American officials to determine who can and cannot use social media? Should they use someone else’s lists, or make their own judgments?
If you want these companies to suppress calls for violence, as Ronan Farrow advocated, does that apply to all calls for violence, or only certain kinds? Should MSNBC personalities be allowed to use Twitter to advocate U.S. drone-bombing in Yemen and Somalia and justify the killing of innocent teenagers, or use Facebook to call on their government to initiate wars of aggression? How about Israelis who use Facebook to demand “vengeance” for the killing of 3 Israeli teenagers, spewing anti-Arab bigotry as they do it: should that be suppressed under this “no calls for violence” standard?
A Fox News host this week opined that all Muslims are like ISIS and can only be dealt with through “a bullet to the head”: should she, or anyone linking to her endorsement of violence (arguably genocide), be banned from Twitter and Facebook? How about Bob Beckel’s call on Fox that Julian Assange be “assassinated”: would that be allowed under Ronan Farrow’s no-calls-for-violence standard? I had a long dialogue with Farrow on Twitter about his op-ed but was not really able to get answers to questions like these.
None of this is theoretical. It’s the inevitable wall people run into when cheering for the suppression of speech they find “harmful.” Indeed, even as they were applauded, Twitter refused to follow their edict through to its logical conclusion when they announced they would not ban the account of the New York Post even though that tabloid featured a graphic photo of the Foley beheading on its front page, which it promoted from Twitter. The only rationale for refusing to do so is that banning the account of a newspaper because Twitter executives dislike its front page powerfully underscores how dangerous their newly announced policy is.
There are cogent reasons for opposing the spread of the Foley beheading video, but there also are all sorts of valid reasons for wanting others to see it, including a desire to highlight the brutality of this group. It’s very similar to the debate over whether newspapers should show photos of corpses from wars and other attacks: is it gratuitously graphic and disrespectful to the dead, or newsworthy and important in showing people the visceral horrors of war?
Whatever one’s views are on all of these questions, do you really want Silicon Valley executives – driven by profit motive, drawn from narrow socioeconomic and national backgrounds, shaped by homogeneous ideological views, devoted to nationalistic agendas, and collaborative with and dependent on the U.S. government in all sorts of ways – making these decisions? Perhaps you don’t want the ISIS video circulating, and that leads you to support yesterday’s decision by Twitter. But it’s quite likely you’ll object to the next decision about what should be banned, or the one after that, which is why the much more relevant question is whether you really want these companies’ managers to be making such consequential decisions about what billions of people around the world can — and cannot – see, hear, read, watch and learn.
Arbiters? No. Gasterbeiters? Yes.
What foreign government do you support? You criminalize a country you do not even reside in. What does citizenship mean to you?
>> Given the savagery of the Foley video,
The video is not particularly savage. The actual cutting is done off-camera. I would call it tasteful terrorist messaging compared to other atrocity videos.
As for the question Glen Greenwald poses, society has already decided there are categories of forbidden content. All the legal, technical, and most importantly psychological elements have been put in place to restrict access to certain materials.
Corporate refusal to transmit certain contents, which just so happens to align with Western political / military interests, such as restricting the distribution network for terrorist messaging, is just the natural evolution of home-spun censorship systems.
You all know what I’m talking about.
“Corporate refusal to transmit certain contents, which just so happens to align with Western political / military interests, such as restricting the distribution network for terrorist messaging, is just the natural evolution of home-spun censorship systems.”
I realize I’m going to be in the minority on this site on this one, but I don’t see this argument, and it follows that I don’t see the censorship of the Foley video as being of any special significance. Presumably, if someone made a snuff video in their basement, Twitter wouldn’t allow that either. Also true if someone wanted to post a video of themselves having sex, child pornography, trademark violation, and so on:
https://support.twitter.com/articles/18311
You could argue that this is not how society should be in general and there should be absolutely no censorship, what I’m not getting in the case of the Foley video is why people are treating it as something *new, as if a dangerous new line has been crossed. If this had simply been a statement, and nothing else, by a terrorist group, then that I can see. But I don’t think you have ever been able to post videos depicting a live murder on Twitter, although feel free to correct me if that’s wrong.
I notice in other articles on this topic, two recent events are generally invoked – one being the Foley video, the other being the response to Robin William’s daughter posting about his death. That to me seems like a clearer case on the topic of censorship, although it has nothing to do with military interests.
I suppose I can see an argument here if you’re talking about, in a general way, the language and standards of war vs. the language and standards of crime. Again, while I could be wrong, I would be shocked if Twitter previously had a snuff video friendly policy, where one could have invoked freedom of speech to post a video of a kidnapping victim being murdered in a psychopath’s basement. But we allow for things in war that we do not consider legal, moral, or socially acceptable in any other context, and to some extent different standards apply there. You do see graphic images of war on the news and on Youtube. I think this particular video pushes even those standards, but I guess you could make an argument that if Twitter allows things like news videos showing the violence of war, there may be a double standard going on. Outside of that thinking, again, this all sounds pretty status quo to me.
ISIS is a CIA op, they want to turn Syria into the next Libya.
Be that as it may, I’m confused about how one can support Citizens United on one hand and on the other act outraged about a corporation censoring stuff. Does Greenwald have a response to this kind of cognitive dissonance?
Reading these pieces is like a dog chasing its tail, you don’t get anywhere fast. A lot of obfuscation and bullshit. If you work for a billionnaire, exactly how could your allegiances possibly lie with oppressed people?
“how one can support Citizens United on one hand”
Can you say “Free Speech?”
“act outraged about a corporation censoring stuff.”
Can you say “Free Speech?”
” how could your allegiances possibly lie with oppressed people?”
Can you say “Free Speech?”
Although I cannot speak for the author(s), I can say that reading your comments “is like a dog chasing its tail, you don’t get anywhere fast. A lot of obfuscation and bullshit.”
Free speech is a double-edged sword. It cuts both ways, and you don’t get to just pick one side and stick with it – it harms (some would say) as much as it protects (some would protest).
And that is as the Constitution meant it to to be.
“You can’t pick and choose which types of freedom you want to defend. You must defend all of it or be against all of it.”
– Scott Howard Phillips
>“how one can support Citizens United on one hand” & “Can you say “Free Speech?”
Unfortunately, the kind of free speech Citizens United protects results in strict limits on freedom for the rest of us with little influence. For example, some of the 100 people who have greater influence over your choices regarding your healthcare than you do; and will all profit on your becoming ill rather than living on to a ripe old age with sustained health.
http://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2014/08/25/most-influential-members
@seer – I understand your concern, but agree, like Mr. Greenwald, that a solution other than limiting speech itself is at least a partial answer to the dilemma.
From the article cited above:
” Isn’t it far more promising to have the Government try to equalize the playing field through serious public financing of campaigns than to try to slink around the First Amendment — or, worse, amend it — in order to limit political advocacy? – Glenn Greenwald
It’s time for an open-sourced ‘Twitter’ I say. One where free speech is truly upheld and the people have insight in the algoritms presenting them their daily worldview.
No one is stopping you from creating such an app.
it’s already been done. It’s called status.net
Done: It’s called StatusNet. Look it up. It’s been around for years. As an example, see http://www.quitter.se
You make an Excellent argument, thank you! No, we do not want them to be our Arbiters on Anything!
@CraigSummers – here’s the new New Yorker article on AIPAC, fyi:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/01/friends-israel
Ok Scooby Doo.
THis is an easy question. There is no private/public distinction here.
The internet has become the public square.
Long ago, US courts ruled that private property – placers like malls – are the public square fr purposes of the first amendment, see:
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/12/21/nyregion/court-protects-speech-in-malls.html
Idea suppression comes in many forms. While I recognize the difference between the Constitutional Right to Freedom of Speech and the right of blog sites to control their content, it is fair to state that some ostensibly “liberal” blog sites are arbitrarily applying these controls to suppress ideas that do not comport with their worldview. One of the worst of these is Salon.com and the method they use is both pernicious and cynical.
The first time Salon suppressed my comments happened without my knowledge and continued for nearly a month. Although I was posting comments to numerous articles, over time I began to notice that none of my comments were receiving responses, positive or negative, which was extremely unusual.
Eventually, I discovered that a thin-skinned writer had rendered my comments invisible to everyone on the site but me. This is a very cynical form of suppression, since a person does not realize that he or she has been suppressed and ends up wasting time and effort writing comments that are read by no one.
After much correspondence, I finally was able to get my account restored. However, my account was once again suppressed over the Memorial Day Weekend after I posted an on topic comment with a link to Architects and Engineers for 911 Truth.
On still another occasion, I posted a correction to a factual error in one of their articles in regard to the Weather Underground. To support my contention, I added a link to a Wickipedia Article on the subject. To my astonishment, several hours later I noticed that the Weather Underground Logo had been appended to my post as if I had posted it there.
Naturally, just as one would not want to have a swastika posted to a link about the History of World War II, I resented the addition of this terrorist symbol to my post, which made it appear as if I were a supporter of their terrorist agenda. Once again, this could only have been added as it was, after the fact, by someone on the Salon Staff.
When I asked Salon to remove the symbol from my post, instead of simply removing the terrorist symbol, they removed my entire post. Of course, by removing the entire post, they also conveniently succeeded in removing my correction of their original factual error.
The final suppression occurred after I stridently attacked a couple of Zionist Jerks that were attempting to defend the indiscriminate bombing of women and children in Gaza. I gave them no quarter and they deserved none, since they were defending Crimes against Humanity. Once again, my comments disappeared from the threads for a month before I complained, which resulted in the following note.
“While we appreciate that you have contributed to Salon.com, a significant number of your comments have continued to raise red flags, and that is why we have canceled your account. I wish you luck on finding another online community to your liking.
Yours,
Salon Community Team
After more than four years and over 4000 archived pages, this was never about red flags being raised by anyone. Rather it was about the people of an organization that bills itself as a ‘salon’ behaving like petulant children and suppressing the articulate commentary of those with whom they disagree.
Since there are others here who write on Salon, be advised that they are doing this and that I am not the only one that they have suppressed in this manner. The more it is exposed, the better.
Salon is enough to piss liberals off. Within the last couple of days, there was a column on trolling. The moderator fascists came out in droves!
I came away with one conclusion: Those who rail against trolls are the most viciously controlling trolls themselves.
Moderators diminish a thread, as newspaper editors diminished the quality of Letters to the Editor. ALL are capricious! The question arises: Why does one want to be a moderator in the first place? Or a censor?
“Improving the quality of the comment thread” = mindless pablum only.
So you would be surprised to discover that The Intercept censors commenters then? Especially in light of a piece like this crap the corporate hack Greenwald has written?
At face value, this comment may appear out of place.
When I need to re-energize in a battle of my life that can drain one dry, what I find sustaining me foremost is the late Mr. Nelson Mandela and the template he left behind on how to fight to win. And of course, similar minds from around the world, both alive and long gone. And music…
I don’t know what genre tickles your fancy, but if you find positive nourishment in cruising effortlessly across all genres, and in crossing cultural, ethnic, religious and other boundaries in music as I do, then you probably might like this. Her name is Toya Buthelezi but her stage name is ‘Toya Delazy’.
The stuff is a hybrid of traditional Zulu/Xhosa sounds and urban (Soweto) sounds; western pop influences, and original elements. To all persons of good will here and beyond, here’s one for your enjoyment – and uplift. It is certainly going to take far more than sitting in this ‘room’ (intercept) to reclaim the constitution and the fast-slipping freedoms. But fight back clean. Always. And drink deep from the wells of inspiration whenever they cross your path.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0NpJkuYCgk
‘(Don’t Worry) If There’s A Hell Below We’re All Going To Go’
“Sisters, niggers, whities, jews, crackers!
Don’t worry, if there’s hell below, we’re all gonna go!
Aaaaaaah!
Sisters, brothers and the whities
Blacks and the crackers
Police and their backers
They’re all political actors
Hurry
People running from their worries
While the judge and the juries
Dictate the law that’s partly flaw
Cat calling, love balling, fussing and cussing
Top billing now is killing
For peace no-one is willing
Kind of make you get that feeling
Everybody smoke
Use the pill and the dope
Educated fools
From uneducated schools
Pimping people is the rule
Polluted water in the pool
And Nixon talking about don’t worry
He says don’t worry
He says don’t worry
He says don’t worry
But they don’t know
There can be no show
And if there’s a hell below
We’re all gonna go
Everybody’s praying
And everybody’s saying
But when come time to do
Everybody’s laying
Just talking about don’t worry
They say don’t worry
They say don’t worry
They say don’t worry..”
-curtis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1xmXOP3lhM
Isn’t Greenwald a supporter of corporate speech though? I thought he supports Citizens United.
Excellent essay. Right to the point. Especially concerning the slippery slope problem and the obvious biases of these businesses. Perhaps a sad repeat of history in the making unless we pause to think.
Facebook, Google & Twitter are private companies. Who would set the precedent of a company being regulated and told how to run its business? Not me.
However a group of liberty oriented of entrepreneurs might get together and start a social network, declaring it to be free speech oriented. I am not one such entrepreneur, but I’m sure there should be some, else this topic would not engender such discussion.
She’s been talking to the CIA for five years no one knew you could do this. She is telepathic and codes.
Obama gave pope Francis seeds for his garden
Pops on Route 66 is owned by Aubrey McCllendon
OT
On the silence of the msm on the Chelsea Manning trial:
https://www.lareviewofbooks.org/review/silencing-chelsea-manning
Social media platforms that make billions from amassing data and selling it – that does not make them ethical, moral, responsible or even intelligent – it makes them social media platforms that make billions from amassing data and selling it.
Why should they have right of censorship – it’s a backwards step for the internet and humanity to allow them that degree of power – it’s the equivalent of “burning books” for the digital era.
Access to information is necessary for people to learn, form opinions and decide, limiting those parameters just keeps people in the dark. Surely just a warning is enough so people can decide whether to look, learn or not! Even dare I say it become responsible, mature human beings!
Censorship is what has made fools and idiots of humanity to date.
“the relevant question is whether you want Twitter, Facebook and Google executives exercising vast power over what can be seen and read. ”
NO, NO and NO again.
About time people grew up and became responsible and developed the ability to think critically – and that cannot happen if information and ideas are forever being censored – give me a break – FB, Google, Twitter etc. as arbiters of what one is allowed to see – I guess the joke is definitely on us.
So much for knowledge and freedom – in a way they are even more creepy than current media, news, govt. censorship because of the”crowd-pleasing” masks they wear.
‘Dr. Seer.. Dr. Seer.. Please pick up the white courtesy phone….
Dr. Seer.. The white courtesy phone, please..’
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/08/12/nprs-dina-temple-raston-passed-cia-funded-nsa-contractor-independent-fear-monger-snowden-reporting/#comment-68477
Twitter is designed to promote American culture and has absolutely no obligation to allow links to un-American ways of killing people, such as beheadings. There is no reason to show someone having their head cut off, when there are plenty videos available showing people being killed with bullets. The ‘right to bear arms’ obviously referred to guns and not to swords. There are major economic benefits to guns; manufacturing, hosting shows, retail outlets, clubs and shooting ranges. Swords aren’t even a blip on the economic radar. Twitter is a commercial enterprise and no one should expect them to allow activities which reduce their profit potential. What is the point to speech in general, let alone free speech, unless someone can make money from it?
In America, the most preferred method of death is the slow, torturous suffering from disease endured for decades until death comes disguised as a bright angel bringing sweet relief from pain and despair. That is the reason it’s considered a good that our environment is polluted by chemicals that cause harm to almost all life forms, and that their restriction is opposed by academic chemists and their project funders, who say disease and suffering is a worthwhile trade-off for certain dangerous anti-life advances science makes so attractive and digestible to the consumer sect that is comprised of pre-diseased citizens who vote with their wallets.
That sort of death entails the need for decades-long medical care and massive profits for the corporations involved in its delivery of products and services.
It’s time for a opensourced ‘Twitter’ I say! Where free speech is really upheld and people have insight in the algorithms used to present them their view on the world.
We covered the censorship, referencing this piece in The Intercept in two segments on KPFA-Berkeley this evening. http://www.anngarrison.com/audio/2014/08/24/522/silicon-valley-censures-isis-message
I wrote both stories but left the call about the audio clips to the anchor. Savage and deplorable as the beheading is, I agree with media and entertainment lawyer Peter Franck that Americans should be able to hear ISIS’s own communication about why they did it.
