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> Warning: this article contains the image of the magazine cover, which some may find offensive. It's the first time I've seen something like this on Guardian;

by tomp 12y ago

> Warning: this article contains the image of the magazine cover, which some may find offensive. It's the first time I've seen something like this on Guardian; I don't even remember it on articles discussing rape, murder or such, which is usually where "trigger warning" applies. Personally, I find such trigger warnings, and especially "you might be offended" warnings, totally ridiculous. What about me? I find such warnings an insult to my intelligence and a trivialization of people's personal responsibility, where is my warning?

venomsnake 12y ago
And it makes things worse. The idea that you have to tiptoe and thought police yourself around some group of people is sure way to antagonize part of the society against that group.
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- draugadrotten 12y ago
  Makes you think about their motives for adding such an exceptional warning.
  - venomsnake 12y ago
    Ball gripping fear?
    - xaa 12y ago
      Very likely. I heard an two-way interview on NPR with the editor of the Washington Post, another editor from a prominent UK paper (either the Observer or Guardian, can't remember and can't find the episode, but both are members of the same media group) and the anchor. The editor of the Observer(?) and WaPo were duking it out because the editor of the Observer admitted that he and his staff were frankly terrified of reprisals, and that it was important to admit that publicly, especially if a paper makes the decision not to republish, and that appealing to "sensitivity" as a reason for not republishing the cartoons was a cop-out. The WaPo editor stood by the "sensitivity" excuses. I obviously completely agree with the former.
- matthewmacleod 12y ago
  You do have to do that, at all times. It's called "being a functioning member of society" – and that means being considerate of other people's views and feelings, as ridiculous as they may be. Everybody does this, all of the time (well, maybe some people don't. Those people are usually dicks.) Remember The Guardian isn't a satirical magazine, but a newspaper. It doesn't have the defence against purposeful offence that comes with the former.
  - venomsnake 12y ago
    And how facts could be offensive or hurtful?
  - tomjen3 12y ago
    If you are a newspaper you have to write news. If you care about peoples feelings, they should create a tumblr blog instead.
Guthur 12y ago
If the article had images that would cause offense or distress then yes it would carry such a warning. Normal practice, I have seen it many times, mainly for scenes depicting the aftermath of violence. Or even scenes of the meat industry.
sarciszewski 12y ago
> Personally, I find such trigger warnings, and especially "you might be offended" warnings, totally ridiculous. What about me? I find such warnings an insult to my intelligence and a trivialization of people's personal responsibility, where is my warning? I agree wholeheartedly. They may have decided to preface their article with this message because they feared retaliation by zealous Muslims who would not otherwise expect to see a depiction of Muhammad in the Guardian. I don't think it detracts any from the content of the reporting, though. # On topic # There are two possible extremes to consider: 1. A world in which any idea or custom is subject to criticism. Nothing is sacred. We can criticize, laugh at, depict, and mock anything that anyone believes. Publicly. Without fear of violence. 2. A world in which NO idea or custom is subject to criticism. Everything is sacred. Do not criticize, laugh at, depict, or mock anything that anyone believes. My problem with religious extremists is that they, in general, seem to want World #2 for themselves and World #1 for everyone else. I'm more of a "World #1 for everyone" sort of person, and you're free to mock me for that if you'd like.
- tomp 12y ago
  Why was this downvoted?!
  - sarciszewski 12y ago
    A handful of HN users with >= 500 karma didn't like either: - The fact that I don't embrace the concept of trigger warnings. - The fact that I responded in agreement to another comment. - The fact that I suggested the warning could have been placed in response to a fear of retaliation. - Me. Just, in general. - All of the above. But since none of the downvoters had enough gumption to actually say what they didn't like about my comment, we'll never know. :) My pet theory for what motivates these squads of downvoters is a mix of laziness and cowardice.
    - TeMPOraL 12y ago
      You should have put a trigger warning - "Point of view disagreeing with the majority media narrative - could cause compulsive downvoting behaviour". ;).
ddebernardy 12y ago
To the Guardian's credit, they did actually publish the cover. As did Libération in France. US news outlets, as well as some UK outlets, and certainly many more elsewhere including France, cannot be said to have done as much, e.g.: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/13/arts/international/charlie-hebdo-staff-prepares-next-issue.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/13/arts/international/charlie... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11342217/Charlie-Hebdo-magazine-Je-suis-Charlie-issue-launched-live.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/1134...
- misnome 12y ago
  Right, I was a bit disappointed that the BBC had two separate articles on the cover, but neither included a picture of it.
  - flycaliguy 12y ago
    Perhaps the role of a public broadcaster makes things different. My understanding was that the CBC's decision not to run cartoons of the prophet Mohammad was based on their institutional duty to be inclusive to all Canadians. Ultimately they deemed they can sufficiently report this news without publishing material that will be offensive to a large portion of Canadians on religious grounds.
- travisp 12y ago
