4 ms·

What the hell went wrong with the western world that a nontrivial number of people think that free speech is bad, censorship is good and it’s ok to rewrite hist

by efitz 5y ago

What the hell went wrong with the western world that a nontrivial number of people think that free speech is bad, censorship is good and it’s ok to rewrite history when it’s inconvenient or unpleasant?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
krastanov 5y ago
My read of the article gave me very different impression. No archives were actually censored. Entertainment programs were edited to fit the zeitgeist as has been done with theater plays for centuries and with TV for decades. If anything, today it is easier to access unaltered archives than ever. This hand-wringing is cheapening the word censorship and making real censorship more difficult to notice in the noise.
- BuyMyBitcoins 5y ago
  >” making real censorship more difficult to notice in the noise.” Just about every debate about ‘censorship’ I’ve encountered ends up with people debating the meaning of the word itself. And, there is a sizable contingent of people asserting only the government can censor. It’s already too late.
edent 5y ago
When do you think that wasn't the case? The Family Shakespeare publication shows that was the case back in the 1800. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Bowdler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Bowdler
- an9n 5y ago
  Ah yes, the good old 'it's always been that way!' fallacy
  - edent 5y ago
    The original said: > What the hell went wrong with the western world This, to my reading, implies that there was a time when things were "right" in the western world. And, at some point, something went wrong.
    - BuyMyBitcoins 5y ago
      I read it as “at some point, it got way worse”.
an9n 5y ago
Our politicians looked at China, realised they could simultaneously have totalitarianism and profit, and started constructing a Potemkin village called democracy behind which to hide its total destruction.
pessimizer 5y ago
When the hell was this mythical past in the west where people weren't absolutely destroyed and jailed for things that they said, media wasn't bowdlerized and censored to hell, and history wasn't rewritten when it was convenient or unpleasant? I'm old enough to remember when the only things that weren't censored were the racist and sexist bits.
- efitz 5y ago
  For most of my Gen X life here in the US, the only censors of note were the far right, trying to ban porn and naughty words. We had the press and the ACLU that would scream bloody murder and fight like wolverines whenever censorship reared it’s head. Now, a ridiculous number [1] of Americans support censorship. We have surveys showing most college kids want to ban “hate speech” and heterodoxy [2] (big problem- who gets to define “hate”?). The ACLU is backing away from defending free speech; here’s a former director of the ACLU [3]. Journalists now regularly host intelligence community propagandists [4] and support “fact checking” and government mandated bans on “misinformation” [5]. Again, who decides? And not just who decides what the facts are, but who decides what facts to check? Who decides what is “misinformation“ and what are the consequences if the holders of this power are shown to have misjudged? [1] https://jonathanturley.org/2021/08/20/the-new-censors-polls-shows-almost-half-of-americans-favor-the-government-censoring-misinformation/ https://jonathanturley.org/2021/08/20/the-new-censors-polls-... [2] https://thompsoncenter.wisc.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/509/2021/01/Thompson-Center-First-Amendment-Survey.pdf https://thompsoncenter.wisc.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/509... [3] https://nypost.com/2022/01/31/ex-aclu-head-ira-glasser-slams-organizations-new-agenda/ https://nypost.com/2022/01/31/ex-aclu-head-ira-glasser-slams... [4] https://dailycaller.com/2019/08/23/cnn-msnbc-15-spooks-mccabe https://dailycaller.com/2019/08/23/cnn-msnbc-15-spooks-mccab... [5] https://misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/article/misinformation-interventions-are-common-divisive-and-poorly-understood https://misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/article/misinformation... and https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2021/11/9/journalists-iop-misinformation-event https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2021/11/9/journalists-iop...
  - Mindwipe 5y ago
    > For most of my Gen X life here in the US, the only censors of note were the far right, trying to ban porn and naughty words. That's definitely not the case in the UK however. And literally never was. The UK has a law banning "obscene publications". It has strong libel laws. It has a broadcasting regulator who can tell the BBC or any other broadcaster (including cable ones) what to do. There is no change to the status quo here.
notahacker 5y ago
What went wrong with the Western world isn't so much the totally unchanged mainstream position that television companies can and should be able to cut away from or bleep content deemed "objectionable" or even mildly inappropriate for the audience as they have done since the beginning of broadcast media, but that certain groups only became interested in contesting this (by means of dubious analogies to constitutional speech protections) when the definition of "objectionable content" expanded to include casual racism.
- pie_flavor 5y ago
  While this is very nearly true despite my disagreement with the framing, there is an important distinction between offensive graphical content, like porn or violence, and offensive intellectual content, like racism or sexism. That is what changed - they previously attempted to make sure you were not exposed to imagery they didn't like, now they attempt to make sure you're not exposed to ideas they don't like.
  - notahacker 5y ago
    That's not a distinction the BBC's editorial team has ever used. Historically it has bleeped words ranging from "fuck" to "Coca Cola" and discouraged talking about ideas deemed inappropriate for the audience like most verbal references to sex before 9pm. People who range from neutral to outspokenly in favour of that sort of censorship are, however, liable to be enraged by the renaming of a dog in Dambusters (the original naming had far less expressive purpose than the average expletive!). The shift is clearly more of one from ideas that certain groups consider to be of no value ("vulgarity") to stuff which they consider to be at least relatively valuable "the treatment of casual racism as completely normal behaviour which shouldn't provoke any reaction and might actually be funny, because that's just how things were in the good old days".
    - pie_flavor 5y ago
      Bleeping is another important distinction. It lets you know something was there, and leaves you with a pretty good idea of what it was, preserving the message without preserving the shock value. Cutting bits out entirely and leaving nothing in their place is censorship in the sense that the article is trying to evoke, in a way that bleeping isn't.

by efitz 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

krastanov 5y ago

My read of the article gave me very different impression. No archives were actually censored. Entertainment programs were edited to fit the zeitgeist as has been done with theater plays for centuries and with TV for decades. If anything, today it is easier to access unaltered archives than ever. This hand-wringing is cheapening the word censorship and making real censorship more difficult to notice in the noise.

