Posts Tagged Censorship

Let’s get that out of the way first of all. I am not a pirate, I am, in fact, a potential victim of piracy. However, SOPA and PIPA are not the way to go about protecting those copyrights.

Because see, here’s the thing… that First Amendment? Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press? Those things are important to me, more important than making sure some doofus doesn’t go about copying my work. For one thing, these bills won’t work. Like DRM, they will do more to punish the legitimate consumer than to stop piracy, and in the process they will break fundamental aspects of the internet, endanger internet security, destroy the entire DNS structure, and do all sorts of things that will make it impossible to do business on the internet.

The sponsors of this bill are big entertainment corporations. They don’t care about the little guy, they don’t care that this bill will make the very tools I use to publish and advertise the content I create impossible to use, and could very well put those networks out of business. Twitter, tumblr, Facebook, Youtube, etc. – anywhere that depends on user generated content – could be completely destroyed by this bill. That means nowhere to notify my fans of a new story, nowhere to advertise my current projects, nowhere to announce that I’ve gotten something else published.

My income from writing would go from a steady stream to a barely existent trickle.

The worst part of it is, the thing that should make all freedom-loving Americans sit up and pay attention, is that this bill would make censorship even easier. Already, people have learned that they can have content they don’t like taken down by submitting a false report of copyright infringement. They don’t need proof. They just need to submit the report. With this bill, it wouldn’t just take down one small piece of content –  they could destroy entire websites, freeze funds, stop someone’s only source of income, even put them in prison for up to five years  –  just from one report of infringement.

Censorship. Someone being silenced just because of an unpopular opinion. Sounds like the Great Firewall of China, doesn’t it?

Yeah, that’s exactly what it is, and it’s here in the USA, unless we stop it.

– Jennifer L. Davis
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Now that I’m firmly back to blogging from my month of NaNo, I’m ready to offer a few comments in support of Adam Lambert. The scandal arising out of his performance at the AMA Awards wasn’t all that surprising, and yet, at the same time it was rather saddening.

How quickly Americans expose their inner bigots when faced with something a little bit different from what they’re used to.

Adam Lambert Kissed A Man. On National Television. After 11 o’clock on a school night. Oh my god, the children might see.

What on earth sort of parents let their children watch TV that late at night, anyway? This is a case where people are calling out for censorship as a substitute for being responsible parents who, you know, take a hand in what they allow their children to watch and, when something potentially disturbing or worrisome shows up on those shows, discusses this and the implications of it with their children. Adam Lambert was absolutely correct in placing the responsibility of what children watch firmly with the parents rather than the entertainer.

Unfortunately, these lazy parents want to let their kids watch tv long after they should’ve been in bed, without them paying proper attention to what their kids might be watching.  Needless to say, this wouldn’t have been an issue at all if the person that Adam decided to kiss was a girl.  If Adam had decided to act out a grizzly murder on the stage, complete with spurting blood, well, that would’ve been okay too.

Censorship in this country is so incredibly backwards from the way it should be. When it comes to acts of love, or even completely non-sexual brands of nudity, the censorship organizations cut and mangle and block things out, but when it comes to violence, expressions of hate, the censors look the other way.

It shouldn’t work that way. Violence should be “worse” in the considerations of ratings and censoring than nudity or sex.  A movie is more likely to get an R rating (or worse) here for nudity than it is for violence, and PG-13 movies continue to grow more and more violent as the years pass.

I’d be much more worried about my kids watching some of these violent PG-13 movies than some of the R rated movies that are tame, but for a moment of non-sexualized nudity, or, heaven forbid, gay kissing.

But then, it all goes back to the same thing. Enforcing “Morals” in this country these days tend to mean it’s okay to hate in public, but love and affection gets censored.

In the wake of Independence day, I’d like to encourage everyone to read John Perry Barlow’s Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace.  It is easily one of the most eloquent and well-thought essays on the reasons why the internet and cyberspace needs to be a place of free and unfettered discourse, without censorship or interference of government agencies.

The internet is a place where everyone can express their opinion in relative anonymity, without fear of reprisal.

It is the true home of free speech, some of the most free speech in existence, even in countries where that right is protected and held sacred.

You may not, and probably will not, like everything you find on the internet.  Much of it is crass, ignorant, and occasionally very, very silly and stupid. It can also be the last and only refuge of people who are unable to fight oppression in any other way, the only place where they can, with any measure of safety, express dissenting opinions.

So go give it a quick read…I assure you that it’ll make you think.

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