  Several US news outlets did, the biggest being the WSJ: http://www.wsj.com/articles/charlie-hebdo-puts-muhammad-on-cover-of-post-attack-issue-1421076776?tesla=y http://www.wsj.com/articles/charlie-hebdo-puts-muhammad-on-c... http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/01/12/hayat-boumeddiene-amedy-couilbaly-paris-terror-attacks/21621219/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/01/12/hayat-bo... http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-charlie-hebdo-cover-muhammad-20150112-story.html http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-charlie-hebdo-cove... http://chicago.suntimes.com/nationworld/7/71/286127/charlie-hebdos-first-cover-since-last-weeks-attack http://chicago.suntimes.com/nationworld/7/71/286127/charlie-... http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/comic-riffs/wp/2015/01/12/charlie-hebdo-reveals-next-cover-a-cartoon-of-prophet-muhammad-behind-the-sign-je-suis-charlie/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/comic-riffs/wp/2015/01/12...
matthewmacleod 12y ago
Oh, please don't take this to such a stupid extreme. Being a deliberate dick to people isn't something to be lauded; be respectful and thoughtful, even when you disagree.
- webXL 12y ago
  I find "stupid extremes" in the realm of culture much easier to tolerate than those trying to control our behavior through violence. What you label "deliberate dick", most freedom loving people would label defiance.
friendzis 12y ago
I believe that this warning here serves as a comic relief. Furthermore, it could reasonably be that Guardian here follows somewhat common trend not to sit silently and subdue to terrorism threats but to at least display subtle retaliation. Or it was author's take at this while still getting published. Could be flat-out wrong on this one, though.
jpgvm 12y ago
Unfortunately the concept of having the right to be offended, but not the right not to be offended doesn't seem to have been explained to Muslims. Every other faith (and other large group of people) seems to have accepted it however.
- chernevik 12y ago
  I'm embarrassed to say that some of my fellow Catholics don't entirely get it. After the attack the Catholic League had a truly stupid editorial of "provocation isn't free speech" flavor. Religious people will always have a struggle between their notions of the sacred and others' freedom to ignore those notions. Those using their minds will see the necessity of freedom of conscience -- there is no faith without choice -- and accept its implications for speech. But the temptations and ignorances that move people to dictate to others are, I think, common to all religions. Yes, the mainstreams of Christianity and Judaism have gone much further in thinking this through, but we'll always have to guard against this instinct.
- DanBC 12y ago
  > Every other faith (and other large group of people) seems to have accepted it however. This is obviously false. In England the film "Life of Brian" faced multiple bans from local councils on being shown at cinemas. Glasgow had a 30 year ban that ended in 2009. The comedian Stewart Lee faced legal action and a vicious campaign after his opera "Jerry Springer: the musical"; Jewish groups (rightly) decry Holocaust denying cartoons or cartoons comparing treatment of Palestinians to anything that happened in Nazi Germany; Sikhs in Birmingham (UK) violently protested a play, causing it to be stopped. Life of Brian: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/glasgow_and_west/8126490.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/glasgow_and_west... Stewart Lee: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=N9EUe8jNr6o https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=N9EUe8jNr6o Sikh protest stops play: http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/dec/20/arts.religion1 http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/dec/20/arts.religion1
  - jpgvm 12y ago
    Fair enough, but I would say the former still holds. You have no right not to be offended, it just doesn't exist.
NKCSS 12y ago
And, to make it even worse; the cover is depicted on the side of the article, 140x187px... it's like not printing it at all, because it doesn't look like it's part of the content at all. The Office 365 ad that is actually inserted inside the article text has three times the screenspace relative to the cover picture.
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- tomp 12y ago
  > racists I fail to see how the attacks have anything to do with racism. Islamophobia is not racism. > Send me some photographs or your mother or spouse and let me modify those images. Let's see if you are able to ignore or laugh them off. Well, I'm not sure they would consent to me sharing photos of them, but you can have mine :) Just add me as a friend on Facebook (Tom Primozic), and you'll have a collection of photos you can use! I'll gladly laugh at them, I promise (unless they're not funny or are disgusting or such, but I will evaluate them on purely objective standards, without taking any offence).
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    - tomp 12y ago
      > This is exactly what racist groups - British National Party - say. Well, it's true. Don't ad-hominem them, it gives them power (because they can rationally say that you're wrong). > we should not allow Islamophobic groups to use the Frenh murders to spew their Islamophobe material in mainstream media I agree. But depictions of Muhammad, insulting as they might be for Muslims, aren't Islamophobic.
  - georgespencer 12y ago
    > not funny or disgusting And therein lies the rub: would you subsequently gun someone down because they made photos of your loved ones which you find distasteful? Almost nobody would.
    - DanBC 12y ago
      I could take a photo some someone's male child, photoshop it so he is kissinganother male. That would be enough for some people to murder me. You can argue that only a tiny number of people would murder me, but then it's only a tiny minority of Muslims who consider murder when they hear of Muhummed cartoons.
davexunit 12y ago
Everyone has to walk on eggshells around Islam, or risk being labeled racist or "Islamaphobic".
- themartorana 12y ago
  I agree. People need to understand that when almost every terrorist attack and almost every ongoing war, slaughter, massacre, etc., has "radical Islam" on one side of it, it's difficult to see that those elements represent only a tiny fraction of Muslims. Maybe truly radical elements are in fact the tiniest sliver, but I'd appreciate some leeway for those struggling to understand how that sliver is so intimately involved in just about every major violence and armed conflict across the world.
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- _nedR 12y ago