This is a call for censorship and the ISIS beheading video is an obvious hoax.
I’ve commented 3x : 1 comment, 1 reply, another comment, in this thread.
Only my 1st comment was published.
I said nothing inappropriate, that I can see.
Most sites have comments as soon as their received.
Anyone see a comment from the Huff-Post, plus a very topical cartoon,
from somewhere else?
No one should have the right to censor what people watch. The only exception to this would be a parent deciding what their under-aged child is allowed to watch. I had the Foley video sent to me, I chose not to watch it after a journalist who watched it recommended not watching it as it was sickening. If we sincerely want people to stop asinine behaviors we need to have the right to see everything so we can discuss the event, if we are protected from atrocities how are we going to figure out the best way to stop them. Not allowing people to see the truth of real events does not stop the events from happening it only stops the discussion that needs to happen to stop such events from happening again. Everyone has the right not to watch, this doesn’t need to be decided for them.
There can’t be any control because everyone’s opinion of good, bad, wrong, right, too this, too that is different. once censorship starts it will continue until the fundamentalists control it all.
On August 22, 2014, I posted a comment here reporting the removal of a ‘url’ ( http://peacepink.ning.com/profiles/blogs/nanodevices-in-sensory-overload-mind-control-torture?xg_source=activity ) from the web. The ‘url’ contained a most recent updated version of my documentation and to which I had directed users of this website.
Today, I am happy to announce that the ‘url’ is back on the web. And that by typing the word ‘nanodevices’ on the text field of the search engine (Google), the file title “Nanodevices in mind control torture” is returned among the list of returned phrases and words. This has not happened in more than 2 years.
I wish to thank whoever made this possible. And I hope that the positive development will last and is not just another spoof that will reverse things for the worst. I am an unapologetic agnostic, but I am not afraid to say ‘Bless’ to whoever made this possible. Thank you.
@Lyra1 – you’ve probably read this:
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2014/08/08/4064106.htm
@ Dabney:
Yes I have read that article, but I read it again anyway. That the US has caused this problem in the Middle East is undeniable. Oil is the objective and the US has divided the Middle Eastern nations largely through manipulation of the various Muslim religious denominations by using terrorist mercenary forces on multiple fronts; which gives a religious connotation to the strictly economic and political conquests. Israel holds the Zionist/Nazi key land position in the Middle East and enforces the pseudo-religious conflict adding the element of Judeo/Christian supremacy. The Zionists just use people of the Jewish and Christian
religions to accomplish their political and economic goals. In fact, they are particularly adept at persecuting the Jewish people, and the Christian Zionists have historically waged numerous wars and programs ostensibly to convert “heathens,” but it is really about the acquisition of land, land assets, and people. That people of the Islamic faith have been targeted as “heathens” and terrorists by the US government is undeniable. That is because there can be only one Nazi ruling class and one slave class in the Totalitarian One World Order. Just as the Zionists in Israel have made it perfectly clear that Palestinians will be their slaves or they will kill them all….either by starvation, illness, or direct genocide. It is simply evil and it has covertly manifested in the United States of America as Totalitarian rule.
Thanks for posting that article. Well worth reading a couple of times.
Welcome to 2014, where a bare handful of one line back-and-forths can be described as “I had a long dialogue with Ronan Farrow…”
Greenwald is an extremist and as is typically the case has wandered off into a weird place. One imagines his soul must bleed for the the oppression suffered by scientists who wish to include death threats and pictures of beheading in their papers, yet the dark overlords of scientific journals will not let them, making tedious arguments of taste and relevance. Yet, against all odds, despite the death of freedom at the hands of a small clique of people in power, the scientific enterprise continues to be the most successful thing ever done by humans.
Is it really necessary for Greenwald, or anybody, to see actual pictures of a beheading to appreciate that it is not a pleasant thing?
Greenwald is a hysterical crank. His ranting about the so called powerful and their destruction of our freedom completely misses the point of modern America, which is that efforts to open the government to public scrutiny have destroyed the ability of the government to govern as everything officials do is second guessed and attacked to the point that politicians are terrified puppets of the mob.
The last Iraq war is a perfect example of this. The mob was in the mood to shoot something, anything after 9-11, and Bush was the happy hack ready to give them what they wanted. Senate opposition collapsed not because it was such a good idea but because it would have been a political disaster to defy the mob. This is how America rolls now, and Greewald is hell bent to make sure there is more of it.
My heart goes out to the Foley family. I cant imagine their pain. But I do know that having access to photos and videos from Gaza, via Twitter and other independent blogs and news orgs, has profoundly altered my perceptions of what’s happening over there.
If these videos and photos were censored from the public, and only viewed by a few people who were then allowed to verbally interpret their content, then we would all be at the mercy of the people interpreting them – people with biases and agendas. I mean, just to close the circle, if I had to rely on Jody Rudoren for my understanding of the war in Gaza, my opinions would be very different than they are now. So I don’t agree with censorship.
On the other hand, I cringe at the thought of my eight year old son, a few years from now, having access to that graphic media content. At that point, I’ll probably become very pro-censorship. At least in my own house.
Agreed Dabney.
The on the ground news reporting the world had during these heart rending weeks in Gaza will, I think, ultimately turn all “war” on “terror” around. Arms manufacturers are using up their hardware killing 90 percent civilians, mostly women and children. The world is appalled.
And apropos of this, if you have not, please also read “Against Our Better Judgment” and go online to see the author, Alison Weir at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9_5iOYsHFQ.
Yes Thelma Follett….
It is necessary to revisit the concept of Zionism in order to understand many of the more heinous factors contributing to the “War on Terror”, particularly those where ISIS (also known as ISIL) terrorists are surfacing….just about everywhere these days. For instance consider this:
“Zionism behind ISIL surge in Middle East: commentator”
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/08/19/375900/zionism-behind-isil-surge-in-mideast/
“Press TV: How honest do you think Cameron is when he speaks of the threat of ISIL when we consider how the US and its allies have been supporting this very group and other al-Qaeda-linked factions in Syria for years now?
Shakespeare: He is completely dishonest. This is mind-numbing hypocrisy. ISIS was created and is being created by the USA, by Israel and by Saudi Arabia aided by their sidekicks in Turkey and Prime Minister David Cameron.
The prime purpose of ISIS is to smash up any Middle East state which exhibits any sort of opposition to the expansion of Israel.
The United States is governed by Zionism in particular Christian Zionism and they (are) so Zionist that they do nothing when thousands of Christians are slaughtered.”
I kind of don’t understand what Shakespeare’s saying – is he saying the US purposefully created ISIL? Intentionally – like as a plot?
I think MJ Rosenberg’s argument, about ISIL being a boon to Israel, is more cogent:
http://mjrosenberg.net/2014/08/22/israel-is-isis-best-ally/
There are many articles from many authors regarding the economic backing and training of the ISIS terrorists. This one has quite a few links.
“Allegations: U.S. Allies Back ISIS Islamic Terrorists”
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/08/allegations-u-s-allies-back-isis-islamic-terrorists.html
Yes…that is what Shakespeare is saying. Although the Rosenberg article is interesting he overlooks the fact that the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, and Turkey funded and trained Islamic terrorists in Jordan.
If the US is supporting ISIL, Israel will no doubt benefit from its presence in the ME. The US does what Israel says – you must have noticed.
And this when placed in the context of evaluating events in Ferguson:
“Racist societies: Israel and US”
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/08/23/376334/racist-societies-israel-and-us/
“One wonders how the racism that is so much a part of U.S. and Israeli society towards the Palestinians can have such strength. Racism against African-Americans in both countries is strong (witness the frequent shootings of black youths by whites in the United States, and the very high acquittal rates of those perpetrators, if they are even charged with a crime, and Israel’s rampant violence again people of African descent), and now racism is financing genocide. A look at some of the possible factors is interesting, frightening and disheartening.”
Zionist philosophy is indistinguishable from Nazi philosophy – the product is apartheid and genocide. Note the “Nazi” salute of the KKK in the picture of this article.
@Thelma – Wow. That video is quite the rabbit hole. I surprised myself by watching the whole thing. Only one thing troubles me – After watching Weir talk about the Jewish terrorist group led by Rabbi Baruch Korff (apparently they hired a British pilot to bomb London after WWII) I looked it up online, and what I found contradicts what Weir says. Weir says Korff hired pilot Reginald Gilbert to bomb London and kill as many people as possible – but all the corresponding references I find online say that Korff hired Gilbert to drop leaflets all over London – not bombs. Did Weir really get that so wrong?
Before this is memory-holed Dabney, take a look for yourself at the record of facts.
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/22506150
“On Tuesday September 9, 1947, American newspaper The Argus reported the arrest of 16 members of Jewish terrorist groups Stern Gang and a US Army Air Force (USAAF) pilot Reginald Gilbert by the French police at the Toussus le-Noble airport near Versailles.
The terrorist group was lead by a Ukrainian-born Rabbi Baruch Korff, chairman of the American Political Action Committee for Palestine and his private secretary Judith Rosenberger, a Hungarian-born US citizen. All of them were accused of trying to bomb the British Foreign Office building in London in order to force London to withdraw its forces from Palestine which the World Zionist movement had decided to turn into “for Jews only” Israel by armed terrorism.”
Original link that led to microfiche of news article. It includes this explanation:
In 2003, the released British secret service MI5 documents also confirmed that there was a “Project for a air raid over London City, in the course of which leaflets were to be dropped in the name of Stern Gang, together with high-explosive bombs“.
http://rehmat1.com/2014/08/04/september-1947-when-jew-terrorists-tried-to-bomb-london/
Foley was sent by the Zionists to do their bidding.He is not deserving of pity,but rancor,and the just reward award.Screw him and them with equal fervor.
And all these twits and facebook users;More Zio control,but what else is new in the land of nod,east of hedon.
My post was lost in the innards of this commenting system, or deemed inappropriate.
Thanks to all those who responded to my first comment.
It dealt with the Danish cartoons and shouting ‘fire in a theater’. It’s an article from the
Huff-Post, in the humor section. of all things.This article claims 250 people were killed and
800 injured, protesting this cartoon.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-mcgraw-and-joel-warner/muhammad-cartoons_b_1907545.html
Then I added a cartoon, dealing with the publication of the Danish cartoon:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&docid=6aFVqOvOx76ReM&tbnid=RFQkH1X2KokeNM:&ved=0CAUQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.unc.edu%2Fcourses%2F2010spring%2Flaw%2F357c%2F001%2FHateSpeech%2FLegality.html&ei=yxf4U8aJNYasyATq4IKwDQ&bvm=bv.73612305,d.cWc&psig=AFQjCNGlkLZfaPDNzqcXgZPNZPFWDuTvPg&ust=1408840244605974
Perhaps, the cartoon didn’t come through, as I was given ‘too many choices’, when I right-clicked.
Now, let’s see it this posts, to the few who might be reading this.
Is anybody reading this?
The evening news broadcasts of the grim realities of the Vietnam war was instrumental in bringing an end to that BS war IMO.
The evening news showing the grim footage of what the Vietnam war was like played a huge role in bringing that war to an end IMO.
Twitter, Google, Facebook and countless company, received tax exempt treatment, by local and state governments.
In San Francisco we are fed up with Tweeter local perks and tax deduction that people have taken to the streets…http://tinyurl.com/ms5yxjv
Certainly Twitter, Facebook and Google, inter alia, are not to be trusted, but there is a larger issue here, and that concerns the willingness of the public to empower such organizations. I find the arguments in favor of social media unconvincing, based on experience. Given that these outlets are conduits for spying by the NSA and GCHQ, and that said organizations are known to be employing them for counterintelligence and disinformation purposes, why would any sensible individual continue to use them? It is only further evidence of human irrationality.
Data is data, acquire it, analyse, and integrate. The source is irrelevant.
“Data is data, acquire it, analyse, and integrate. The source is irrelevant.”
Precisely.
Glenn just had to work the demonizing Israelis angle in. How is a beheading of an American by a Muslim or drone strikes in Yemen even remotely comparable to a Facebook page about retaliation? This is opinionated trash, not journalism. Glenn lives in his own sheltered world, where the Arabs and Muslims are never the aggressors. There are far more anti-Semitic Facebook groups and pages started by Arabs and targeting the Jewish population than vice versa. In France, Arabs started a page that listed photos and addresses of Jews to be attacked.
Guardian story on apprehending British person apparently speaking in Foley video: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/20/isis-british-militant-james-foley-video
Did you just post this? They either removed the block on that link recently, or are selectively moderating the posting of the link by context. As in they wouldn’t allow the post if I said “Murder is totally awesome (link).” I don’t see any other reason for that link to virtually never post when other links post immediately.
Yes, that posted immediately. I’m absolutely convinced there is no “they” purposefully controlling when this link posts.
Why some people try tom post the same link and it does not go thru, is mysterious indeed. But I’ll be there is no conscious effort behind it.
I tried posting that link twice on one story and once on this one. Pedinska tried it at least once here too.
All I gotta say Mona is – you got that magic touch! ;)
I believe TallyHo tried unsuccessfully as well. I wonder if other folk can spell out [email protected] and get it to post?
It was too tarzie to post, but we keep on tryin’.
At about 12:30 pm I tried to post this: “It was too (forbidden word) to post, but we keep on tryin’.” But I don’t see it here after a quarter hour and another post of mine published.
Yeah, I can’t post [email protected] with an a either.
Thanks Mona.
That’s one of the strangest anomalies I’ve seen yet with this commenting section. Will be very glad when they finally iron out the wrinkles because that was a real head-scratcher coming as it did under a post on Twitter and Facebook doing selective pruning. That’s fer sure. :-s
Will just file under “wonders never cease” category and move on.
As for Turdzie, I can’t say I miss seeing his acerbic assitude around here, but I’d rather put up with it and see him taken down a peg every time he extrudes an offering for the punch bowl, than have him, or references to him, truly banished.
Thanks again for the assist.
Yeah, I’d be wildly surprised if IT here had programmed the software to reject comments containing his name. It has to be some weird anomaly.
As for the guy himself, he’s had several accounts here, and only gets 86ed when he relentlessly spams. If he’d stop doing that one of his accounts might survive.
I had considered the possibility that someone somewhere considers that (or has used it as) a slur of some type. A strange link not posting makes much more sense than a specific word not posting.
If Twitter allowed such videos they would mostly be viewed (and spread) by children is the unfortunate truth.
Very good points. I stand for free speech and the freedom to not listen or look at what offends me.
The bottom line is, these companies do have any compulsion to list whatever they find offensive in their search engines- they are individual companies and, as such, they have a right to provide whatever level of service they desire. If they want to list the Foley beheading in their search listing, so be it- and just as quickly, if all they want to list are cat videos they are welcome to do that as well. It is up to the individual use to decide if they want to patronize this or that provider or use this or that search engine- and if a provider loses too many advertisers from lack of views, that’s just the way it works.
Yes, it is a complicated issue, but if Google and Yahoo and whoever chooses not to allow certain information in their search listings, you can bet someone else will. Then again, just think if all these various so-called ‘terrorist organizations’ decide to drop the internet altogether and use the US mail, or UPS, or FedEx to send their materials to each and every front door in the US?
Doubt that you will read this in the mainstream media. – an interesting report from The World Socialist Web Site :
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/08/22/pers-a22.html
You can’t cry “fire!” in a crowded theater.
As is usual when the issue of free speech arises, those who wish to limit speech invoke the hoary statement in bold above, and it has been invoked in comments here.
The best analysis of everything that is wrong with this invocation has been written by lawyer Ken White at Popehat: Three Generations of a Hackneyed Apologia for Censorship Are Enough: http://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-hackneyed-apologia-for-censorship-are-enough/
Mona, seer and I are interested in your take on this string of six comments from lower in the thread. It starts here:
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/08/21/twitter-facebook-executives-arbiters-see-read/#comment-71795
I also posted a comment at PaU about it.
In this case, it would be entirely appropriate to say that we are waiting with bated/baited breath. ;-}
Thanks for the alert!
As I told seer below, this just isn’t censorship. My posting problem has reared up again at times. It’s totally aggravating — and the Intercept should have fixed this long ago — but it isn’t a censorship issue.
BTW, a few weeks ago, I began addressing a certain someone thus here: [email protected] I did that, because spelling out the name correctly WOULD NOT POST. No matter what I did, even trying to post from Tor.
