Subject:
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Re: What Censorship Isn't
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Fri, 13 Apr 2007 18:49:47 GMT
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Viewed:
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3891 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Timothy Gould wrote:
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You’re attempting to compare two very different things:
1. An interactive forum in which participants communicate with each other
through the medium of the website and subject to the TOS
and
2. An information outlet in which the outlet alleges a responsibility to
provide information in an unaltered fashion
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Actually it doesn’t have any such responsibility.
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I think that you misread me. I was referring to such an outlet that does
allege that responsibility. I’m not referring to news outlets in general, which
may or may not allege responsibility. Those seem to be two very different
cases.
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It strikes me that there is a clear difference in intent and expectation
between these two, so that the applicability of the term “censorship” must
apply differently as well.
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While I agree that intent can have an influence on censorship (eg. being
physically unable to broadcast all news from every angle so having to
choose what information you broadcast) it is not able to magic away
censorship merely by arguing that the intent and expectation are the same.
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Again, though, you’re stating that any private organization that doesn’t provide
all information is censoring the rest. Does that seem tenable to you? If so,
then I submit that you’re broadening the definition of censorship to such an
extreme that it loses all useful meaning.
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Is a private school which refuses to teach, carry or mention Tom Sawyer
(with the acceptance of the school’s parents) censoring the book?
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Nope. Unless you feel that you have the power to require me (or any private
citizen) to read all books and to receive all information, then it’s not
censorship for a private school to omit a particular book or artwork or
whatever.
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I’d like to see an analogy that does work (as I said before I don’t think
there is one). The thoroughness of censorship does not, IMO, effect whether
or not something is censorship, merely how effective the censorship is.
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MTV (which is, I grant, hardly definitive) argued years ago that its choice to
play a certain Cher video only after 9:00pm was not censorship because in so
doing they were not eliminating all access to the (really lame) video but were
instead a private entity choosing not to air it. FWIW, I think that they make
an interesting case.
I’m looking for a good online source for a legal definition of censorship, but
no real luck so far. Just about everything I find is a blog, so the search
continues.
But my understanding is that the legal definition describes a restricton of
information by a government agency, and that a restriction performed by a
private entity simply doesn’t qualify as censorship. So maybe we should just
pick a different word for it?
YMMV, of course.
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If murfling is accepted under the TOS of a privately-owned forum for
interactive discussion, then it’s not censorship. It’s simple enforcement
of contract.
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I don’t see that censorship as part of enforcement of contract is not
censorship, it’s just a more acceptable form of censorship. I chose to accept
an NDA, but it is still a form of censorship.
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I mentioned in a previous post that I’m considering censorship to be performed
contrary to the wishes of the information provider. Perhaps this is an
overly narrow definition, but hey, at least I’m up front about it!
By this definition, voluntary submission to a TOS or NDA is not censorship.
Dave!
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: What Censorship Isn't
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| (...) Actually it doesn't have any such responsibility. It may be prudent to broadcast unaltered information (although it usually isn't, political slant is a good way to differentiate yourself from your competitors) but I'm willing to bet that if (...) (18 years ago, 13-Apr-07, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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