  Beg your pardon. I find the exact opposite as true. People today, are generally careful and sensitive about what they say about Jews or black people, because they don't want to be labelled as anti-semitic or racist. Muslims seems to be the only minority you can criticize and be politically correct. Consider the following statement : "Maybe most Jews are peaceful, but until they recognize and destroy their growing zionist cancer they must be held responsible" Is the above sentence racist? anti-semitic? Blood libel? Incitement to hatred and violence? Possibly prosecutable? Well here is what Rupert Murdoch, the head of News Corporation, the head of one of the largest media organisations in the world tweeted a few days back : "Maybe most Moslems peaceful, but until they recognize and destroy their growing jihadist cancer they must be held responsible."
  - fit2rule 12y ago
    Maybe most Americans are peaceful, but until they recognize and destroy their growing military-industrialist cancer they must be held responsible.
philh 12y ago
> I find such warnings an insult to my intelligence and a trivialization of people's personal responsibility How so? If an article says "trigger warning: (rape/Mohammed/spiders/flashing lights)", then people who don't want to be exposed to those things (e.g. due to PTSD, religion, phobias, epilepsy - or simply because it upsets them and they don't particularly want to be upset right now) can choose not to read it. How does it erode someone's personal responsibility to give them the information they need to make that choice? > where is my warning? If there's a largish number of people for whom "trigger warning: trigger warnings" would actually make life less stressful, then I'd endorse people including that warning. I don't think that population is very large. For that matter, I don't think it includes you.
- obituary_latte 12y ago
  I think the disparity here is that the "trigger warning" is warning that there's a possibility someone's feelings might be hurt which is ridiculous. If we start down that path, where do we draw the line? Please edit your post to include a trigger warning: comparing epilepsy and religious belief may insult some people. See? Absurd.
  - philh 12y ago
    I care about people's feelings. I agree that there's probably a qualitative difference between offending someone and causing them to have a seizure. But I'd still prefer not to offend them, all else being equal, and this would be true even if there was no such thing as epilepsy. There's no hard line. We use our best judgement, based on what we know of our audience. However, I will note one counterargument that I find compelling, which is utility monsters. If we reward people for getting upset, that gives them an incentive to get more upset. I don't know the best way to deal with this, but I suspect that "no trigger warnings" is not optimal.
- kruczek 12y ago
  > If there's a largish number of people for whom "trigger warning: trigger warnings" would actually make life less stressful, then I'd endorse people including that warning. Good point. However people keep saying that it's all about extremists, not the general population of Islamists, therefore I would also think that (by definition) that population of extremists (who would be offended by such pictures) is not very large.
slackson 12y ago
What are the costs of trigger warnings, compared to the benefits? It seems like a blatantly worthwhile tradeoff to me.
- tomjen3 12y ago
  Trigger warnings are a form of censorship because it makes it much more expensive to talk about certain tropics (mentally) because you have to take sides (whoes concerns are worth putting a trigger warning on?) and because you weaken society to accept that other peoples actions are your responsibility - in effect you are saying that the terrorist actions are in some small part justified.
corin_ 12y ago
Not directly related to Charlie Hebdo, but related to the Guardian and their "offending" people - they've always been at the top of the list in the UK for being willing to use swear words rather than filtering them out, considering their audience mature enough to see "fuck" without being scared. There was a good piece in the Guardian about their own use of swear words within the last week which I read on my mobile and can't find (I'm pretty sure it was a column in some section, Culture or G2 or something - it wasn't an official statement), but they had a great example of how every other newspaper reported on the John Terry racism case (football/soccer in the UK) by quoting him as saying "F@@@@@g black c@@t" or equivalent, ironically leaving unfiltered the one word that actually offended the player he said it to. Like I said, I can't find the piece from the last week, but here's a 2010 article showing how much more willing the Guardian is to risk offense when it comes to swear words: http://www.theguardian.com/media/mind-your-language/2010/apr/14/swearing-guardian http://www.theguardian.com/media/mind-your-language/2010/apr... Like I said, a bit off-topic but I think interesting in the discussion of the Guardian's warning of offending people.
eternalban 12y ago
Have you ever considered it is theatre? Have you ever considered that it may be directed at the minds of the non-Muslims? I am a Muslim and frankly find these attempts at "satire" pathetic. Apparently those who find Islam a hair in their globalization ointment can't argue from a position of reason and have to resort to calumny and provocation.
- ozh 12y ago
  It's definitely not ironic or "theatre" for non-muslins. It's taking "politically correct" to the whole new level of "please don't kill me".
damon_c 12y ago
Warning: This article contains revelations about the deity known as "Santa Claus" which may be disturbing to those who maintain a belief in "Santa Claus" even into adulthood.
jackgavigan 12y ago
> Personally, I find such trigger warnings, and especially "you might be offended" warnings, totally ridiculous. Iromically, The Guardian is based on the UK, which has laws that prohibit sending "by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character"[1]. Here is an example of a successful prosecution under said law: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-19883828 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-19883828 1: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/21/section/127 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/21/section/127
snowwrestler 12y ago
If you get offended so easily by other people who get offended so easily, do you have a leg to stand on?