I was certain posting about this would start himself ranting that the mention of his name was being censored here and so I didn’t call attn to it then. Still don’t know what the issue is/was, but I am quite confident that First Look is not consciously filtering out that person’s moniker.
Oh, no. That would never happen…Why do you think I can flow so freely? Because I’m free? Why do caged birds sing, Mona? Because they know you aren’t listening.
OMG, I am so going to see Fischer at the MIM. They say acts are transported by the sound they make in such a clean environment. Don’t frack it up, GCHQ!!
http://mimmusictheater.themim.org/lisa-fischer
4 minute mark. Is it? You got me…
It’s not just executives of social media companies that have this power. The DMCA allows copyright claimants to suppress speech in remarkably similar ways. A DMCA takedown notice is delivered to the party serving up the content, and it causes suppression of the speech. If this notice were to be delivered to a court that could render the same order, it would be an _ex parte_ action, a violation of due process, and in the context of the First Amendment be called prior restraint.
The point is that corporate suppression of speech in favor of profits is neither novel nor recent. It was good for society with the DMCA and (as in this article) it isn’t good for society now.
(There are issues with copyright vs. anonymity services, an area where these issues are more delicate, but that’s beyond the scope of a comment section.)
Testing 1…2…3… redux
As usual, an excellent and well thought article from Mr. Greenwald. I have to say that i fully agree with Mr. Greenwald. Once a door like this is open, there is no closing it and i certainly want no one to censor what i read / see. A politician at least has the argument that he/she was elected, and yet i won’t accept his/her thought control as that is a weak argument at best. A company executive does not even have that argument so one of those in control makes no sense whatsoever.
The point of defining terrorism is extremely valid. The phrase “one man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter” is very accurate in this sense. Webster dictionary defines terrorism as “the use of violent acts to frighten the people in an area as a way of trying to achieve a political goal”. In light of such a definition the bombing of the Cubana de Aviación’s airplane in 1976 by a CIA operative is an act of terrorism. Again, the 1997 bombing of Cuban hotels in Havana has the same CIA operative as organizer and with the same objectives. Mr. Chomsky has declared that the US Government is a “Leading Terrorist State”. Then the whole of the US government should be banned from social networks for being a terrorist organization. The examples are practically endless and not limited by any means to the US government.
Unless, of course, defining terrorism is left exclusively to said executives, with no oversight whatsoever, or to the one government that can influence these companies.
How does that sound?
My initial reaction to the censoring of the murder of James Foley, is to be aghast and agree that it be taken off YouTube. However, looking at it in the opposite direction, didn’t a lot of bookstores and other entities demand that “The Satanic Verses” be banned when the wackos in Iran got their panties in a wad over it (and announced a bounty on its author -Salmon Rushdie)? What was the response from freedom of expression advocates? Print it and let it be. If it is so vile and worthy of contempt, then it will ultimately be shunned by the public without a law.
The same should be said regarding the video of beheading of James Foley by ISIS (or whatever these criminally insane mass murderers call themselves). Banning something that is sensational only draws more attention to it.
And with the likes of Zuckerberg, only ‘allowing’ his 1.4 billion sheep to see which content he wants them to see, and subjecting others in his flock to be part of an ‘experiment’ (wasn’t that just last month?).
As one who automatically, was suspicious of a net company that would allow anyone (and everyone) to post activities, photos of themselves, acquaintances, and other private info -for free… Instinctively I wondered why they would spend millions or billions of dollars to do this? No matter what the question, MONEY is the answer.
Just an observation.
I now return you to your regularly scheduled babble.
Scott Horton is reporting on Twitter that his show URL has been banned by the USAF.
https://twitter.com/scotthortonshow/status/502880339476217856/photo/1
He is among the best, doing great work. A local boy for me.
Absolutely, Scott is doing really excellent work and has been for years.
Glenn,
You used the telecom industry as an analogy. But isn’t this more analogous to Television and Radio? TV and Radio don’t broadcast certain things due to FCC regulation. However, cable providers do broadcast things not allowed on public airwaves.
I guess the real question is: Are the social domains run by private companies pubic domain or private domain?
Try it. I can almost guarantee there will be a new popular stream of unfiltered data sharing within the next 24 to 48 seconds.
You cannot put a cork on what has become.
Glenn if you are so concerned with the private ownership by Costolo and Zuckerberg and question their good faith in censorship, perhaps you should exercise more good faith in supporting the #Paypal14 who sought to defend cyberspace from the kind of imperialist censorship you express concern here for. -RF.
“Whatever one’s views are on all of these questions, do you really want Silicon Valley executives – driven by profit motive, drawn from narrow socioeconomic and national backgrounds, shaped by homogeneous ideological views, devoted to nationalistic agendas, and collaborative with and dependent on the U.S. government in all sorts of ways – making these decisions?”
Let’s apply this query to the release of the Snowden dos, shall we?
1. Should the fact that a journalist is profiting from the controlled release of stolen classified documents be the basis upon which the integrity of their judgment is called into question? Absent a profit motive, would said documents be released in a manner that is more consistent with that practiced by organizations like Wikileaks?
2. Should the fact that a journalist’s cultural sensibilities were largely shaped in context to a narrow socioeconomic and national background be the basis upon which the integrity of their judgment is called into question?
3. Should the fact that a journalist’s political sensibilities are largely governed by a consciously contrarian ideological perspective be the basis upon which the integrity of their judgment is called into question?
4. Should the fact that a journalist is collaborating with the U.S. Government in the publication of the Snowden documents be the basis upon which the integrity of their judgment is called into question?
5. Should the fact that a single News organization controls the vast majority of the Snowden documents be the basis upon which the integrity of its journalistic judgment is called into question?
Yes, it is extremely important to uniformly evaluate, and articulate, all of the principles that should apply to the publication of information to which we are all entitled.
When Eric Snowden wanted to release this information to someone WHO COULD BE TRUSTED to deal with it in an honest and ethical manner, Wilhelmina, CNN, MSNBC, FOX, you, ABC, CBS, the NYT, Wapo…NONE could be trusted.
Face it, dear…you aren’t good enough.
Eric Snowden…bahahaa. Ok guy. You da expert.
“When Eric Snowden wanted to release this information to someone WHO COULD BE TRUSTED to deal with it in an honest and ethical manner…”
Trust is purely subjective; we tend to trust those who share and/or reflect our own biases. I believe that Glenn Greenwald is referring to the articulation of a more objective standard.
The documents have been reported and released as per the instructions of their source: Edward Snowden.
The vast majority — and the most controversial — of the documents have been reported in media all over the world. Including (but hardly limited to) the Guardian, Le Monde, O Globo and The Hindu Times.
“The vast majority — and the most controversial — of the documents have been reported in media all over the world. Including (but hardly limited to) the Guardian, Le Monde, O Globo and The Hindu Times.”
Can you objectively verify this assertion?
The ACLU has collected all the released documents here: https://www.aclu.org/nsa-documents-search
As you can see, few of them were released in The Intercept.
As usual, you have made a statement for which you failed to provide substantiation when challenged. In order to objectively validate your claim, it is first necessary to establish the number of Snowden documents that Glenn Greenwald took possession of. Absent that number, this is no basis for comparison.
Absent that number, your statement,
Should the fact that a single News organization controls the vast majority of the Snowden documents
also has no basis for comparison.
Can you objectively verify this assertion? — Wilhelmina
Perhaps your initial statement should require substantiation first? Or does the requirement for objective verifiction only apply to those who challenge you?
Well, no.
I’m quite familiar with pretty much all the stories published containing Snowden documents. You can see from the ACLU site that most, by far, have not been published here.
If you dispute that, perhaps you could identify those documents and stories you had in mind in your original claim?
“If you dispute that, perhaps you could identify those documents and stories you had in mind in your original claim?”
Alan Rusbridger gave testimony to the Home Affairs Select Committee on Dec 3, 2013 which claimed that only one per cent of the Snowden documents had been published at that time. Cryptome asserts that 744 pages of those documents had been published by Dec 3, 2013. If Alan Rusbridger’s testimony was truthful then Glenn Greenwald took receipt of at least 74, 400 stolen classified documents.
Cryptome’s tally of published documents stands at 2,172 pages as of Aug 16, 2014.
And?
Your critique of me was that I said this:
About that, you asked this:
I could, and I did.
The overwhelming majority of Snowden documents have not inurred to the profit benefit of this site. Even the documents in Glenn’s book were posted freely available online simultaneous with that book’s release.
You were challenging the claim that “a single News organization controls the vast majority of the Snowden documents”. Less than three per cent of the reported total have been published. Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras were the only individuals to receive a complete set of the Snowden documents. Ignoring the fact that all of the news agencies mentioned received their documents from either Greenwald or Poitras, you have offered no evidence that anyone but these two Intercept employees control the remaining majority of Snowden documents (97%).
I don’t “offer evidence” of issues not on the table. You asked for evidence on a different point, and I gave it.
Glenn has indicated that reporting on the Snowden revelations has wound down. That occurs as he and Laura Poitras begin their work of building and writing for The Intercept.
So, there is no evidence for your original charge that a “profit motive” has controlled when and how many of the documents are released. The important ones, the vast majority, have already been released, and were not done so at this site.
The end.
“You asked for evidence on a different point, and I gave it.”
Anyone reading this entire exchange between us will readily see that you are a compulsive liar.
“…the vast majority have already been released…”
Again, a Lie!
Getting you to expose yourself as a liar is like shooting ducks in a barrel.
Here you have it folks: this is Glenn Greenwald’s chief apologist and propagandist.
Wilhelmina: You are effectively rendered a duplicitous nutjob by virtue of your unusually strong, negative obsession with both Glenn Greenwald and myself.
On occasion, I will answer your rantings for the benefit of newcomers and lurkers. Certainly I long ago abandoned any notion that you can be reached with facts and reason.
@Mona
Who do you think said this?
“Nadejdzie dzie?, gdy k?amstwa zawal? si? pod w?asnym ci??arem, a prawda ponownie zatriumfuje.”
I’ll give you a hint… In giving voice to such platitudes, this propagandist reveled in the sweet irony of their use.
Well, Wilhelmina – By invoking Godwin’s Rule, you once again proved the ability to take any argument and turn it into a reductio ad absurdum. Well done.
I agree.
The only troubling question involving censorship,
remains the case of Danish cartoon of Mohammed.
Muslims, the world over, were enraged.I forget whether
anyone got hurt over this incident.
There was no good reason to publish this cartoon.
I forget whether it was to mock the beliefs of Islam,
or if there was some other message in the cartoon.
Isn’t that like yelling ‘fire’ in a crowded theater?
I have two problems with those cartoons:
1. It’s pure, bloody-minded bigotry and malice that cause those cartoonists to draw it, AND,
2. If no image of Mohammed is supposed to be shown, how do Muslims know what he looks like?
Greenwald defended a “right-wing Canadian neoconservative” who published the Danish cartoons here: The Noxious Fruits of Hate Speech laws
Thanks for your response.My ideas our still blurred on this, as people did die and many people were injured.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-mcgraw-and-joel-warner/muhammad-cartoons_b_1907545.html
I see the paper as it listed under ‘comedy’. H’mm..
And finally this
http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&docid=6aFVqOvOx76ReM&tbnid=RFQkH1X2KokeNM:&ved=0CAUQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.unc.edu%2Fcourses%2F2010spring%2Flaw%2F357c%2F001%2FHateSpeech%2FLegality.html&ei=JuT3U5LAApKOyASUg4KYCw&bvm=bv.73612305,d.cWc&psig=AFQjCNGlkLZfaPDNzqcXgZPNZPFWDuTvPg&ust=1408840244605974
No.
Yelling that in a theater is not the communication of a political opinion; when it is false, it poses immediate and unnecessary risk to everyone in the theater.
People who disagree with opinions should not be given a “heckler’s veto,” whereby *their bad behavior can be the excuse for banning speech they do not like.
It’s not like yelling fire in a crowded theater unless it causes a dangerous panic. It’s hard to think of any other example that is quite like “fire!,” as even something like “he’s got a gun!” isn’t likely to cause some kind of “stampede.” The gun example might work if a dumb police officer or gun nut proceeds to shoot without verifying that the threat is real, I guess.
“It’s not like yelling fire in a crowded theater unless it causes a dangerous panic.”
Huh!? The distinction between protected and not protected speech has nothing to do with yelling fire in a crowded theater and causing panic or not. The distinction is FALSELY crying “Fire!” in a crowded theater. If the theater is truly on fire, one would be irresponsible and derelict of one’s civic and humanitarian duty if one does *not cry “Fire!”. If a panic ensues as a result that is very different from the *false cry creating a panic. And that cry when the fire is real, that speech to warn the crowd of danger, *it is protected speech, while the false cry is not.
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic…”
See the difference?
http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/falsely-shouting-fire-in-a-theatre
A difficult topic for me to even comment on, Mr. Glenn, because I quit using the search giant for anything years ago, and have never even visited the other two sites. People with clearances were actually warned (for those that heard) beginning around ’04-’05 that social media sites and questionable online friends (guilt by casual association) could eventually cost one said clearance, and – be very careful.
IF the government ever reaffirmed they stand for free speech and the least censorship possible with greater protections for whistleblowers and all set in shiny new legislation, I’d say maybe we could believe them – for awhile. Otherwise I’d suggest these “commercial” entities, although already compromised by that runaway Big Brother, can at least be ignored by those determined enough to do so. However, multi-national mega-corporations dividing up OUR world for mutual “company store” profit regardless of consequences, perpetually buying the government required to prevent strict regulations and oversight, is the path we’ve walked for the last century. It actually fostered the cancerous imperial petroleum military and Big Brother world-domination paradigms, thriving financially on both the resources exploited and the war that results when populations realize their land and lives were destroyed for someone else’s profit – far away.
Unfortunately, this government is already in effect just muscle for the multi-nationals generating enough profit or controlling enough debt to be part of the “company store.” Most of the largest reap billions annually yet avoid most taxes. That says it all, the deck is stacked.
Want to fix a huge percentage of this corruption virtually overnight? Let’s find a way to criminalize “contribution bundling” by anyone, but especially lobbyists. They can still lobby, they just have to do so without their huge campaign contribution checks. The McCain Fiengold Act overturned by the Citizens United ruling would never have done anything to affect this real heart of Congress’ corruption, anyway. I’m not sure how, but we need to end the “legalized bribery” that currently exists within both Congress and revolving-door federal agencies.
Okay, it wasn’t so difficult…
Yeah, sure let’s have Zuck and that POS Schmidt deciding what we can read on the internet.
“They trust me — dumb fucks,” – Zuck
Fully agreed, Glenn. This is what free speech means.
I haven’t seen the video because I don’t want to. I don’t need some talking head, politico or website making that decision for me.
Another dose of blatant hypocrisy…the beheading video has folks fainting onto their couches here, and shrieks for ‘decency’ and ‘what if children see it???’ abound.
And then, there is the film showing the assassination of JFK, with his brains exploding from his head right in front of his wife. It’s been shown many, many times on Western TV sets in Western homes…One can buy the Zapruder snuff film from Amazon!!!
Is it right for the Intercept to decide what we can read from the Intercept.
@ Mom
It is a free country and you may not decide to read the Intercept. However Social Networks’ owners or goodytwoshoes is another issue. You subscribe or register with them to either post , read or broadcast whatever you want.
When they start advertising and selling shit, then you can bitch.
So you don’t see the similarity in IS beheading Foley and Intercept beheading NSA.
Does the child Mark Zuckerberg even VOTE?
Hell, I detest moderators of ANY site. Censorship should be illegal.
These sites are stores for the most part. If one sells ad space, solicits funds, or sells products, they are now a business and NOT, as some dizzy posters will try to claim…private property. Some use the same arguments that segregationists used decades ago and that Libertarians push…that they should be able to discriminate, censor, and other things, because, “you can always go somewhere else”. Bullshit. Eventually, when one guy buys up all the businesses and has a monopoly, how DOES one go ‘somewhere else’?
Censorship, and moderating comment threads therefore should be illegal. If one utters a threat in a comment or says ‘kill! kill! kill!” or, as Bill O’Reilly repeated many times on Fox News, “Tiller the baby killer” until Dr. Tiller was murdered, they should be reported to the police and prosecuted. I believe one should be unrestricted in speech, AND defend what one says.
