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Imagine you hate Islam and you want to portray it in an obnoxious, demeaning, and depraved manner, with all the production quality of a middle school film proje

Imagine you hate Islam and you want to portray it in an obnoxious, demeaning, and depraved manner, with all the production quality of a middle school film project. You've just envisioned Innocence of Muslims.

jrockway 13y ago
Yeah, I read the Wikipedia article. It sounds horrifyingly bad. And in very poor taste.
- theorique 13y ago
  And protected by the First Amendment. Unlike some theocratic regimes where the maker of this film would be beheaded, at least we have some remaining freedom of speech and expression. The right of free speech is not resolved in motherhood-and-apple-pie cases but in the extreme fringes of bad taste and offensiveness (Human Centipede, Nazi propaganda, etc)
  - eropple 13y ago
    This is a contract law case.
    - baldfat 13y ago
      I disagree this is a first amendment case that someone found a way to get the video taken down. They then made this a copyright case due to a bad contract.
      - btilly 13y ago
        You can disagree, but you are wrong. A first amendment case, by definition, is a case involving whether the government has a right to restrict your speech. By contrast this case is about a person's private lawsuit to have unauthorized video of herself taken down. No government, no first amendment.
- einhverfr 13y ago
  Sure but on the other side you have to look at the necessity of open communication and the fact that the US enjoys strong free speech protections as a reaction to pretty horrendous legal abuses (particularly by the government) in the past. It's not just a question of theocratic regimes. Every government everywhere tends to react to insults. If you don't believe me, next time you fly insult the TSA officers as much as you can and see how they react. The way this is usually managed is by requiring a general tone of respect in a critique. It's the way it works in every Islamic country I have been in, as well as many others. But there are two problems with this in the context of the US: First we have a history of the government silencing whatever ideas they can (trying to argue that distributing writings of Karl Marx amounts to the same thing as raising an army to violently overthrow the government). The other problem in a pluralistic nation is that this sort of thing has to be a two way street to work. It's fine to insist that everyone speak at least somewhat respectful of another group but that only really works if there is reciprocal respect. More often it is a power play and that's the problem.

jrockway 13y ago

Yeah, I read the Wikipedia article. It sounds horrifyingly bad. And in very poor taste.

theorique 13y ago
And protected by the First Amendment. Unlike some theocratic regimes where the maker of this film would be beheaded, at least we have some remaining freedom of speech and expression. The right of free speech is not resolved in motherhood-and-apple-pie cases but in the extreme fringes of bad taste and offensiveness (Human Centipede, Nazi propaganda, etc)
- eropple 13y ago
  This is a contract law case.
  - baldfat 13y ago
    I disagree this is a first amendment case that someone found a way to get the video taken down. They then made this a copyright case due to a bad contract.
    - btilly 13y ago
      You can disagree, but you are wrong. A first amendment case, by definition, is a case involving whether the government has a right to restrict your speech. By contrast this case is about a person's private lawsuit to have unauthorized video of herself taken down. No government, no first amendment.
einhverfr 13y ago
Sure but on the other side you have to look at the necessity of open communication and the fact that the US enjoys strong free speech protections as a reaction to pretty horrendous legal abuses (particularly by the government) in the past. It's not just a question of theocratic regimes. Every government everywhere tends to react to insults. If you don't believe me, next time you fly insult the TSA officers as much as you can and see how they react. The way this is usually managed is by requiring a general tone of respect in a critique. It's the way it works in every Islamic country I have been in, as well as many others. But there are two problems with this in the context of the US: First we have a history of the government silencing whatever ideas they can (trying to argue that distributing writings of Karl Marx amounts to the same thing as raising an army to violently overthrow the government). The other problem in a pluralistic nation is that this sort of thing has to be a two way street to work. It's fine to insist that everyone speak at least somewhat respectful of another group but that only really works if there is reciprocal respect. More often it is a power play and that's the problem.