BuyMyBitcoins 5y ago
>” making real censorship more difficult to notice in the noise.” Just about every debate about ‘censorship’ I’ve encountered ends up with people debating the meaning of the word itself. And, there is a sizable contingent of people asserting only the government can censor. It’s already too late.

edent 5y ago

When do you think that wasn't the case? The Family Shakespeare publication shows that was the case back in the 1800. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Bowdler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Bowdler

an9n 5y ago
Ah yes, the good old 'it's always been that way!' fallacy
- edent 5y ago
  The original said: > What the hell went wrong with the western world This, to my reading, implies that there was a time when things were "right" in the western world. And, at some point, something went wrong.
  - BuyMyBitcoins 5y ago
    I read it as “at some point, it got way worse”.

an9n 5y ago

Our politicians looked at China, realised they could simultaneously have totalitarianism and profit, and started constructing a Potemkin village called democracy behind which to hide its total destruction.

pessimizer 5y ago

When the hell was this mythical past in the west where people weren't absolutely destroyed and jailed for things that they said, media wasn't bowdlerized and censored to hell, and history wasn't rewritten when it was convenient or unpleasant? I'm old enough to remember when the only things that weren't censored were the racist and sexist bits.

efitz 5y ago
For most of my Gen X life here in the US, the only censors of note were the far right, trying to ban porn and naughty words. We had the press and the ACLU that would scream bloody murder and fight like wolverines whenever censorship reared it’s head. Now, a ridiculous number [1] of Americans support censorship. We have surveys showing most college kids want to ban “hate speech” and heterodoxy [2] (big problem- who gets to define “hate”?). The ACLU is backing away from defending free speech; here’s a former director of the ACLU [3]. Journalists now regularly host intelligence community propagandists [4] and support “fact checking” and government mandated bans on “misinformation” [5]. Again, who decides? And not just who decides what the facts are, but who decides what facts to check? Who decides what is “misinformation“ and what are the consequences if the holders of this power are shown to have misjudged? [1] https://jonathanturley.org/2021/08/20/the-new-censors-polls-shows-almost-half-of-americans-favor-the-government-censoring-misinformation/ https://jonathanturley.org/2021/08/20/the-new-censors-polls-... [2] https://thompsoncenter.wisc.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/509/2021/01/Thompson-Center-First-Amendment-Survey.pdf https://thompsoncenter.wisc.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/509... [3] https://nypost.com/2022/01/31/ex-aclu-head-ira-glasser-slams-organizations-new-agenda/ https://nypost.com/2022/01/31/ex-aclu-head-ira-glasser-slams... [4] https://dailycaller.com/2019/08/23/cnn-msnbc-15-spooks-mccabe https://dailycaller.com/2019/08/23/cnn-msnbc-15-spooks-mccab... [5] https://misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/article/misinformation-interventions-are-common-divisive-and-poorly-understood https://misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/article/misinformation... and https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2021/11/9/journalists-iop-misinformation-event https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2021/11/9/journalists-iop...
- Mindwipe 5y ago
  > For most of my Gen X life here in the US, the only censors of note were the far right, trying to ban porn and naughty words. That's definitely not the case in the UK however. And literally never was. The UK has a law banning "obscene publications". It has strong libel laws. It has a broadcasting regulator who can tell the BBC or any other broadcaster (including cable ones) what to do. There is no change to the status quo here.

notahacker 5y ago

What went wrong with the Western world isn't so much the totally unchanged mainstream position that television companies can and should be able to cut away from or bleep content deemed "objectionable" or even mildly inappropriate for the audience as they have done since the beginning of broadcast media, but that certain groups only became interested in contesting this (by means of dubious analogies to constitutional speech protections) when the definition of "objectionable content" expanded to include casual racism.

pie_flavor 5y ago
While this is very nearly true despite my disagreement with the framing, there is an important distinction between offensive graphical content, like porn or violence, and offensive intellectual content, like racism or sexism. That is what changed - they previously attempted to make sure you were not exposed to imagery they didn't like, now they attempt to make sure you're not exposed to ideas they don't like.
- notahacker 5y ago
  That's not a distinction the BBC's editorial team has ever used. Historically it has bleeped words ranging from "fuck" to "Coca Cola" and discouraged talking about ideas deemed inappropriate for the audience like most verbal references to sex before 9pm. People who range from neutral to outspokenly in favour of that sort of censorship are, however, liable to be enraged by the renaming of a dog in Dambusters (the original naming had far less expressive purpose than the average expletive!). The shift is clearly more of one from ideas that certain groups consider to be of no value ("vulgarity") to stuff which they consider to be at least relatively valuable "the treatment of casual racism as completely normal behaviour which shouldn't provoke any reaction and might actually be funny, because that's just how things were in the good old days".
  - pie_flavor 5y ago
    Bleeping is another important distinction. It lets you know something was there, and leaves you with a pretty good idea of what it was, preserving the message without preserving the shock value. Cutting bits out entirely and leaving nothing in their place is censorship in the sense that the article is trying to evoke, in a way that bleeping isn't.