While this comment section doesn’t allow image posts, many do. It would be pretty terrible to be exposed to terrible or even illegal images (or disguised links to illegal images) through some random website’s comment section, so a certain level of moderation is almost required. Sites also want to prevent the most obvious spam, and discourage unproductive trolling. (though I’d give some political “trolls” credit as they are being entirely serious and not merely attempting to disrupt discussion) So there are some obvious uses for moderation, but the common usage of moderation in forums encourages people to expand that moderation to other topics that they personally see as inappropriate or disruptive.
And, despite how annoying invisible moderation can be, it is almost surely better than volunteer moderation as is common on most online forums. That can often become one of the most obvious examples of how even a tiny amount of power can totally go to someone’s head. (although it’s not too surprising, as even most Americans don’t hold “free speech” as a moral ideal, even if they understand its importance as a restriction on the government)
Hypothetical scenarios exist that are far more dangerous than showing beheading videos and specific calls for violence. Think in terms of the modern, technological equivalent of shouting “fire” in a crowded theater. Now take that notion and apply it to social media streams — both deliberate and unintentional, real-time, real-world.
http://agsaf.org
Artificially Generated Stampede Awareness Foundation
Human beings have a fundamental right to know that LEGITIMATE stadium emergency evacuation orders do not come from cell phones. Spread the word.
On your website you not only misquote the phrase Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote to help distinguish between protected and unprotected speech, you misreport the tragedy in Calumet, MI 1913 in which the cry of “Fire!” in the crowded theater was false.
This misunderstanding of the intent and meaning of the phrase has generated a horde of ignorant notions that promote handing over our individual agency and personal responsibility to a legitimate authority who will tell us what to do and how to do it. In the past, if I had waited, Mr. Saferstein, for the authorities to tell me what to do in any number of dangers I have faced, I would be dead I tell you, long ago dead and gone.
You may or may not be aware of this event, but during the fateful first minutes of the 9/11 tragedy, people were told to remain at their desks, that the authorities were on top of the situation. Those who followed orders died that day, while many of those who ignored them and made their ways down the staircases lived to tell us of their experiences.
Judge Holmes said this: “…the character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done. The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic. … The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.”
Every time you show up in these threads I find myself silently asking the question, “Is that guy from DHS?” I just couldn’t remain silent any longer. Freedom of speech is too precious to let your lie go on without contradiction.
http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/falsely-shouting-fire-in-a-theatre
It’s also worth noting that the Holmes quote is from Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919). Holmes was still in the majority then but began to differ with his colleagues on subsequent free-speech cases.
That’s interesting. A man of weak commitment. Not so rare, unfortunately.
But aside from that, coram, doesn’t it irk you when people say you can’t ‘yell fire in a crowded theater’, and then to justify that, make up some silliness supporting the notion that when you *see a fire in a crowded theater, you must sit quietly until some authority comes along to tell you what to do?
Holmes authored Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 (1927), which legalized eugenics in the US, said eugenics becoming a model for certain German laws after 1933. As a miscarriage of justice it ranks right up there with Dred Scott.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_v_Bell
A great many liberals approved of eugenics back then and do today I fear. Women understandably were lured by the offer of freedom from serial childbirth unto death. But eugenics ideas are still being advanced today in the form of recommending the abortion of fetuses that are genetically impaired, as are those with Down’s Syndrome and other livable disorders. As you know, people of low intelligence, and even of impaired sensory capacities, i.e. blindness, deafness, are still being sterilized or are recommended sterilization today. And I regularly hear calls, from a local supposedly liberal radio guy, for new laws restricting the right of poor people to procreate.
Years ago I read an interview* with Judge Ginsburg (before her elevation to SCOTUS) in which she had stated when Roe v Wade was decided (by that Republican majority court) she had thought their decision was based in eugenics. Curiously, the interviewer didn’t pursue that idea, or if she did it was excluded from the interview. Ginsburg went on to give an unconvincing (for her intellectual capacity) reason for her change of opinion.
But I have noticed that the effect of Roe v Wade on the black population has been an extremely low birth rate percentage-wise as compared to other population groups, even in the midst of a declining birth rate among racial and economic groups in the West in general. I’m willing to consider Judge Ginsburg’s first impression was correct and one that was/is desirable to certain ways of thinking such as the perspective of those who’ve secreted away, beneath a veneer of unbiased judicial discretion, a motivating ‘fear of a black planet’. We know that people who can least afford children will abort or try to, and have always attempted myriad methods, most often unsafe disastrous methods, prior to legalization. And we know that racism has deliberately kept black Americans in an enduring state of poverty.
It’s of note, coram, that eugenics laws gained popularity during the Great Depression (during times of economic hardship it’s easy to demonize and blame the ‘other’ for our difficulties) and spread quickly to Hitler’s Germany, aided by Margaret Sanger, herself an avid eugenicist.** We should be honest about the horrifically violent notions she held of those she regarded as “…human weeds,’ ‘reckless breeders,’ ‘spawning… human beings who never should have been born…” or the purpose of birth control “to create a race of thoroughbreds.” Also of note is the influence on Galton (responsible for advancing scientific eugenics and the idea of a pure race) of Malthus’ population theories which Darwin, I believe, had rejected due to his understanding that nature herself has provided for population management rendering superfluous the need for overseer manipulations, and unless that need is justified by a desire that certain races or ethnicities are to be shielded and protected from nature’s cure, it does not exist.
As for the Comstock Laws: They were so deeply entrenched in closed Victorian notions of morality that to overturn them may have required appealing to the very worst of the public’s fears. As with so many decisions handed to us from there, Buck v. Bell clearly demonstrates the futility of believing justices of the High Court are even pretending to uphold the US Constitution, and how perverted has become the very notion of the Public Good.
~~~
*I may still have that interview somewhere. I’ll try to dig it up for you if you’re interested .
**Disclaimer: I do not advocate against abortion. I believe it should be available, accessible, and safe; that there need be no laws for it or against it, as the right to it is protected within the domain of personal conscience. It should be left solely up to the woman to decide with those others she wishes to include in her deliberative process. Doctors should not be forced to perform or not to perform abortions, but left alone to follow conscience. I don’t believe abortion should be government funded, but that agree it should be free to people who need it, but can’t afford it. Charitable contributions should be sufficient to cover costs and those doctors willing to offer free services in cases of need, should not be prevented from doing so.
You are raising very difficult but certainly important issues. I am German, and maybe the German Constitution provides a useful clue as to where lines can or should be drawn regarding freedom of speech. The first article of our Constitution reads that “The human dignity may not be violated.” If I understand my Constitution correctly, this is the ONLY constitutional right that may not be restricted by any law, court decision etc.
All other rights may be restricted, but ONLY in those cases where they collide with other constitutional rights. For example, doctors may not speak about their patients’ illnesses with their friends, which is a restriction on their freedom of speech, to protect their patients’ privacy. Our Constitution guarantees freedom of movement, yet we do have jails. (And by the way, so far I haven’t heard you speak out explicitly against targeted surveillance that is based on individual warrants, although this certainly is a severe restriction on that person’s privacy.)
Now it is easy to argue that calling for a person’s assassination, or for the killing of all members of a certain group, violates their dignity and is therefore inappropriate or even unconstitutional. But who should draw these lines? Such decisions have to be made on a case-by-case basis, and the institution in a democratic state that is responsible for case-by-case decisions is the courts.
Persons or groups who feel that their rights are violated can go to a court with a lawyer and fight for their rights. And if it turns out that the courts’ decisions become very restrictive, limiting certain liberties too much, legislators can pass new laws to correct that. These laws then can be challenged before a constitutional court if they seem unconstitutional… that is what Checks and Balances are about.
However, as to Google, Facebook, Twitter & Co. — I do not have a perfect answer for the question about how to restrict these companies’ power to form our opinions. I mean, e.g. there is no ‘natural’ order for search results on the internet. But as hardly anyone will have a look at the second page of search results, the ones on the first page will often determine what we end up thinking about the issue in question. Should Google have to publish their search algorithms for more transparency? I do not know…
Peter, maybe you will be so kind as to clear my understanding of a particular case in German law that baffled me no end.
It was the case of the man who solicited for another person who wished to be killed and eaten. His advertisement was answered by a young man who was subsequently killed and eaten. The first man went to court and after a not very long trial the details of which I don’t recall, he received a very short sentence based on the fact that the victim had voluntarily given himself up to be murdered.
This result bothered me, and as you now mention human dignity is an unrestricted right in Germany, I wonder what rationale could recognize as human dignity such an act of self-annihilation and obliteration of one’s dignity. Wouldn’t it be more in keeping with a positive notion of human dignity to encourage self-destructive people to seek counseling, therapy, even drug intervention?
And the short sentence given suggested to me that in Germany, as distinct from how such a crime would be viewed in the US, it is not regarded as a crime against society itself to commit murder and cannibalism.
Do you recall that case? I’m curious as to what opinion do you have of it? Thank you.
This lawsuit pertains to this topic.
“Facebook given deadline in ‘largest privacy class action in Europe’”
http://rt.com/news/182056-court-facebook-privacy-schrems/
“Facebook has been given four weeks to respond to a class action, launched against it by an Austrian activist and supported by 60,000 users. The suit claims Facebook violated users’ privacy, by cooperating with the NSA’s PRISM program.
The class action initiated by Max Schrems, an Austrian lawyer, data privacy activist and founder of Europe vs. Facebook group has passed its first review in the Vienna Regional Court.”
Add Microsoft, Apple, and IBM.
Mr. Greenwald
“…….Whatever one’s views are on all of these questions, do you really want Silicon Valley executives – driven by profit motive, drawn from narrow socioeconomic and national backgrounds, shaped by homogeneous ideological views, devoted to nationalistic agendas, and collaborative with and dependent on the U.S. government in all sorts of ways – making these decisions? ……”
I think this statement certainly exposes your political agenda, but on the other hand, propaganda can be hidden behind the free speech label. So it’s a fair point. In addition, there is a slow erosion of free speech in the West driven by people’s sensitivities to the pain of others. In many countries in Europe, it is a crime to deny the Holocaust. In Canada, free speech can be limited by “hate” speech which is offensive to targeted groups. Political speech is censored in China.
Of course, if we were to create a “UN’ body in charge of free speech, there would probably be no free speech at all. It’s a part of the “multicultural” world we live in today. For example, at the UN, many Islamic countries objected to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, so they created a more “culturally sensitive” document – the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam. Fundamentally, this keeps women and minorities in their respective places.
So it would seem to be better to have no controls than selective controls on speech for the internet which are arbitrarily determined by one or more individuals (which will likely improve profits by the way). This will probably be determined by the Supreme Court in some cases. This is only the beginning of a very controversial topic in my opinion.
In Canada, you can say what you like, contrary to your opinion. You can also be called to defend yourself. When one utters threats, or like EZRA LEVANT does in trying to foment hatred and intolerance of Muslims, it is illegal in Canada. We got Ernst Zundel, a Nazi and Holocaust denier, kicked out of Canada and sent back to Germany. We go after hate groups here, we don’t celebrate them, like the Cliven Bundy militia cowards or the KKK.
By the way, Glenn Greenwald wrote at least one column on the subject of Ezra Levant in Salon while he was still there. He felt that Levant’s free speech was being attacked. I objected then for the reasons I mentioned. Libel and slander can be argued and fines can be levied. For your info, Levant is a lawyer who is too stupid to know what libel is…you can google ezra levant libel and you will find that he HAS been fined for it in the past.
How do Hate Laws protect free speech? They shut down communication before it’s begun.
Sigh. Did you even READ what I wrote??? If you are now too chicken to write hate speech because you might have to defend yourself, then you’re just an effin’ coward.
I agree with seer. You just send people underground when you threaten them with fines and deportation. And nobody that I know celebrates the KKK in the US. There are approx. 6000-8000 members today which is still a significantly dangerous total, but far marginalized from their hay day (6,000,000-8,000,000). Cliven Bundy is not a member of the KKK as far as I know – unless you have a source which states otherwise.
Thanks
“In Canada, you can say what you like, contrary to your opinion. You can also be called to defend yourself.”
Why not simply let free speech take care of the opinions that some deem incorrect or potentially incitant to violence? Why make laws that interrupt freedom of speech and the responsibility of those who hold different views to speak up coherently, effectively?
Hate laws inhibit free speech, and to be called upon by government to defend your speech is completely unnecessary, for when freedom of speech is actually being practiced you would naturally have to defend your idea to those who argue against it. That would promote far greater understanding of the REASONS one idea is bad and another not so bad.
Thanks for the effin’ coward insult. I’ve never before been called that – a novel experience. But it flew off me fast as little mosquito who’d noticed I’d noticed her.
Oh sorry, I thought you’d called *me an effin’ coward. Clearly, you didn’t as I now notice.
“……..Thanks for the effin’ coward insult. I’ve never before been called that – a novel experience. But it flew off me fast as little mosquito who’d noticed I’d noticed her……”
As far as I can tell, you are the king of insults seer. Maybe you should think about that……..
Mr. Needham, at least to the extent this board is dominated by Americans, you are going to be in a minority — and rightly so. Hate speech laws are noxious, and opposition to them is one of the very, very few areas in which Craig Summers and I are in agreement.
To quote (my possibly favorite) Supreme Court Justice, Hugo Black, in an Opinion about criminalizing advocating the views of the Communist Party:
Just so.
“We go after hate groups here, we don’t celebrate them, like the Cliven Bundy militia cowards”
NP, up there in Canada, are you allowed to hate and pursue people like Cliven Bundy and the militia that (effectively) protected him from government force of the kind brought down on the peacefully protesting citizens of Ferguson? Or is it required of you to be a good, upstanding Canadian?
“As far as I can tell, you are the king of insults seer. Maybe you should think about that……..”
Summers, I am, I am! I’m thinking hard, trying to come up with new ones to impress you with. ;)
Your hypocrisy aside, you’ve also been exposed as a deceitful chiseler who is sans humility. Why aren’t you fabricating more *deluded tales to impress me with??
* https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/08/12/nprs-dina-temple-raston-passed-cia-funded-nsa-contractor-independent-fear-monger-snowden-reporting/#comment-68477
Deny the holocaust!Jeez,I’ve never heard or read of anyone who denied Hitler put his perceived political enemies(and families)in CCs and many many died.Never.All I know is that serial liars lie serially,and this is just another.
Off Topic, but Glenn, I suspect many of the recent “big stories” are planned and amplified to divert attention from the Israel/Palestine issue. For once the world is seeing the Truth of what is happening on the other side of the World and I doubt the “World Leaders” will stop at anything to divert attention from the massacre over there. Just a thought, but please, consider it. Don’t forget about those poor people in Palestine, you have a voice that the world listens to now, talk while you still may! :)
They should not!
They are de facto utilities, but that concept doesn’t seem to exist anymore in the U.S. It’s really an anarchic oligarchy.
Considering the financial ties between both Facebook and Google to the CIA for what appears to be the express purpose of collecting data on users, I refuse to use either the social network or the search engine. Twitter was founded by people strongly affiliated with Google and that being the case, I would not expect them to handle accumulated data any more innocuously than Google. Noah Glass still works cooperatively with Google in high tech enterprises like Google Glass.
The history and hidden objectives of these companies is important in evaluating whether or not they should be allowed to censure data on their respective networks. Given the financial and corporate ties of all three of these Silicon Valley giants, I would simply say No to both use of their networks and any censure ship they any of them impose. I refuse to simply hand information to any agency of the National Intelligence Directorate. Let them work for it.
Correction: “censure ship they” should read: censorship that
I really need an edit function. The combination of dyslexia and inability to spell is problematic.
I write under extremely difficult conditions so please accept my apologies in advance if I fail to include exact references used in this comment. ‘Theintercept’ in one of its reports/news, indicated that according to a document from Mr Snowden, certain unnamed companies were working in partnership with the NSA.
In 2012 driven by extreme pain, I wrote at a Public Library to expose my abuse. The writing was a journal written on the fly and it was titled : ‘Nanodevices in sensory overload mind control torture.’ I immediately posted it online.
For more than a year, if you Googled the word ‘nanodevices’ , this journal would be among articles returned by the search. As the journal received more hits, it suddenly failed to be among the articles returned by the search. You had to Google the entire title to actually read it online.
Recently I updated the journal and posted the updated and formatted journal at: ‘http://peacepink.ning.com/profiles/blogs/nanodevices-in-sensory-overload-mind-control-torture’
I used this url to refer readers of this website to the journal. After a brisk traffic to the document, the url is no longer returned by google, at least not on my (hacked) cell phone.