by tomp 12y ago

venomsnake 12y ago

And it makes things worse. The idea that you have to tiptoe and thought police yourself around some group of people is sure way to antagonize part of the society against that group.

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draugadrotten 12y ago
Makes you think about their motives for adding such an exceptional warning.
- venomsnake 12y ago
  Ball gripping fear?
  - xaa 12y ago
    Very likely. I heard an two-way interview on NPR with the editor of the Washington Post, another editor from a prominent UK paper (either the Observer or Guardian, can't remember and can't find the episode, but both are members of the same media group) and the anchor. The editor of the Observer(?) and WaPo were duking it out because the editor of the Observer admitted that he and his staff were frankly terrified of reprisals, and that it was important to admit that publicly, especially if a paper makes the decision not to republish, and that appealing to "sensitivity" as a reason for not republishing the cartoons was a cop-out. The WaPo editor stood by the "sensitivity" excuses. I obviously completely agree with the former.
matthewmacleod 12y ago
You do have to do that, at all times. It's called "being a functioning member of society" – and that means being considerate of other people's views and feelings, as ridiculous as they may be. Everybody does this, all of the time (well, maybe some people don't. Those people are usually dicks.) Remember The Guardian isn't a satirical magazine, but a newspaper. It doesn't have the defence against purposeful offence that comes with the former.
- venomsnake 12y ago
  And how facts could be offensive or hurtful?
- tomjen3 12y ago
  If you are a newspaper you have to write news. If you care about peoples feelings, they should create a tumblr blog instead.

