Happy Slappers Unite!
Tim O’Reilly is drawing some irrational criticism for proposing a voluntary code of conduct for comment boards. Hundreds of boards already have codes of conduct, and the mob never complained about that, so apparently the issue is just that people hate Tim. Or they hate that an a-lister is promoting civility and recommending others do the same.
But I am glad that an a-lister is not afraid to stand up for civility. Dave Winer was one of the first to take such a step, when trolls were fouling up his blog comments. He turned off comments, saying “it’s my blog, and I make the rules”. Everyone screamed “censorship!”. I supported him then, and still do. Chris Locke, on the other hand, wants to have it both ways. He wants to incite nasty behavior, and claim “I didn’t write it, I don’t make the rules, and I will never censor anyone”. It is so dishonest that it’s pathetic.
Government authorities in this age of YouTube have been looking at ways to deal with losers who hide behind “free speech”. France recently banned “happy slapping“, which is the practice of getting your buddy to assault someone, and then taping and publishing the attack. The losers hid behind “free speech”, saying “I didn’t perpetrate the act, and it was news, so it is my journalistic right to publish it.” The French law bans anyone other than professional journalists from publishing video footage of violence online. The hypocrite civil libertarians are screaming bloody murder, but I support the French.
In my opinion, these scum are not very distant from the a-listers who republished the Anshe Chung video after it was pulled from YouTube. They acted as if they were upholding some great journalistic integrity by running the virtual rape footage, but they were simply looking for ratings. Showing the full video had absolutely no journalistic value — the snapshots which the real journalists at CNET ran were more than enough, and it’s possible to convey the news without running the images at all.
This is my gripe with John Perry Barlow and EFF. If they had their way, people would have a right to profit from murder, rape, and child molestation; as long as the events portrayed *actually* happened and the person doing the filming was not involved. We already see people leveraging video of beheading, military killing, etc. to get ad revenues on their web sites. It is quite easy to see where this is going. We are rapidly moving to a time where snuff films will be legal and easily available, in increasingly gory detail.
A serial killer, terrorist, or rapist who wants to broadcast his acts to the world no longer has to worry about old media’s conservatism. He simply has to find one bozo like Chris Locke who craves page views and is willing to hide behind “I don’t censor!”. This isn’t 1969 anymore. Google has broken the back of old media, and with it the civility the “old boys” could enforce. And the equation is completely changed with ubiquitous ability to publish and index on YouTube.
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Again, I don’t support additional regulations on bloggers. But anyone who thinks Tim O’Reilly is the enemy for calling for civility, needs to think twice. If a-listers would stand up for civility, and condemn things like Chris Locke’s “virtual happy slapping forum”, maybe we could avoid regulations for a while longer. But as long as Perry Barlow and the rest of the mob bury their heads in the sand and act like it’s evil to speak out in favor of civility, things are going to get a lot worse.
April 10th, 2007 at 7:45 am
Today’s 1st amendment ‘free speech’ means something entirely different than it did in 1787.
Today, children are taught that ‘free speech’ is the most important foundation of democracy, and the role of religion in forming our democratic civilization is minimized. Meanwhile, few children are taught that today’s popular definition of free speech is merely 50 years old, and contemporary with the present moral decay of society. The powerful Warren court of the 1960’s systematically redefined the meaning of the 1st amendment, largely ignoring the prior 200 years of interpretation.
Schenck v. United States is just one case from 1919 that demonstrates how much 1st amendment law has mutated after a half century of judicial activisim. In Schenck, a communist was constitutionally sent to jail for passing out flyers that challenged conscription during WWI.
http://faculty-web.at.northwestern.edu/commstud/freespeech/cont/cases/schenck/schenckframe.html
If Schenck is not enough to demonstrate the difference between ‘free speech’ today and ‘free speech’ in the past, consider that some of the original authors of the 1st amendment subsequently passed the Sedition Act of 1798. The Sedition Act made it illegal to falsely criticize the government. The Sedition Act of 1798 shows the complete disconnect between the original understanding of the 1st amendment and our understanding of the law today.
Did you know . . . ? Prior to 1925, the 1st amendment did not even apply to state governments. State and local governments had free reign to regulate speech in any way that they decided, regardless of the bill of rights. Originally, the Bill of Rights only applied to Federal government.
In closing, American democracy will not collapse if uncivilized people are excluded from the blogphere. But, society will collapse if minimum standards of civilized behaviour are systematically destroyed in the name of ‘free speech.’
April 10th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
Couldn’t agree more! Well said!
April 10th, 2007 at 6:47 pm
indexing/dating: “Free Speech 1787″ is not “Free Speech 2007″.
Would you prefer “inactivist” judges?
I wonder if Dred Scott turnaround isn’t of the same sort. When slavery was OK was it incumbent on a judge not to be activist?
I’ve spent much time in criminal courts and the popular notion that “criminals” are “coddled” is so far from the mark, it’s off the charts. By the same token, the acceptance of clearly inequitable official police claims resulted in a huge number of death row victims who were exonerated later.
Love.
April 12th, 2007 at 10:50 am
Mr Loughborough,
We can both agree that the criminal justice system in this country is ineffective and counterproductive. The guilty are set free to commit new crimes, while too often, the innocent are prosecuted to further somebody’s political career.
In response to your comment about ‘inactivist’ judges: This is a very complicated issue and there is no black and white answer. In general, I take the view that ‘activism’ is the prerogative of the legislature. The judiciary should not change the law based on its own initiative. Judges are not elected, and there is no balance built into the system to check a powerful supreme court justice who determines to create new law, while ignoring the original intent of the elected legislature. I prefer activist legislatures, and impartial judges.
But, please let me get back to my original point… enforcing a basic minimum standard of speech within the blogsphere is good for democracy. Our democratic civilization was not built by encouraging profane slander in the name of ‘free speech’.