Question: who controls the database of words and phrases that are fed by a user into a search
engine? What criteria are used to determine whether an article should be visible on the Internet or not? And if the resultant effect is suppression of information, does the responsible party become a wiling accessory to torture if such information exposes illegal torture activities?
Excellent question. I believe the answer is the CIA, if what William Casey, former CIA Director, said in 1981 is an indication (and I believe it is): “We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.” It’s SOP, the default.
Google lives and dies by the accuracy of it’s searches. Search results move up and down in the rankings base on a variety of factors, many of them are proprietary.
I am open to the idea that Google is managing search results but I will need to see actual evidence of this. You have not done that.
Google lies.
Examples please?
I’d have to spend more time at that than I can spare today. I’ll find examples in the course of my week or so, and deliver them when I do.
OTTOMH I recall hearing a couple of business owners saying their business sites were removed from among top results to a query for their product. Maybe I’ll find that one. And there is the manipulation of number of views data for non-mainstream videos on You Tube, where a million views is suddenly replaced by a much lower number.
Bill, just Google, or DuckDuckGo this: ‘google accused of manipulating search results’
It brings up way too many results for me to choose from – so, the choice is yours.
Bill Owen this is and has been known for many years,. What planet do you live on?
That’s false. From the column:
When you explicitly refer to “the dangers of allowing tech companies”, you cannot say “Whether they should ‘be allowed’ to do this has absolutely nothing to do with anything discussed here.” Perhaps you went further than you intended in those paragraphs about the tech companies’ “extraordinary control over the means of global communication” and compared then to public utilities? Many of your readers will wish you went further. But you certainly did suggest the possibility of government regulation.
There’s also this from the column:
So, you’re questioning not how executives should exercise their power, but whether we want “executives exercising vast power”. Once again, this clearly suggests the possibility of regulation.
Not only does it “clearly suggest the possibility of regulation,” barncat, but it also does so partly on the justification that government heavily influences these executives!
Great way to fix that would be to regulate Google like a utility!
It’s not the contradiction it seems. There’s a clear difference between secret (informal) pressure and open regulation. But the first point needs to be clarified before we can get to this.
I agree, Google et al should be regarded as utilities, the sooner the better. But that doesn’t solve the problem of ‘hidden’ censorship. On Twitter, that might not be as much a problem.
In addition to the two quotes in my comment above, here are two more instances of language that can reasonably be read as suggesting (or justifying, in the first instance) government action. (The second is via Macroman.)
The second case here is similar to the second case above, and my comment is the same.
@Macroman & barncat – After re-reading the article, at no point do I see, or even see it implied, that government intervention is called for in the particular cases cited.
As a matter of fact, this is spelled out quite clearly early in the article, when it is noted that “calls for Twitter, Facebook and other Silicon Valley corporations to more aggressively police what their users are permitted to see and read” is what is being discussed here – in other words, self-regulation, not government regulation.
With that said, your arguments that this is some kind of slippery-slope towards what you say “can reasonably be read as suggesting (or justifying, in the first instance) government action” is nothing more than a straw-man thrown up to project an idea that was not proposed or even reasonably inferred, in order to misrepresent the article in question.
” Whatever happens in the world is real, what one thinks should have happened is projection. We suffer more from our fictitious illusion and expectations of reality.
– Jacque Fresco
Last point… If this —
— is supposed to be where this —
— was made clear, the problem is that this —
— and everything that follows (see quotes) renders it far from clear.
They don’t want people looking at it because it’s such an obvious fake.
A lot of people have been sucked into using all sorts of “free” services. One thing that free means is that you have little or no say in what they do and that they must work to extract money from your presence.
To escape from this trap, individuals need to find ways to take charge of their own Internet usage. It’s hard if all your friends are on Facebook. It’s hard if you’re addicted to searching with Google…
You may think Zuckerberg, Schmidt… are rat bags, but even decent moral humans are going to become ratbags if faced with this nutty business model.
Legislators could make a difference, but their level of cluelessness is so breathtakingly thorough…
At the end of the day, take charge, preferably with a band of like minded folk.
Analyse it, to what degree have the Government and the Internet Companies set themselves up as your enemies. Cut them out if you’re determined.
“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”
Thank you for properly attributing that quote of hers, the most concise and accurate summary of Voltaire’s thinking.
I think it’s in the best interests of Twitter to reverse their decision. If they don’t, disgruntled users will create a censorship-resistant decentralized microblogging platform, and it will be more popular than Twitter. It may sound unlikely, but enough Twitter users care enough about censorship and privacy to make it happen. A decentralized microblogging will happen anyway, but it will happen a lot sooner if Twitter gives people a reason.
Today there is an unprecedented threat to democracy, freedom of information and free speech. The shadowy powers and their Government puppets want to be able to control what is read and what is written. They want to ensure that all media and journalists follow their line. They want to ensure that whistleblower identity cannot be kept secret by journalists. They want to ensure that Government crimes and corruption can be concealed or cloaked in corruption of the truth by controlled media. They do fear social media. They fear the Intercept and other fearless journalism. They want to label activists and investigative journalists as terrorists. They want you to know that they are watching and listening to everything you do and to keep you in shock and awe. Shock capitalism works well for the elite. ITs all about power control and profits, authoritarianism with a desire for totalitarianism.
Don’t be so quick to say that private companies are free to censor whatever ideas they want. In California (where a lot of these servers and companies are based) there is a much wider interpretation of free speech. Pruneyard v. Robbins was a California Supreme Court case which found (in 1980) that shopping malls were the modern “town square” and thereby had an obligation to facilitate free expression. The court ruled shopping malls could NOT censor reasonable and relevant forms of expression, even on private property.
It’s not that much of a stretch to apply the reasoning in Pruneyard to modern electronic media. Are Twitter and Facebook and Reddit not the modern town squares? Is it so unreasonable to see they might have the same obligation to facilitate free expression in the State of California?
Schmidt is the absolute worst. Schmidt’s skewed perspective on terrorists is reckless ignorance. This is a man who genuinely believes there is no rational object to terrorism, and that people become terrorists simply to feel like they belong to a group. That type of ignorance takes serious commitment.
I think what bothers me most is when we actively seek out ignorance . . .demand it . . . pay for it . . . and then act surprised when the portrait we paint with our eyes closed doesn’t look right.
They’re not like us . . . they don’t use twitter . . . please don’t let them use twitter.
How cruel of them to make that poor man blame his own country before they executed him. They’re so fucked up. They’re savages. Thank god we’re not like them. I want to see every last one of them beg for mercy before we execute them.
I thing Gore Vidal’s writings about Timothy McVeigh were some of the best observations of our collective delusion in popular media. We didn’t, as a culture, know how to process a Timothy McVeigh, so we didn’t pay attention, and substituted instead a false narrative that was more comfortable. The man must be crazy. The man must be sick. And we must be okay with putting a needle in the arm of the crazy and sick. We must celebrate it.
Perhaps a better place to look for the answer to these questions is to start with the right question: Why, in this virtually-infinite Internet, with so many platforms and technologies offering unprecedented communications infrastructure, and millions and millions of websites and web services, do people gravitate to a tiny handful of Brand Names to perform nearly all their online communication? There are so many alternative choices that are less onerous, and impose fewer conditions of use, but people don’t even imagine that such services could exist, and thus don’t even go looking for them.
in a nutshell: People are f**king stupid. The are easily-manipulated protohumans who have no business using computers or even smartphones, because they are incapable to foreseeing the consequences of their actions (failing one of the critical tests for human cognition).
For the Internet to be a real success — a real value, censor nothing. Life can be tough. Get over it. Man up.
Thanks for the thoughtful column. You did a nice job exploring several positions on what we should and shouldn’t read, see, and hear. I agree with your notion that these 3 companies are now akin to major utilities & that the execs are a rather homogeneous group. More than a little unsettling.
Is there a law stating that we must watch Fox News, MSNBC, CNN or others…? As opposed to Venezuela are there any indications that the US government is making it hard for private media corporations to express their political opinion? Is there a law that requires us to have a Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo, or any other online accounts? If there are no such laws, then the executives of Twitter, Facebook, and others are not the arbiters of what we see and read. We decide in America what we see and read. Fox News would probably show us Hamas rocket launchers placed next to schools or residential areas, but Al Jazeera would probably show us a building packed by civilians that was destroyed by the Israeli Army. You decide whether you want to watch Fox News or Al Jazeera. If Facebook has 1 billion users it means the company is doing well as every single user can ignore Facebook whenever he or she wishes. If you believe that the Israeli government is a terrorist organization as Mr Gleenwald stated many times, then Fox News would not be your best choice. However, if you believe Hamas is a terrorist organization, then Fox News would be a good choice for you as opposed to Al Jazeera.
>”We decide in America what we see and read.”
Can you read this? https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/08/20/u-s-military-bans-the-intercept/
*pick a card … any card.
Every single individual with a clearance signed an agreement that states that the military may take such decisions. Can you prove me beyond reasonable doubt that these individuals were under duress to sign their agreements with the US Government? If not, then I do not get your point because individuals who did not enter in such agreements may read the Intercept whenever they wish. Does Mr. Gleenwald have to ask the government permission before he publishes his articles? Is there a law that would punish you for reading the Intercept?
>”Every single individual with a clearance signed an agreement that states that the military may take such decisions.”
Can you direct me to the agreement that states the military may take such decisions? *I was under the impression non-disclosure agreements prohibit disclosure(s) of information. **I would add there are ‘whistle blower’ protections for the disclosure of illegal or unconstitutional classified information… but acknowledge the US gov. rarely enforces those protections.
In any case, your statement “We decide in America what we see and read” is incorrect.
>”… I do not get your point because individuals who did not enter in such agreements may read the Intercept whenever they wish.”
Thanks. My point is it will be difficult, if not impossible, for the people who have signed such agreements (if, in fact, that is the ‘agreement’ they entered into) to avert their eyes from not only TI … but every major NEWS organization in the world.
Yes, the agreement is called SF 312: Classified Information Non Disclosure Agreement. All individuals obtaining access to classified information must be briefed on the agreement and they must sign it. You cannot share classified information without authorization EVEN IF THAT INFORMATION IS LEAKED. A military commander may issue a general order to enforce that policy in his/her unit. Assuming that a commander has strong reasons to believe that certain soldiers or contractors under his or her command may get access to classified information they do not need to know by reading a book, a newspaper or by going to certain places then he or she may issue an order preventing these
soldiers or these contractors from accessing the book, the newspaper or the specific place.
If you do not want to be restricted by a commander who has the authority to prevent you from traveling to certain places, reading certain books or reports, drinking what everybody else is consuming, having the haircut you want and many other things, then do not join the military while you convince Congress to change military laws.
You believe my statement is incorrect, but you have not provided me with any laws that prevent the citizens of the USA from reading any articles or books that praise or bash their governments. Your opinion is based on policies established for certain individuals who voluntarily agreed to hold certain positions that have multiple restrictions on their basic freedom.
>”…you have not provided me with any laws that prevent the citizens of the USA from reading any articles or books that praise or bash their governments.”
According to you, the agreement called SF 312: Classified Information Non Disclosure Agreement prevents citizens (albeit, military/gov personnel) from reading articles or books at the discretion of a ‘military commander’.
*I realize you are suggesting they voluntarily relinquished that authority to military/gov. authorities (which I will check out) … but that does not diminish the fact that, e.g., the military has banned IT from some ‘American citizens’
Yes, these American citizens have voluntarily relinquished that authority to military commanders. Soldiers are not allowed to travel to Mexico, Iran, North Korea without special authorizations while for instance any other US citizens with a valid US passport may cross the Mexican border. All these soldiers have signed an agreement with the US government that specifically states that they will fall under military justice, which quite frankly gives the commander a lot of power. For example, he or she may search your room whenever he or she wants!
Mr Greenwald’s article attempts to create a false crisis. Again, nobody has to follow Facebook, Google etc…if you believe the media is propaganda as Mr Greenwald does (while he has been sharing his opinion in most of the media) then you can launch your own newspaper, blog, etc…to counter the media that you distrust. You may call that new blog The Intercept! If you unable to attract as many people as Facebook or Twitter, then you have to work better on your marketing strategy.
Firstlook’s The Intercept is also on the Social Security Administration’s no no list. It is very likely on a number of such lists issued to various federal departments.
h/t Mona & son
I just tried to post something on Gawker and got a greyed out comment that said, “Pending approval”. That’s bad, Gawker used to be open.
Next up? Retinal scans to log on to the “internet” so you can visit any of the 200 “approved” sites!
Gawker temporarily went back to the approval-system they used to have in the old days, because they had a serious problem with their threads getting spammed by one individual with tons of the most graphic pics, rape porn, executions and such. Posts ‘pending approval’ at Gawker sites can be viewed by anyone who clicks the “Show pending” button, so your criticism isn’t really justified in that case.
It’s still bad. Free expression means that some will be offended. It’s unlikely that the sole criteria for not publishing will be “graphic pics, rape porn, executions and such”.
The irresponsible use of free speech has a similar effect as censorship has. When I was coming of age, the relationship between freedom and responsibility was still taught in school. It was part of Government class.
No longer. Federal control of education has not been good for freedom or education.
Federal control of education has not been good for freedom or education.
What about non-Federal influence?
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/jun/21/how-texas-inflicts-bad-textbooks-on-us/
Then there is ALEC:
I am a product of public schools.
I am NOT defending the assertion that public schools have been declining for a significant amount of time, I think it self-evident that this is the case.
I DO, however think that there are far too many self-interested parties involved, many (if not all) of them seeking ideological and/or monetary reward through control of the education system, to lay the blame exclusively at the feet of the federal government. If anything, it is local governments and elected school boards which should bear the shame as well as answer for the responsibility.
Also, unless and until all private for-profit education options are evaluated using the same tools and methods that have been imposed on public school systems, all data available on outcomes should be considered purposely skewed, no matter what side of the educational fence you come down on.
That textbook problem I don’t believe is generated by local government, and it is certainly not generated by local school districts which would be freer to educate our children according to community standards were it not for federal billions per annum as it turns out. ALEC should be banned from influencing education. It’s virtually destroyed learning for all but the well-off who can afford private education.
Granted, allowing communities to control school curricula would mean that those in which a predominance of ignorant people exists, educational standards would possibly suffer (they’re already pretty low). The ignorance that objects to Muslims inserting ‘Allah’ for ‘God’ in the Pledge of Allegiance is deplorable and embarrassing to many Texans; worthy of ridicule by all rational and aware people. But I think it would not be long before poor education that prevents young people from finding foothold in the real world, would spur parents to demand change, even in Longview TX*, at the local level of control. Elections for local school district department heads are still open, free and fair, at least where I live.
Getting the self-interested outside parties out of local education, and encouraging parent/teacher communication about best teaching practices could begin to provide effective solutions and increase the power of people directly involved in children’s lives to create environments that are best for children both as individuals and groups.
I know the problem is a complicated one and I don’t have any solutions myself other than to return control of school districts to the people responsible for the well-being and healthy intellectual, social, moral, and personal development of children. There are teachers and parents who are genuinely brilliant, creative and loving. Where they exist they exert deep influence on those around them.
*How was such a small segment of the US population, a bigoted, dogmatic, insular group, given so much power over information printed in text-books?
Thanks for being willing to expand on the thoughts. I think we’re both very close in our thought process on this. I fight myself on a daily basis to resist the urge to oversimplify when commenting. It’s so easy to use shorthand but, as we see here in attacks against authors all the time, it pays off to invest a bit of time to really get to the nitty gritty of what is actually intended.
Thanks again. :-)
Only wish I had more to offer. Thank you Pedinska.
Yeah, that poison has spread to Salon.com as well. Hasn’t improved the comment thread one iota, as a matter of fact, it’s deteriorated.
By the way, Bill…I had a lot of respect for the CBC…great programming, despite all the American and British wannnabes that wanted more of their dreck broadcast. Have you ever commented on the CBC news web site? Their moderators, to me, are the WORST and most capricious I’ve ever seen!
About the CBC, I as well, but not anymore. Harper’s people have all but destroyed it, small pockets of resistance here and there, but they are next.
As for the comments and the moderation, it’s horrendous, worse, much worse than The Guardian, capricious, politically correct in the worst sense of the term. And it take far too long to get a comment approved, destroying any chance of having a real conversation.