Guthur 12y ago

If the article had images that would cause offense or distress then yes it would carry such a warning. Normal practice, I have seen it many times, mainly for scenes depicting the aftermath of violence. Or even scenes of the meat industry.

sarciszewski 12y ago

> Personally, I find such trigger warnings, and especially "you might be offended" warnings, totally ridiculous. What about me? I find such warnings an insult to my intelligence and a trivialization of people's personal responsibility, where is my warning? I agree wholeheartedly. They may have decided to preface their article with this message because they feared retaliation by zealous Muslims who would not otherwise expect to see a depiction of Muhammad in the Guardian. I don't think it detracts any from the content of the reporting, though. # On topic # There are two possible extremes to consider: 1. A world in which any idea or custom is subject to criticism. Nothing is sacred. We can criticize, laugh at, depict, and mock anything that anyone believes. Publicly. Without fear of violence. 2. A world in which NO idea or custom is subject to criticism. Everything is sacred. Do not criticize, laugh at, depict, or mock anything that anyone believes. My problem with religious extremists is that they, in general, seem to want World #2 for themselves and World #1 for everyone else. I'm more of a "World #1 for everyone" sort of person, and you're free to mock me for that if you'd like.

tomp 12y ago
Why was this downvoted?!
- sarciszewski 12y ago
  A handful of HN users with >= 500 karma didn't like either: - The fact that I don't embrace the concept of trigger warnings. - The fact that I responded in agreement to another comment. - The fact that I suggested the warning could have been placed in response to a fear of retaliation. - Me. Just, in general. - All of the above. But since none of the downvoters had enough gumption to actually say what they didn't like about my comment, we'll never know. :) My pet theory for what motivates these squads of downvoters is a mix of laziness and cowardice.
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    You should have put a trigger warning - "Point of view disagreeing with the majority media narrative - could cause compulsive downvoting behaviour". ;).

ddebernardy 12y ago

To the Guardian's credit, they did actually publish the cover. As did Libération in France. US news outlets, as well as some UK outlets, and certainly many more elsewhere including France, cannot be said to have done as much, e.g.: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/13/arts/international/charlie-hebdo-staff-prepares-next-issue.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/13/arts/international/charlie... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11342217/Charlie-Hebdo-magazine-Je-suis-Charlie-issue-launched-live.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/1134...

misnome 12y ago
Right, I was a bit disappointed that the BBC had two separate articles on the cover, but neither included a picture of it.
- flycaliguy 12y ago
  Perhaps the role of a public broadcaster makes things different. My understanding was that the CBC's decision not to run cartoons of the prophet Mohammad was based on their institutional duty to be inclusive to all Canadians. Ultimately they deemed they can sufficiently report this news without publishing material that will be offensive to a large portion of Canadians on religious grounds.
travisp 12y ago
Several US news outlets did, the biggest being the WSJ: http://www.wsj.com/articles/charlie-hebdo-puts-muhammad-on-cover-of-post-attack-issue-1421076776?tesla=y http://www.wsj.com/articles/charlie-hebdo-puts-muhammad-on-c... http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/01/12/hayat-boumeddiene-amedy-couilbaly-paris-terror-attacks/21621219/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/01/12/hayat-bo... http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-charlie-hebdo-cover-muhammad-20150112-story.html http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-charlie-hebdo-cove... http://chicago.suntimes.com/nationworld/7/71/286127/charlie-hebdos-first-cover-since-last-weeks-attack http://chicago.suntimes.com/nationworld/7/71/286127/charlie-... http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/comic-riffs/wp/2015/01/12/charlie-hebdo-reveals-next-cover-a-cartoon-of-prophet-muhammad-behind-the-sign-je-suis-charlie/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/comic-riffs/wp/2015/01/12...

matthewmacleod 12y ago

Oh, please don't take this to such a stupid extreme. Being a deliberate dick to people isn't something to be lauded; be respectful and thoughtful, even when you disagree.

webXL 12y ago
I find "stupid extremes" in the realm of culture much easier to tolerate than those trying to control our behavior through violence. What you label "deliberate dick", most freedom loving people would label defiance.

friendzis 12y ago

I believe that this warning here serves as a comic relief. Furthermore, it could reasonably be that Guardian here follows somewhat common trend not to sit silently and subdue to terrorism threats but to at least display subtle retaliation. Or it was author's take at this while still getting published. Could be flat-out wrong on this one, though.

jpgvm 12y ago

Unfortunately the concept of having the right to be offended, but not the right not to be offended doesn't seem to have been explained to Muslims. Every other faith (and other large group of people) seems to have accepted it however.