Just last night Evan Solomon has David Frum on to defend the police in Ferguson. They knew he would defend the police. Why is the CBC putting scum like Frum on the tv? What’s next a prime time slot for Ezra Levant?
The scared rabbit Zionists want a lockdown on revolt in America.Their chosen nation demands it,for its continued future as Israel uber alles.Very simple.
Yes. Not wanting to expose employees to violent images is the exact slope to retinal scans you are an unsung rhetorical genius.
Are we really so terrified of what terrorists have to say? Can we find no words that will convince people of the evil of their cause, and the justice of our own? By censoring them we are admitting defeat before debate can even happen.
If Twitter had been around during the Vietnam era — would the photos and film of Saigon Police Chief Nguy?n Ng?c Loan executing, by shooting in the head at close range, a suspected Viet Cong prisoner, be allowed? Would the photographer, Eddie Adams, get suspended for posting it?
Twitter and Social media are the only conduit we have to unfiltered, unmodulated information. It is clear to me that various power structures and vested interests see social media as a threat. Israel, once the absolute master of hasbara and news management, has, for the first time ever, lost the hasbara war over Gaza. This is entirely due to Twitter and to a lesser extent, other social media. The clamour to suppress is recent and is highly correlated with the grisly parade of dismembered and burned children from Gaza in my timeline. Need I say that those images were NEVER made available via the regular media and there is no chance we would have seen them on CNN or MSNBC, none.
Maybe a better example would have been the child burned by napalm, which shocked the world.
As far as Americans being shocked by the Saigon cop shooting a alleged Viet Cong, Americans wouldn’t care…jes one gook shootin’ another, yah know whadeyemeen?
People were shocked, particularly at the time when such images were very rare. I would argue that both those images, the little girl in particular, were instrumental in turning Americans against that war. The “little girl” eventually made her to way to Canada btw, where she now lives.
Mr. NP, please lighten up. Yes, we’re fanatics about free speech, and the notion of free speech can be bit difficult to grasp when you don’t have it under protection in your own country. Just because we (ideally) will tolerate a lot of what seems intolerable to you, it does not indicate we are monsters, at least not all of us are. In fact, your stereotype of Americans, the people not the Elite, is rather crude and not representative of a great many of us. Some of us are even quite unexceptional, much more like Canadians than like Americans.
How about a little peace offering by way of a time out for humor? :)
http://www.newyorker.com/images/2014/02/10/cartoons/140210_cartoon_063_a17023_p465.jpg
The Zionists had no real skin in Vietnam,hence those photos which changed the war,but photos of Gaza massacres are not released by the MSM,as their skin is in that game.
Plus the fact that Jews were being drafted to fight in nonsensical wars in a foreign(redneck) army,not the IDF.
If Twitter had been around during the Vietnam era — would the photos and film of Saigon Police Chief Nguy?n Ng?c Loan executing, by shooting in the head at close range, a suspected Viet Cong prisoner, be allowed? Would the photographer, Eddie Adams, get suspended for posting it?
Twitter and Social media are the only conduit we have to unfiltered, unmodulated information. It is clear to me that various power structures and vested interests see social media as a threat. Israel, once the absolute master of hasbara and news management, has, for the first time ever, lost the hasbara war over Gaza. This is entirely due to Twitter and to a lesser extent, other social media. The clamour to suppress is recent and is highly correlated with the grisly parade of dismembered and burned children from Gaza in my timeline. Need I say that those images were NEVER made available via the regular media and there is no chance we would have seen them on CNN or MSNBC, none.
sorry for the double post!
Excellent post. People should retweet that iconic photo and see if Twitter shuts down their accounts as well.
On topic here. Continue button doesn’t do anything.
Powell Shooting (Cell Phone Camera)
6:31
The following content has been identified by the YouTube community as being potentially offensive or graphic. Viewer discretion is advised.
or Cancel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-P54MZVxMU&bpctr=1408673288
Try
http://www.mediaite.com/online/graphic-cell-phone-video-shows-st-louis-police-shooting-knife-wielding-man/
Multiple copies of Daniel Pearl’s appear online, including one on the Youtube. It’s age restricted in accordance with the Youtube’s community guidelines: http://youtu.be/Jwe5yXJXlII I don’t know whether it’s possible to see it in Britain without one of those IP addresses you can buy that don’t identify the viewer’s national location.
Will they ban Netanyahu’s account?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/21/netanyahu-james-foley-tweet-isis_n_5698362.html?&ncid=tweetlnkushpmg00000017
Oh, good ol’ Naziyahoo.
Glenn, So who should make the decision?
You should. For yourself.
Meaning you should have the option to chose, and I seriously don’t want to see that so keep it to yourself if you need to look. I agree we cannot make invisible any horror, but neither do we have to have it shoved in our faces, Ripper Murdoch. He had to serve it to the Aussies in print while Cameron posed as the one about to faint in this hemisphere
If you are worried about their grip on our proverbial throats systemically, I think it goes further than father proprietarily. The copyright is too long for such turnover times as these. I think we should go back to 20 years maximus. I expect many to experience what they did to that poor kid DoJ drove to suicide for wishing Sonny Bono hadn’t sold us all out for twenty more years of Needles and Pins. Some corporations can now claim 105 years of copyrights; that is just stupid unless stupidity is the goal.
The public domain hasn’t had a drop of rain since 1998, and the drought continues until 2019 when 1924 gets started up again. We only missed 1925 to ’45, nothing much happened back then, Reich?
Mona, I decide for myself whether twitter gets to refuse to host some particular content? The question at hand is not who gets to decide what news I consume, but rather whether internet companies, by virtue of their market share, lose the right to refuse to use their property as a platform for content they dislike. Red herring wrapped wrapped in a trite moralistic platitude aside, the question remains.
Macroman errs in stating:
No, that is not the “question at hand.” At least, it is not the issue Glenn urges us to consider in his column above.
He points out the wide-spread approval for Twitter’s policy of suspending any accounts that tweet a link to the beheading video. And he asks us to consider whether sending out this large approval to owners of social media is such a good idea.
It is not, for all the reason he sets forth.
I argue above that Macroman’s reading is correct.
The last sentence of the article directly contradicts your point, Mona.
@Macroman – That’s true.
That’s consistent with the sentence I quoted above, and the comment is the same: Greenwald is questioning not how executives should exercise their power (and suggesting that “we” influence how they exercise their power with our economic choices) but whether we want “managers to be making such consequential decisions” (or “executives exercising vast power”). His words clearly suggest the possibility of government regulation (at least).
@Macroman & barncat – After re-reading the article, at no point do I see, or even see it implied, that government intervention is called for in the particular cases cited.
As a matter of fact, this is spelled out quite clearly early in the article, when it is noted that “calls for Twitter, Facebook and other Silicon Valley corporations to more aggressively police what their users are permitted to see and read” is what is being discussed here – in other words, self-regulation, not government regulation.
With that said, your arguments that this is some kind of slippery-slope towards what you say “can reasonably be read as suggesting (or justifying, in the first instance) government action” is nothing more than a straw-man thrown up to project an idea that was not proposed or even reasonably inferred, in order to misrepresent the article in question.
That sentence is ambiguous. Glenn’s primary thrust is disapproving of the approval people are gushing out re: Twitters’ decision about the video.
I decided to not use twitter or facebook…
ps: you get what you pay for…
Would you like some more compost? I hope the light is dim enough for you!
What?
One should be able to see and know what’s going on in this world. On the other hand, we shouldn’t be co-operating with IS’ intent to cause massive shock and/or propaganda. Additionally, Foley’s family kindly asked not to watch the video, and I think the media should respect that by at least some careful introspection, including Twitter. But this should be an absolute exception, and by no means a precedent for future censorship support. Just trying to say: nothing is black or white, including free speech/censorship.
Your mere assertion of that fails to persuade. What you must address what Glenn writes above, to wit (emphasis mine):
What general principles do you offer that would limit social media censorship to the Foley video, and include nothing else?
The principle of proportionality: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportionality_(law)
Which I’ll admit can easily become a slippery slope to censorship. But it’s a generally accepted and applied principal in criminal, institutional and international law.
Whenever I see Mark Zukerberg on tv or the internet I cannot believe that he created facebook. Julian Assange’s assertion that it has been a CIA operation from the start seems more likely. Somebody was whispering things in Zukerberg’s ear.
Check this out from the Onion News Network:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqggW08BWO0
I agree, though as a result of personal experience. I was forced against my will (after repeatedly being denied exit from u.s.) to believe the “free economy” “free market system” lie.
I don’t think the CIA’s computers could account for my determination and the subsequent absolute mathematical impossibility of the continuous “mysterious” occurrences and my “bad luck”, not to mention the many mistakes they made as I’ve stated before. 85billion and counting.
Anyone who studies population genetics properly for 10 minutes can see what’s going on here.
Taking my situation into account while reading this story it’s difficult to understand where Glenn’s starting point is. That is, should they even be executives? Or where they hand picked by above mentioned.
[IMG]http://i59.tinypic.com/j94t92.jpg[/IMG] PIC: my ad from 2006 from my website(forced to put up to begin with) It was ILLEGALLY taken down by godaddy. NOW GOOGLE NEXUS TM!! Its interesting, I had about 3 different versions of the trademark and they seem to use all three. To my knowledge most expensive trademark ever listed for sale. wasn’t registered(because gov steals my money) but was in use until website illegally taken down.
Small world, hey schmidt, zuckerburg why u sitting up there and im kept in squaller repeatedly tortured?
I’D ABSOLUTELY LOVE TO HAVE MY HEAD CHOPPED OFF BY ISIL COMPARED TO WHAT THESE RETARDS AT CIA/FBI/NSA ARE DOING TO ME.
Your money’s stolen from the thousands in front of you assassinated and it’s going to a bad cause. get me the fuck away from these fucking retards please.
try this link for pic: http://tinypic.com/r/j94t92/8
Does that represent a chromosome? I see they’ve made it their X.
I’m sorry to hear you are being made to suffer. I know you’re not the only one. Far too many have suffered similarly for their inventions that cut into corporate profits; for ideas that expose the Elite’s crimes. Some have been killed.
There are support groups that could help, if you’re the sort who can use that kind of assistance.
Best wishes to you.
What? No, it’s just a trademark. and it would still belong to me if intels employees weren’t intentionally unsupervised. That’s what I’m saying, they’re just cheating. r1b 5-eyes handpicked those execs. Economies fake, they’re assassinating everyone’s leaders, and stealing everything including every single bit of technology produced here.
As a Twitter or Facebook executive, I would not want my product to be the platform for the video of Foley’s beheading for an insurgent group’s propagandist and terroristic purposes. Not just because of the brutal nature, but because it is bad business. In other words, I do not believe this decision was the result of some Executive’s moral outrage but because of some cost/benefit analysis: the cost of keeping it on Twitter would be heavy backlash from the significant amount of people clamoring for its removal. That cost outweighs the benefit of keeping it up in the name of free speech.
As a Twitter and Facebook user, I would prefer them not delete it. This brutality exists whether or not you want to be shielded from it. When I first heard of people broadly supporting its removal, my initial reaction was “what do you all have to gain from its removal?” The argument seems to be that the Islamic state shouldn’t be able to utilize these public platforms for such brutality. Maybe so, but the consequence of their removal is being left in the dark or being willfully ignorant of it. I viewed it on LiveLeak and cringed through the whole thing because I believe it is important to confront harsh reality; IS does not give a shit about anybody and this video shows the extent of their disregard for human life
However, people like Ronan Farrow are misguided. Who the hell is he to say which “terrorists” should be banned. As the saying goes, “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” I can understand why Twitter would want to block IS videos but what does Farrow have to gain? I think Facebook’s stance is quite reasonable; it says “depictions of violence, including decapitations, would be permitted in cases where it is condemned, not celebrated.” There is no doubt what IS is doing with its video.
I don’t use FB as much as Twitter so I won’t comment on it, but I think Twitter has done a fine job of not censoring content and I see this as more an outlier, fueled by American outrage over the killing.
There was a time when CNN and some of the US Government’s favorite channels were daily broadcasting a woman being taken to the soccer field where a game of soccer was being played. The game was then suspended and that woman was shot through the head. Why was that video allowed to be shown? http://www.rawa.org/murder-w.htm Perhaps it was all too convenient to demonstrate that the country was full of demons and the good guys needed to go and clean it up.
I think that all videos of killings and beheadings, along with crimes on children and crimes by children must be globally banned by all governments.
Very apropo counterpoint!
But if things like this are globally banned, when will we have the opportunity to discuss the issues surrounding them and come to reasonable solutions? How can we resolve or work to improve something we know nothing about?
Better tell Amazon. You can buy the Zapruder snuff film of the JFK assassination there.
This article is absolute nonsense — although Glenn’s heart is in the right place. He wants an internet that doesn’t exclude anything, but declaring Twitter, Google, Facebook, etc. “public utilities” is the fastest road to actual censorship — i.e. government censorship. Public utilities are the most regulated of all industries.
Remember when television was considered akin to a “public utility”? This led to outright censorship by the Federal Communications Commission, which prohibited “obscenity” — and the mis-named “Fairness Doctrine,” which coerced TV stations out of airing anything “controversial” because it mean they’d have to give “equal time” to opposing viewpoints.
If Twitter and Facebook, etc., start limiting the allow content on their sites then competitors will quickly seize their market share and they’ll wind up like AOL — in the dustbin of history. What will defeat the would-be censors is called the market economy — the evil profit motive Glen demagogically attacks .
Or more like the telcos who provide phone services, i.e. “common carriers”. No one restricts what you can say on the phone. I don’t even know anyone who is suggesting that.
Social media should be exactly like that.
The Intercept should hire Justin Raimondo, Russell Brand, and Philip Giraldi.
Will Twitter Suspend Benjamin Netanyahu’s account?
Netanyahu tweets Foley execution video to score points against Hamas
http://972mag.com/netanyahu-tweets-foley-execution-video-to-score-points-against-hamas/95820/
JPost says that somebody in Netanyahu’s office has deleted the tweet which contained an image from the execution video.
But one doubts that they did so because of fear of getting their account suspended.
It could be one of two things, or a combination of both: 1. The Foley family has quite publicly announced a request that the video not be watched, and 2. Twitter could have told the PM’s account that they (Twitter) are stuck with having to suspend the account unless PM delete it.
How does it look for Israel to be promoting a video that the family of a (properly) super-sympathetic victim do not want displayed? And, is Twitter going to suspend all the other accounts tweeting it, including those who RT the Prime Minister of Israel? Untenable.
All of which supports Glenn’s points above.
The truth must be hidden
Government dont want us to the see the reality,
Government wants us to see theit reality which are basicly lies.
To behead people is a death penalty. A drone attak on a caravan of cars is death penalty. Lethal injection is death penalty. Police abuse is death penalty. Dropping bombs on poor, innocent people is death penalty.
You get it ?
Two opponents. One is a prooven liar, torturer, suffers from severe manic binary paranoia and call themselves the freedom makers, peace bringer and democratic evangelist. . The other ones. On trucks. Speak forein language. Wake up, this a war, and beheading is ok. Their turf, not ours.
100% agree, Glenn, and well said. Don’t watch the video; don’t ban it, either.
“Under the law, there’s a fundamental difference between a private individual deciding to ban all racists from entering her home and a government imprisoning people for expressing racist thoughts; the former is legitimate while the latter is not.”
And just exactly which “law” are we talking about?
The article is clearly operating under the assumption that “the law” in question is US federal law, as distinct from US state law, British law, Brazilian law, Iraqi law, etc etc.
Twitter, Google, and Facebook are all US corporations. But they are also operating in a transnational fashion. Is a user resident in (say) Iraq supposed to abide by a law of the US? If some, is that same Iraqi user also protected by the US First Amendment? If so, how does that arise? From Twitter, Google, and Facebook’s status as US corporations?
If that is indeed the case, what then about the reverse. That is to say, non-US social media which US citizens may have access to and use. Chinese ones, say. Is a US citizen typing away in (say) Washington DC who is accessing a Chinese social media supposed to abide by Chinese law, including those chinese laws which may prosecute him or her for text, video, or images he or she may post to that site? Can the Chinese expect to be able to extradite him back to Beijing to face chinese justice for any illegal *under chinese law postings.
If not, what then about that Iraqi citizen posting to Facebook or Twitter? Could he be extradited to the US if the US were so inclined or is the US law confined to allowing Twitter et al to censor his postings?
Then you have articles like this one:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11047088/Viewing-or-sharing-beheading-video-could-be-a-criminal-offence-police-warn.html
which reports UK police suggesting that the mere viewing of an ISIS video posted on a non-UK social media website was potentially a criminal offence in ine UK. That raises the question of what happens if GCHQ (whether itself or via the NSA) suspects (say) someone resident in a Brazil of viewing that video who afterwards transits through Heathrow. Can he (or she) be arrested during that transit and charged with a criminal offence?
There’s so many layers of abuses it’s hard to even see the point of this story.
I’m counting like 4 or 5 prior major r1b systematic-policy abuses that lead to this situation in the first place.
Even if i agree with Greenwald on this topic it is a bit hypocritical for Intercept to criticize what it practiced as two of my comment has been censured by this very site!… Power finds its expression in all hands!
Highly doubtful that happened. Far more likely is that your comments got sent to the spam filter until released by the IT people. That has happened to many, many of us. It’s a software issue, not censorship.
About the only things that will get you banned or deleted here, are: 1. Posting personal information such as other people’s telephone numbers, or 2. spamming the board with endless comments regarding some particular hobby horse — this is a viewpoint neutral policy.
I guess Mona is an Intercept staffer and funny to read that the methods of censorship is used here: blame the victim!
I guess Mona is an Intercept staffer
Nope, just have been reading Glenn’s online work since he began in ’05. I am entirely familiar with his moderation policies, and also entirely agree with them (as standards, if not necessarily always in application).
Hilariously, you claim I am “blaming the victim.” Given that I was effectively banned here for over a month — all because the Intercept spam filter nabbed my IP address and everything I posted went directly there — I guess I’m blaming myself!
Peace then. I follow Greenwald for a long time too and will continue to do so, even with a critical stand as we should all do. No doubt that we expect a new type of media outlet in his hands. Issues have been raised about the relationship of his funder with the power and i just hope that there wont be some corrupted matter in the creation of the new outlet
She gave you a perfectly rational and accurate description of your problem. You are not a victim and you were not blamed.
Pretty rude (and unfounded) reply to a commenter who was merely trying to be helpful.
There is no censorship here. It is how it should be everwhere. Free speech and unbiased fearless journalism at its best. Too much truth on here for some though, perhaps thats what you really dont like?
I had one comment rejected three times today. Not easy to believe it went to the spam filter each time. Now I am wondering about censorship or legal concerns, in either case, suggesting there is a filtering system into which parameters are entered as appropriate.
What about legal issues? Could they justify censorship even here at The Intercept?
My comment included a link to the Guardian article discussing Scotland Yard’s warning that “viewing, downloading or disseminating the video within the UK might constitute a criminal offence under terrorism legislation…”
I’m interested in your opinion Mona regarding this question.
Is this the story seer?
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/aug/20/police-warn-james-foley-video-crime-social-media
No Pedinska. It was the one of the same date, August 20, 07.50 EDT, entitled James Foley killing: US and UK try to identify Isis militant with British accent, by Josh Halliday and Spencer Ackerman.
I’ll try the link immediately after this. If it posts now, I’ll have to consider it was my commentary that was censored.
Ah well, half an hour has passed and no link to that story has appeared, though other comments of mine have posted.
If any of the lawyers here would kindly explain what legal concerns might emanate from that link, that story, I’m all ears. Thank you.
You’ll have to find that story by title on the Guardian.
Found it, but had to go directly to Ackerman’s page and look for it there. It seems to be buried otherwise, but that may just be me seeing conspiracies everywhere. :-s
I tried to post the link too and it does not seem to be showing up. Will keep refreshing to see.
The biggest difference between the story I linked and the one you referenced seems to be the analysis of the video and its intended effect. To whit: language. Specifically the English language, something I posited elsewhere on this thread.
Now, let’s see if this comment, a bit more vague and containing no links at all, will show up. :-s
It’s not being censored. Just last week several of my comments just would NOT post. Finally I resorted to using Tor. Which did the trick.
Glenn Greenwald simply does not moderate posts for reason of viewpoint. (With possible exception of commenters posting stuff like: “Hitler’s fault was in not finishing the job [link to Stormfront].”)
http://
http://www.theguardian.com/
world/2014/aug/20/
isis-british-militant-james-foley-video
Ack, well it added an http, but it’s obviously not being blocked by the string. Or the length of the link, as shown by other equally long links posting fine. I’d assume it’s a bug, since it seems very weird that they’d actively block a particular URL. Guess I’ll find out if the post with the link disappears. lol
What’s “a British accent”?
Thank you Pedinska – the plot thickens! :)
FAKE LINK, testing
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/aug/20/isis-british-militant-james-foley-video
I can only assume that, if this posts correctly, the correct URL is being actively blocked. I tried multiple times to post it, and was only able to post it with line breaks. (and an accidental extra http added by the comment section) To access the possibly blocked link, either see my other response with line breaks or replace “uk-news” above with “world”
Mona’s link to the same article seems to have posted just fine above, so I guess I have no idea what the issue is. It seems possible that the link was being actively moderated due to multiple failed attempts to post it (anti-spam), but that doesn’t really explain why it couldn’t be posted initially instead of a day later.
Maybe we need virtual public lands.
I can understand opposition to censorship by anonymous government bureaucrats. They lead miserable lives and their main concern is to ensure that everyone else is as miserable as they are. But the plutocrats who control the social media networks have virtually unlimited resources and their outlook is basically hedonistic. So they will generally only wish to censor things that make people unhappy. Yes, it infantilizes people, but there are many who have fond memories of their childhood. American popular culture is founded on the premise that everyone can remain a teenager for their entire lives – and has proved to be a hit around the entire world. So I would advise people to experiment with being happy; it’s not so bad, once you get used to it
I just submitted a comment I’ve not seen posted yet, so I’m wondering whether I need to complete some sort of signup process. Either way, I wanted to add one thought, which is that I would like to see a collection of James Foley’s own photographs and/or video from war and conflict zones.
Hi Ann. No signup process. I see your comment below – a good one too – so it appears it just experienced the “normal” delays that happen when commenting here. Sometimes a new commenter’s first comment is delayed a bit more than others, and you may have to refresh your screen to see a comment posted even if you’re a frequent commenter. Also, comments with multiple links can get hung up in the system. I also trip over just typing in my email addie at times. ;-}
You must have signed up to share your kitty cat id, no?
Yes, she did. But it is not required for anyone to sign up in order to comment here without an avatar. The avatar is optional.
That is gravatar, not TI. And in retrospect I wish I hadn’t.
On the upside, Lily is beautiful and a joy to share with others in whatever small capacity available. :-)
I don’t see where you sign up and add your gravatar.
Gravatars, as horrible as the name is, can be obtained here: https://en.gravatar.com/
Welcome to China. Being American I find it odd that people in this country support this crap in any form. The Government wants to control the violence you see, so they can pull it out, when they need, to push there agenda. Nothing should be banned short of things that are already illegal. Like terrorism laws this shit will grow
It’s an interesting topic, although I feel like most of this stuff is beyond me, frame of reference wise. Can phone companies censor things? I have no idea. A quick Google search directs me to the BART service suspension incident, but beyond that, are there laws dealing with censorship over the phone or is it more that, as a practical matter, they couldn’t censor you without listening to your calls, which would hardly win them subscribers as a policy? What about something like the Erin Andrews video, by this logic should that be disseminated just as freely on Twitter or is there some sort of legal difference there? Since these are private companies anyhow, other than say “Well that sucks” or “Let the market work it out”, what is there to do? I’m not clear on whether… you? Glenn? the article? I cannot figure out what person to speak in again… suggest that this should be a matter of consumer concern or, if in comparing these companies to utilities, are saying it should go beyond that.
Ha, I like comments where I just ask more questions. Opinions are so *divisive.
” I like comments where I just ask more questions. Opinions are so *divisive.”
A few suggestions: Re-read the article and the cited sources; do your own research; then come back with an informed opinion.
“Chief Factors Limiting Access to Facts:
1) Artificial censorship
2) Limitations of social contact
3) Comparatively meager time in a day for paying attention to public affairs.
4) Distortion arising because events have to be compressed into very short messages
5) Difficulty of making a small vocabulary express a complicated world
6) Fear of facing those facts which would seem to threaten the established routine of men’s lives”
– Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion
I wanted to read an article, not do a dissertation. So I’ll go with “no”. But feel free to ignore me. It’s the beauty of freedom.
“But feel free to ignore me. It’s the beauty of freedom.”
As is responding to comments. Regards.
Responding to a question by telling someone to go do research on their own and come back when they have an informed opinion reads as snotty to me. But if I misjudged your tone, apologies.
“Responding to a question by telling someone to go do research on their own and come back when they have an informed opinion reads as snotty to me. But if I misjudged your tone, apologies.”
That is not what I said. I wasn’t “telling you” to do anything. My exact words were:
“A few suggestions: Re-read the article and the cited sources; do your own research; then come back with an informed opinion.”
Responding to a comment (Glenn’s first) by dismissing it as dissertorial and preferring “comments where I just ask more questions. Opinions are so *divisive” is known as lazy-thinking – in other words, it seems that you want others to do the work for you.
That’s not a personal attack, it’s an observation.
Going even further and mischaracterizing another comment by saying that it “reads as snotty to me” isn’t a reflection on that comment, it’s again a reflection of what you want to infer without asking direct questions or, as I did, offering well intentioned suggestions in order to elicit some kind of constructive dialog.
“if I misjudged your tone, apologies”
No need here, as I’ve offered snot-free suggestions and, hopefully, well-intentioned guidance.
In other words, it’s up to everyone here to take responsibility for what they say and why; to ask questions and not expect others to do their thinking for them; and to accept constructive criticism in the spirit of having a better discussion on here – not in ending one.
Best regards.
Ok, now I think it reads as snotty except you don’t want to own that. Listen, Sillyputty, I’m a bit of a flake sometimes and have an offbeat sense of humor. I am well aware that some people find this annoying and / or that it doesn’t always translate online. So to me you come off as preachy, god knows how I come off to you. When I say ‘feel free to ignore me’, it’s a pragmatic suggestion as well, because I will probably always come off as a lazy thinker to you. I’m not, for the sake of understanding one article, going to go out and research whatever it happens to be about in depth, and I also think I have every right to post a question with the idea that someone who *does know can answer it vs. directing me to a library. Call it a different approach, if you will, but I don’t plan on changing it. So, you are welcome to ignore me or bask in annoyance, just letting you know. Nice to ‘meet’ you, by the way, I don’t think I’ve ever exchanged comments with you before.
“Ok, now I think it reads as snotty except you don’t want to own that.”
No. You think it reads as snotty and you don’t want to own that.
All I can do is reiterate what I stated earlier:
“I’ve offered snot-free suggestions and, hopefully, well-intentioned guidance.
In other words, it’s up to everyone here to take responsibility for what they say and why; to ask questions and not expect others to do their thinking for them; and to accept constructive criticism in the spirit of having a better discussion on here – not in ending one.
Best regards.
Sillyputty, two things. 1. I disagree with the argument or implied argument you are making here. 2. I am genuinely sorry if I’ve upset you.
I disagree with your argument because I think a “don’t ask questions if you don’t want people to imply that you’re ignorant” policy is a fast track to a terrible kind of elitism. I mean genuine questions with answers, not veiled insinuations, as I know Greenwald has recently talked about those on Twitter. My thinking is… 1. If what I asked is so simplistic that it makes me too uninformed to comment, why didn’t you just answer the questions? Is it possible that you aren’t sure of the answers either? Indirect answers like “well, if you don’t know, you ought to do more research” bury everyone’s baseline understanding in a fog. 2. How much background knowledge does anyone need to have before asking questions or engaging? Do I need detailed medical knowledge before I can ask my doctor a question? To understand quantum mechanics before I can ‘responsibly’ read an article about science? What if I feel that it’s wrong for people to speak to me or ask me questions when they don’t fully ‘get me’, and quite frankly, anyone who presumes to address me should first have read In Search of Lost Time translated into Mullukmulluk and have performed a tandem interpretive dance to it in order to better grasp the depths of my soul, before they, I don’t know, ask if I’m a Breaking Bad fan or whatever? My point is, in-depth knowledge of every topic is not only functionally impossible in today’s world, it is also a standard that is ripe for abuse (only *these people are ‘elite’ enough to discuss this topic). 3. Questions impose on no one. I give more credence to your logic if you are talking about an argument and certainly if you’re talking about someone trying to impose their point of view. But a question is categorically different.
Again, though, the fact that I disagree with your viewpoint, and even that it ‘reads’ a certain way from where I’m standing, doesn’t mean I don’t care about your feelings at a personal level. So, again, if I’ve offended you in any way, I regret that.
“1. I disagree with the argument or implied argument you are making here.
It’s up to you to decide what you disagree with, and to explain that to those you disagree with. In other words, one simply cannot say “I disagree with the argument or implied argument without choosing one or the other and then outlining specifically and clearly what that disagreement is, which you have not done.
If it is an actual argument – what argument is it?
If it is an “implied” argument, what argument do you feel is implied?
So which is it? I could not tell by your explanation(s) that followed – because again, it contained more questions than actual rebuttals using facts and/or the best evidence available to make your argument.
“2. I am genuinely sorry if I’ve upset you.”
I appreciate the concern, but that really isn’t an issue as I’ve already mentioned – I’m not upset in the least, so please don’t let that cloud your reasoning when we discuss matters.
From what I can see, it seems that your default answer to complex questions is to ask more questions to help you understand. There is certainly nothing wrong with that, as many do it in order to learn more than they know already.
After all, everyone knows something that we do not.
What is different here, it seems, is that you personalize it and get defensive when someone questions you; not realizing that it not a personal attack against your knowledge or ability to understand, but rather a conscientious effort to help you navigate the difficult (for all of us) moral and ethical dilemmas that we face due to the actions of our government and society at large.
And the fact that you will not “for the sake of understanding one article, …go out and research whatever it happens to be about in depth is actually the problem here – not what I say or how you feel about what I or Mr. Greenwald says. That responsibility, in other words, is on you.
All I can do is sincerely offer the same advice as before:
” Re-read the article and the cited sources; do your own research; then come back with an informed opinion.” and,
“In other words, it’s up to everyone here to take responsibility for what they say and why; to ask questions and not expect others to do their thinking for them; and to accept constructive criticism in the spirit of having a better discussion on here – not in ending one.
Best regards.
Fair enough, rephrase with no questions: 1. I don’t think you (or many posters) know the answers to the questions I posted either, or else you would have simply answered them. But even if you did, I think shaming people for asking questions creates an “The emperor with no clothes” scenario where people are more concerned with looking knowledgeable and avoiding censure than learning. 2. It’s a practical impossibility for anyone to scan a newspaper or watch the news and go research each and every one of those important topics in depth – in this case, I’m not a lawyer, and don’t have a background in free speech law. 3. A question is not an argument, or an imposition of views. If we’re talking about those, yes, I think there is more onus on the person speaking to come to the table informed.
Again, though, I respect your right to see it differently, I’m just laying out what my views are – no personal element intended. I’m glad you post here and share your opinions, and if I argue it’s because sometimes I like arguing, not because I’m trying to put them down or anything.
@ Nic – regarding your points:
“I don’t think you (or many posters) know the answers to the questions I posted either, or else you would have simply answered them.”
That may or may not be the case, but you removed any personal responsibility or likelihood that anyone would answer them when you ended your first post with the declaration that “I like comments where I just ask more questions. Opinions are so *divisive.”
A suggestion on this:
You’ll likely get better results here if you have a specific question (or two) about a topic rather than using a shotgun approach of half-dozen or more questions in a single post.
“I think shaming people for asking questions creates an “The emperor with no clothes” scenario where people are more concerned with looking knowledgeable and avoiding censure than learning.”
A few suggestions on this:
1) Implying that others are shaming you for asking questions is disingenuous – particularly when you have been assured repeatedly that this was not the intent.
2) Implying others of false-pretense despite their reassurances without specifically asking questions and without you answering with a corresponding rebuttal is also disingenuous, in that you continue to put the onus of carrying the full discussion on those you address – i.e., they must both answer all of the questions you ask (no matter how many), and to do so in a way that cannot even hint at asking you to re-read an article and the cited sources; to do your own research; and then come back with an informed opinion.
” It’s a practical impossibility for anyone to scan a newspaper or watch the news and go research each and every one of those important topics in depth.”