chernevik 12y ago
I'm embarrassed to say that some of my fellow Catholics don't entirely get it. After the attack the Catholic League had a truly stupid editorial of "provocation isn't free speech" flavor. Religious people will always have a struggle between their notions of the sacred and others' freedom to ignore those notions. Those using their minds will see the necessity of freedom of conscience -- there is no faith without choice -- and accept its implications for speech. But the temptations and ignorances that move people to dictate to others are, I think, common to all religions. Yes, the mainstreams of Christianity and Judaism have gone much further in thinking this through, but we'll always have to guard against this instinct.
DanBC 12y ago
> Every other faith (and other large group of people) seems to have accepted it however. This is obviously false. In England the film "Life of Brian" faced multiple bans from local councils on being shown at cinemas. Glasgow had a 30 year ban that ended in 2009. The comedian Stewart Lee faced legal action and a vicious campaign after his opera "Jerry Springer: the musical"; Jewish groups (rightly) decry Holocaust denying cartoons or cartoons comparing treatment of Palestinians to anything that happened in Nazi Germany; Sikhs in Birmingham (UK) violently protested a play, causing it to be stopped. Life of Brian: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/glasgow_and_west/8126490.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/glasgow_and_west... Stewart Lee: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=N9EUe8jNr6o https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=N9EUe8jNr6o Sikh protest stops play: http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/dec/20/arts.religion1 http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/dec/20/arts.religion1
- jpgvm 12y ago
  Fair enough, but I would say the former still holds. You have no right not to be offended, it just doesn't exist.

NKCSS 12y ago

And, to make it even worse; the cover is depicted on the side of the article, 140x187px... it's like not printing it at all, because it doesn't look like it's part of the content at all. The Office 365 ad that is actually inserted inside the article text has three times the screenspace relative to the cover picture.

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tomp 12y ago
> racists I fail to see how the attacks have anything to do with racism. Islamophobia is not racism. > Send me some photographs or your mother or spouse and let me modify those images. Let's see if you are able to ignore or laugh them off. Well, I'm not sure they would consent to me sharing photos of them, but you can have mine :) Just add me as a friend on Facebook (Tom Primozic), and you'll have a collection of photos you can use! I'll gladly laugh at them, I promise (unless they're not funny or are disgusting or such, but I will evaluate them on purely objective standards, without taking any offence).
- deleted 12y ago
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  - tomp 12y ago
    > This is exactly what racist groups - British National Party - say. Well, it's true. Don't ad-hominem them, it gives them power (because they can rationally say that you're wrong). > we should not allow Islamophobic groups to use the Frenh murders to spew their Islamophobe material in mainstream media I agree. But depictions of Muhammad, insulting as they might be for Muslims, aren't Islamophobic.
- georgespencer 12y ago
  > not funny or disgusting And therein lies the rub: would you subsequently gun someone down because they made photos of your loved ones which you find distasteful? Almost nobody would.
  - DanBC 12y ago
    I could take a photo some someone's male child, photoshop it so he is kissinganother male. That would be enough for some people to murder me. You can argue that only a tiny number of people would murder me, but then it's only a tiny minority of Muslims who consider murder when they hear of Muhummed cartoons.

davexunit 12y ago

Everyone has to walk on eggshells around Islam, or risk being labeled racist or "Islamaphobic".

themartorana 12y ago
I agree. People need to understand that when almost every terrorist attack and almost every ongoing war, slaughter, massacre, etc., has "radical Islam" on one side of it, it's difficult to see that those elements represent only a tiny fraction of Muslims. Maybe truly radical elements are in fact the tiniest sliver, but I'd appreciate some leeway for those struggling to understand how that sliver is so intimately involved in just about every major violence and armed conflict across the world.
- deleted 12y ago
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_nedR 12y ago
Beg your pardon. I find the exact opposite as true. People today, are generally careful and sensitive about what they say about Jews or black people, because they don't want to be labelled as anti-semitic or racist. Muslims seems to be the only minority you can criticize and be politically correct. Consider the following statement : "Maybe most Jews are peaceful, but until they recognize and destroy their growing zionist cancer they must be held responsible" Is the above sentence racist? anti-semitic? Blood libel? Incitement to hatred and violence? Possibly prosecutable? Well here is what Rupert Murdoch, the head of News Corporation, the head of one of the largest media organisations in the world tweeted a few days back : "Maybe most Moslems peaceful, but until they recognize and destroy their growing jihadist cancer they must be held responsible."
- fit2rule 12y ago
  Maybe most Americans are peaceful, but until they recognize and destroy their growing military-industrialist cancer they must be held responsible.