A suggestions on this:
True enough – but that is not what you said you wanted in your original post re: “I wanted to read an article, not do a dissertation.”
And finally, to your point that: “A question is not an argument, or an imposition of views. If we’re talking about those, yes, I think there is more onus on the person speaking to come to the table informed.”
Exactly.
For clarity, that sentence about opinions being divisive was a joke. I was kind of making fun of myself for the overall tone of the comment, but I wanted to post one anyways, because I’m attached to Greenwald’s work and like to post at least one on every article just because.
Now I must go, because you sound cranky, which has triggered my desire to save you with The Power Of Love (a sort of missionary zeal holdover from my Christian days,) and this is embarrassing for me on a site with a distinctly noninterventionist vibe. “Sometimes maybe other people and, you know, other countries, don’t *want to be saved by The Power Of Love….” Liars!! Yes they do!! Ahem, excuse me, I didn’t mean that, didn’t mean that, it just slipped out. Besides, I’m sort of a secular Buddhist now (Blah, people must find their *own path… Boring Buddhism, boring!) so I must hold myself back. Ok, maybe just one hug before I go, just one? And an affirmation? Ok, ok, I’m going now, good talking to you Sillyputty, and thanks for the analysis.
“I wanted to post one anyways, because I’m attached to Greenwald’s work and like to post at least one on every article just because.
So in the final “analysis” what you are saying is that all of your questions were actually not meant to be taken seriously?
”People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid.”
– Soren Aabye Kierkegaard
No.
Now when will you get back to more disclosures of the NSA files?
About Twitter: ”Twitter helps you create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers.”
I would encourage everyone interested to contact the Twitter CEO, Dick Costoloto and ask that they abide by their own mission statement above.
The contact is: @dickc on twitter or on the web here – https://twitter.com/intent/user?screen_name=dickc
Once “platforms” like Twitter (public soapboxes) become “publishers” (censors) we lose access to open, public discourse.
For those without a Twitter account, here is Twitter’s CEO’s email and contact info:
Mr Dick Costolo CEO
[email protected](dot)com
Telephone +1 415 222 9670
Personal Twitter @dickc
Courtesy of this great website on CEO email addresses:
http://www.ceoemail.com/us-companies3.php
It covers UK and US companies, as well quite a few world-wide.
Excellent analysis, Glenn, as always.
I think there are two sides to this issue: one is political – whether we the people should permit the government to pressure the private entities into publishing or withholding a certain information; and there is another – whether we the consumers permit the media owners and advertisers do the same.
We solve the political aspect with voting. We solve the latter aspect by directly supporting the content producers. Google, Facebook, and Twitter main revenue stream comes from the advertising, sorry for stating the obvious. They serve the public interest as much as they are able to piggyback ads on top of “free” services.
The only way around that is to pay the sources directly. Here is – shameless plug, I wrote it – a system that attempts to provide personalized news stream together with direct compensation. I don’t know whether it will work, but I thought it is worth a try. Check it out: http://news-ai.com/
I didn’t watch the video. Couldn’t bring myself to do it. But as usual, Glenn, as only he can do, just pointed out that it’s about the principle, and not about someone’s personal views or opinions.
Glenn, maybe FirstLook could invest in a twitter like service for journalists. When they “tweet” it’s also “looked.”
or “intercepted.”
Very well written and sourced. Thank you.
My question: Isn’t this a very good indication that a) we must have net neutrality, and b) we desperately need an open source public platform like Twitter that is free from the calls of board members or moneyed interests in order to preserve this method of open discourse?
At this point I don’t trust big tech companies to not be ‘in league’ with the corrupt system, of which they are ultimately a part. So, no, in my opinion they shouldn’t decide what is acceptable, although they’re obviously within their rights to do so, as you say – but it should ALWAYS seem damned suspicious to all when ‘their’ view is identical to the overt or promoted opinion of the establishment.
I’m perplexed by the rush to censor this video and screenshots taken from it, because I see equally horrific images of war every day, and I’ve seen them all of my life. I wonder whether James Foley himself, a journalist committed to bringing us the images of people suffering in violent conflict, would have desired this kind of privacy. He no doubt shared equally horrific images of Libya, Syria, and other conflicts that he covered with the world.
I remembered the mother of Emmett Till, who held a wake for her murdered son with an open casket. Painful as that no doubt was for her, it’s widely reported to have changed the world. Gazans make us aware of their suffering by holding the bodies of their dead children up for the world to see.
Arguably this is different because James Foley’s family, unlike the mother of Emmett Till and the citizens of Gaza, have in their grief tried to repress the images of his execution, but if so, it should be a very specific exception, for that reason alone., not because the image is horrifying or because it is an image of an Islamic fundamentalist executing an American.
Mark Zuckerburg has threatened to cut off Uganda’s Facebook access over their anti-gay legislation and I am hugely glad that has not happened – yet – because it would only highlight the enormous hypocrisy of US championship of LGBT rights in Uganda, as in Israel. Uganda, like Israel in the Middle East, serves as a a giant, strategically situated US aircraft carrier in the middle of Southern Africa, adjacent to Rwanda, DR Congo, Central African Republic, South Sudan, and Kenya, and Ugandan soldiers serve under U.S. command all over the African continent, as they have in Iraq.
Excellent comment, Ann. Under no circumstances would I watch a video of a person being beheaded, and that includes the Foley tape. Others, however, may have valid reasons for viewing it, and it is, at any rate, their business if they do.
That said, I respect the wishes of the Foley family and have retweeted those wishes. By the same token, when Gazans themselves post pictures of their dead and injured, I will tweet those. At the first hint, however, that the family objects, I will not.
Twitter should stay completely out of it.
I had heard that his parents had simply asked people to not watch the video, not that they’d expressed a desire to have it censored. My heart breaks for them as it is, and I hope they didn’t choose censorship.
I would not watch it myself. No one needs to ask me not to. The images would haunt me terribly, and I’ve been forced to see so much cruelty and unnecessary violence to humans and animals in my time, I’ve got the message. Those images haunt me regularly in recall, bringing me to tears each time.
I have a visceral aversion to videos and pictures of graphic inhumanity. But, in light of the fact that twitter has historically permitted this kind of imagery since the beginning – in fact, at one point changing their format to force you to see them by putting the images directly into tweets, instead of allowing simple linkages that could be followed at the user’s choice – I have to wonder what is behind this recent phenomenon. Is it just James Foley’s beheading? Or are there other images that are changing worldwide perceptions in ways the PTB deem ‘inappropriate’? The world is a nasty place filled with people who do and support horrible things. The more those are exposed, the better armed we are to deal with them.
The arguments put forth by Ronan Farrow et al are little different from those expressed by many of the so-called humanitarian interventionists: “We know, better than you, what is good for you, and we will help you get to this place we define for you, and ensure that you stay there.” It is rank infantilization. And, in this case, I believe it is designed to control public opinion.
That picture of Zuckerman grinning like Alfred E. Neuman in a pool of sharks is chilling. When the owners of private companies start to rub elbows with members of the G8 we all need to pay attention. Perhaps that – and the fact that we know they are being/have been coopted by the government – is the point where they move beyond (some of) the perks of privacy and pass into the realm of power exercised by, and in need of restrictions similar to, that of governments.
The display — or withholding — of graphic imagery is a very old one, beginning with Matthew Brady’s exhibition of the pictures he took after the battle of Antietam. Or the debate at LIFE magazine, 80 years later, over non-graphic images of our war dead.
http://life.time.com/history/world-war-ii-classic-photos-from-the-20th-centurys-defining-conflict/attachment/buna-beach-shock-of-the-real/
They had reasons for withholding it as long as they did, and reasons for releasing it. If you want more recent examples, there are the images from My Lai and Abu Ghraib — and it was important that they got out.
They had reasons for withholding it as long as they did, and reasons for releasing it.
Absolutely, and no one should trust that the reasons are necessarily those that are stated, or that they are good for society as a whole. Thanks for that addendum.
Agreed. I’d only add that, as is often pointed out in the case of sex tapes and other innocuous material, “nothing disappears from the internet”. They can ban anything they want but a cursory search of the net’s grimy corners will get you any gruesome video you desire. (It should be noted that archive.org also removed the video despite their extensive catalog of other war/violence videos.)
There’s also an odd Kafkaesque circle of absurdity to discussing whether CIA-aligned Google should have a say over material posted by CIA-aligned terrorist groups (probably based on CIA assessments of said material’s “potential harm”.)
As for anyone throwing out the “they’re private and own their tubes” argument (similar to Rand Paul’s “businesses have the right to refuse Black folks” opinion at its core), they’re either oblivious or unconcerned about these companies colluding with the government, allowing surveillance, taking tax breaks and receiving funds or other advantages (see the Google/CIA connection mentioned above) from the public sector. Hell, the entire internet started out as a public project before getting handed over to ISPs and the like.
There’s also an odd Kafkaesque circle of absurdity to discussing whether CIA-aligned Google should have a say over material posted by CIA-aligned terrorist groups (probably based on CIA assessments of said material’s “potential harm”.)
I actually wonder if the objection, to the video at least, is not so much to the imagery, savage as that is, but rather to what is spoken by the English-speaking ISIS leader doing the narrating. I can’t, however, bring myself to watch it to find out.
If you think about it, we didn’t have an American citizen subject to explicit extra-judicial killing until Anwar al Awlaki went from being a guest of the FBI to a widely publicized critic of the US who was exercising influence over Islamists in the west. In English.
It’s much easier to demonize the “other” when that “other” does not look, sound or act like yourself. It becomes much less so when the echoes of self, including language – and especially language used to point out perceived injustice – are much stronger.
Our government stepped over a significant line with al Awlaki’s assassination. It must have had a very good reason for taking a step that, for a good chunk of our history, had been condemned and was, and still is (at least on parchment) explicitly forbidden in our Bill of Rights.
A fair comparison though al-Awlaki was a moderate and informed Muslim who became disenchanted with the West whereas this guy is more like the idiots described in Medhi Hasan’s latest column; the ones who buy “Islam for Dummies” on Amazon before trotting off to Syria to take out their residual teen angst on whomever is the Apostate Du Jour.
If the US has any problem with ISIS and their message they should take that up with the Saudis and not worry about internet videos so much. As for that message coming from a Western face with a Western accent, those cases are usually treated as an Islamic Lord Haw Haw and pushed aside. You don’t hear much about Adam Gadahn lately.
Thanks for the additional clarification and thoughts on my speculation. Really couldn’t bring myself to watch it so had no clue how this guy came off.
“But that’s always how censorship functions: it invariably starts with the suppression of viewpoints which are so widely hated that the emotional response they produce drowns out any consideration of the principle being endorsed.”
As usual, Glenn puts into a few succinct words what I usually get scrambled in frustrated debate over the subject.
For some reason people can just not get into their heads the simple principle that even unpopular speech needs be protected. “But that’s totally hateful! We must make an exception for that one!”
Thus cognitive dissonance thrives, emotion trumping reason.
Yes, and if the idea suppressed is outside the range of acceptable speech, it can hobble public debate, sometimes for decades. Look up the Comstock laws, which criminalized the very mention of birth control, let alone the legality of its use. It also doesn’t help if the arbiters of the ban get to decide what is acceptable.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comstock_laws
If you’re as old as I am, you have personal memory of that time. It’s not just an historical reference. Thanks for the (scary) memory.
“For some reason people can just not get into their heads the simple principle that even unpopular speech needs be protected. “But that’s totally hateful! We must make an exception for that one!””
I love your comment. It points to the truth of a rampant, infectious misunderstanding of the meaning of freedom of speech. But I must take issue with this last thought: “Thus cognitive dissonance thrives, emotion trumping reason.” Cognitive dissonance is not caused exclusively by emotion, nor by emotion in general, but by a few specific emotions having to do with fear of ‘not belonging’. CD is actually a rational position, in light of the fear that provokes it, in which one accepts that certain true facts are false. This is induced by shrouding those facts in the term “conspiracy theory” or similar negative term, which is used as a club to the head of the speaker who mentions those true facts in polite company. Yes, some conspiracy theories are fraudulent and others are true but suppressed.
And one last quibble: Emotion is not lesser in value to reason. It is coequal with it. I love freedom with all my heart and that love, that emotion, is a precursor to the reason with which I defend what I so dearly love.
But yes, I do get the gist of your comment and I agree.
An extremely well written and cogent article. Not for the shallow thinkers whose knee-jerk reactions make up most of the media discourse on this and other topics though is it?
Agreed. I’d only add that, as is often pointed out in the case of sex tapes and other innocuous material, “nothing disappears from the internet”. They can ban anything they want but a cursory search of the net’s grimy corners will get you any gruesome video you desire. (It should be noted that archive.org also removed the video despite their extensive catalog of other war/violence videos.)
There’s also an odd Kafkaesque circle of absurdity to discussing whether CIA-aligned Google should have a say over material posted by CIA-aligned terrorist groups (probably based on CIA assessments of said material’s “potential harm”.)
Ugh double post. And oddly an unfinished one at that.
Gleen, have you read a book called “The Circle”, by Dave Eggers. In my opnion it portray exactly what will happen in the coming years with these so called tech giants.
With this video ISIS is looking for attention. Self-censorship (my choice) deprives them of overt attention. Twitter, Facebook and Google censoring them does not have the same impact.
The link to Twitter’s CEO’s announcement included responses from people thanking him for his censorship decision. Why? They are apparently unable to follow through on their decision to not watch that video?
Responsibility for one’s actions is the coefficient of freedom, as you observe; abstaining from it leads invariably to increasingly less freedom. Someone with a Twitter account, please bring that to their attention.
@seer – Here is Twitter’s CEO’s email and contact info:
Mr Dick Costolo CEO
[email protected]
Telephone +1 415 222 9670
Website https://www.twitter.com
Personal Twitter @dickc
Courtesy of this great website on CEO email addresses:
http://www.ceoemail.com/us-companies3.php
It covers UK and US companies, as well quite a few world-wide.
@seer – Here is Twitter’s CEO’s email and contact info:
Mr Dick Costolo CEO
[email protected](dot)com
Telephone +1 415 222 9670
Personal Twitter @dickc
Courtesy of this great website on CEO email addresses:
http://www.ceoemail.com/us-companies3.php
It covers UK and US companies, as well quite a few world-wide.
Thank you Sillyputty.
@ seer – No problem.
Erskin Bowles from Obama’s deficit reduction committee is on the board of directors for FaceBook. Of course, you will be moderated right off of facebook or banned as I was several times for posting articles relating to Obama’s lies and half-truths.
The fact that these Silicon Valley companies have a history of collusive behavior with the Surveillance State makes it even more imperative that they not be allowed to become unofficial censors. The companies are too close to executive branch agencies that would love to have the power to suppress embarrassing information.
More content managers, more ‘fact police’, more dubious moderators, more filtering and obfuscation… It needs to be fought from the bottom to the top.
A great read, Glenn. Thank you for the frequent articles and wide range of content that is starting to appear on The Intercept.
Two days ago, some idiot actually called for a $25 fine for “trolling” (ie, whatever Seamus Condron thinks constitutes trolling) on Twitter. When you sign up, you just give them a form of payment, and then you put your money in a swear jar whenever Twitter feels like it.
This is not the Onion:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2463211,00.asp
It’s their platform. It’s their hardware. It’s their private property. They should be allowed to do whatever they want with it.
Whether they should “be allowed” to do this has absolutely nothing to do with anything discussed here, as I made clear.
Orion directly addresses your actual article. Then you respond that you “made clear” a point that directly contradicts your article, as barncat points out above. This “you can’t read” response you’ve been giving readers for years would be more meaningful if you ever tried to look back at the article and perhaps respond “i did make my point as clearly as I meant to” in cases like this.
I did *not* make my point as clearly as I meant to.
So, the phone companies operate their private property, do you think they should ban certain subjects their customers wish to discuss by telephone; should certain words be deemed unsuitable to be spoken using their private property? Should the electric company declare that certain uses of electricity delivered through their private systems be banned as anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic?
Maybe you didn’t read much more than the headline and that explains your ignorant comment.
At some point their “platform” becomes a medium. Communications between other parties. A utility — especially if there’s only a few such media, be it a few movie studios with a few theater chains and a Hays Office to stifle anything that isn’t bland. Or three TV networks maintaining a narrow range of 1950s conformity. Or these few social media now.
And at some point it becomes complicity with official malfeasance. The limited debate we had before invading Iraq, QED, should be proof of that.