philh 12y ago

> I find such warnings an insult to my intelligence and a trivialization of people's personal responsibility How so? If an article says "trigger warning: (rape/Mohammed/spiders/flashing lights)", then people who don't want to be exposed to those things (e.g. due to PTSD, religion, phobias, epilepsy - or simply because it upsets them and they don't particularly want to be upset right now) can choose not to read it. How does it erode someone's personal responsibility to give them the information they need to make that choice? > where is my warning? If there's a largish number of people for whom "trigger warning: trigger warnings" would actually make life less stressful, then I'd endorse people including that warning. I don't think that population is very large. For that matter, I don't think it includes you.

obituary_latte 12y ago
I think the disparity here is that the "trigger warning" is warning that there's a possibility someone's feelings might be hurt which is ridiculous. If we start down that path, where do we draw the line? Please edit your post to include a trigger warning: comparing epilepsy and religious belief may insult some people. See? Absurd.
- philh 12y ago
  I care about people's feelings. I agree that there's probably a qualitative difference between offending someone and causing them to have a seizure. But I'd still prefer not to offend them, all else being equal, and this would be true even if there was no such thing as epilepsy. There's no hard line. We use our best judgement, based on what we know of our audience. However, I will note one counterargument that I find compelling, which is utility monsters. If we reward people for getting upset, that gives them an incentive to get more upset. I don't know the best way to deal with this, but I suspect that "no trigger warnings" is not optimal.
kruczek 12y ago
> If there's a largish number of people for whom "trigger warning: trigger warnings" would actually make life less stressful, then I'd endorse people including that warning. Good point. However people keep saying that it's all about extremists, not the general population of Islamists, therefore I would also think that (by definition) that population of extremists (who would be offended by such pictures) is not very large.

slackson 12y ago

What are the costs of trigger warnings, compared to the benefits? It seems like a blatantly worthwhile tradeoff to me.

tomjen3 12y ago
Trigger warnings are a form of censorship because it makes it much more expensive to talk about certain tropics (mentally) because you have to take sides (whoes concerns are worth putting a trigger warning on?) and because you weaken society to accept that other peoples actions are your responsibility - in effect you are saying that the terrorist actions are in some small part justified.

corin_ 12y ago

Not directly related to Charlie Hebdo, but related to the Guardian and their "offending" people - they've always been at the top of the list in the UK for being willing to use swear words rather than filtering them out, considering their audience mature enough to see "fuck" without being scared. There was a good piece in the Guardian about their own use of swear words within the last week which I read on my mobile and can't find (I'm pretty sure it was a column in some section, Culture or G2 or something - it wasn't an official statement), but they had a great example of how every other newspaper reported on the John Terry racism case (football/soccer in the UK) by quoting him as saying "F@@@@@g black c@@t" or equivalent, ironically leaving unfiltered the one word that actually offended the player he said it to. Like I said, I can't find the piece from the last week, but here's a 2010 article showing how much more willing the Guardian is to risk offense when it comes to swear words: http://www.theguardian.com/media/mind-your-language/2010/apr/14/swearing-guardian http://www.theguardian.com/media/mind-your-language/2010/apr... Like I said, a bit off-topic but I think interesting in the discussion of the Guardian's warning of offending people.

eternalban 12y ago

Have you ever considered it is theatre? Have you ever considered that it may be directed at the minds of the non-Muslims? I am a Muslim and frankly find these attempts at "satire" pathetic. Apparently those who find Islam a hair in their globalization ointment can't argue from a position of reason and have to resort to calumny and provocation.

ozh 12y ago
It's definitely not ironic or "theatre" for non-muslins. It's taking "politically correct" to the whole new level of "please don't kill me".

damon_c 12y ago

Warning: This article contains revelations about the deity known as "Santa Claus" which may be disturbing to those who maintain a belief in "Santa Claus" even into adulthood.

jackgavigan 12y ago

> Personally, I find such trigger warnings, and especially "you might be offended" warnings, totally ridiculous. Iromically, The Guardian is based on the UK, which has laws that prohibit sending "by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character"[1]. Here is an example of a successful prosecution under said law: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-19883828 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-19883828 1: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/21/section/127 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/21/section/127

snowwrestler 12y ago

If you get offended so easily by other people who get offended so easily, do you have a leg to stand on?