Nobody Knows Anything

Welcome to Diane Patterson's eclectic blog about what strikes her fancy

A few thoughts on censorship

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One of things I occupy my day with, in addition to running around after two tots, writing, websurfing, and sometimes chatting on the phone, being the Forum Moderator at Wordplay. Normally I love this job—Terry and Ted are the coolest, not the least of which because they made this damn site out of the goodness of their hearts; I love being a community of screenwriters; I love doing my part to keep the community together and operating.

Sometimes this involves telling people when to shut the fuck up.

There are certain topics that I simply abhor. In fact, I made a list once:

  • Men and women
  • Mac vs PC
  • censorship
  • politics
  • religion
  • semantics
  • the effect of violence in the media
  • racism
  • genre
  • what is Art?
  • the Golden Compass
  • child porn

I don’t remember where the child porn one comes from. But all the others—hundreds and hundreds of posts going ’round and ’round and ’round. These conversations, when they get started, are annoying, unproductive, and, worst of all, off-topic.

The topics are—wait for it—movies and screenwriting. That’s it. That’s what we’re there to discuss.

My job is to point out when the topic is veering off of the main road, to stop it cold when it’s gone too far off, to delete posts that are offensive or spam or both, and to send e-mail to people who need a little behind-the-scenes nudge or bitch-slap, as the case may be.

Several times a year, like the change of the seasons, my quashing of a topic invariably leads to calls of “Censorship!” And this makes me crazy for a couple of reasons.

  1. I’m a person. I have feelings. I don’t like people saying I’m a heavy. I’m a nice person, a good person, and I’d like a pat on the back once in a while, you know?
  2. “Censorship” is an important word, like “Nazi,” that’s been debased and misunderstood.

The old joke is that freedom of the press is reserved for the guys who can own the presses. And as we all know, there’s no such thing as a joke.

At Wordplay we don’t have to let anyone say anything. It’s Terry’s site, he’s footing the bills, what he says goes. If you want to start your own screenwriting-themed site where any dork can say anything he or she wants to, hey: call up your ISP and cough up the dinero. Nobody owes you a platform, capiche?

(And when losers start posting things about how my ending certain threads is akin to book-burning…well, that really makes me mad. Because not only is it insulting, because clearly these morons know not a thing about actual book burning, but then I have to go through the rigamarole required to delete their stupid posts.)

Censorship is about the government stopping you from exercising your right of freedom of the press. The government is always the 800-lb. gorilla: it gets to make the laws, and it gets to enforce them at the point of a gun. The Bill of Rights, natch, is designed to remind the government of which rights belong to the citizens and cannot be taken away. They’re the rights that governments always find pesky and inconvenient, which is why the Founding Fathers decided to make it clear what they were. (Well, clear to everyone except maybe Antonin Scalia. But that’s another entry.)

Freedom of the press doesn’t apply to my press. I don’t have to publish you. In fact, I can keep printing things you don’t like. You are perfectly free to go out, get your own press, and print things I don’t like.

The problem we have these days is that we have too few presses, major or minor, and the current administration wants to ensure that we have even fewer than we do now by having the FCC lift all regulations on who can own what in which market. What’s happens, of course, is what always happens: the guys with the big money buy the little guys (or quash them), leaving only one dog in the yard. One big, rich dog, who would like to look out for his interests and doesn’t have to worry about anyone else calling him on it, because anyone else who might call him on it is, well, a big, rich dog too.

Why is this a problem? Well…Rupert Murdoch happens to be for the Iraq war. And what a surprise: so are all the editors of all the newspapers he owns. Not very many viewpoints in a world where all the presses are owned by the same guys. Who are allowed to own all those presses because of their friends in the government. It’s censorship by fiat.

And it’s a little more important than your not being able to post about whatever you like wherever you like.

Save your goddamn cries of “Censorship!” for when they matter, okay?

Comments

  1. Salon has a really good article about the ClearChannel debacle and how some of our representatives would like to apply that model to other areas of communication. The whole series is worth reading if you have the time.

  6. Very well said. Couldn’t you put up (with T & T’s permission, of course) at least a short version of this entry? Particularly why this isn’t censorship and if they want to have their own say, go shell out the bucks for their own spot… every time you had to zap one of the offending posts, put up a link to that paragraph. (and then not let them rebutt… muaaaaaahaaaaaaa.)

  7. I’m not sure the equation hasn’t changed. Your site, even though no trees were killed, is a type of “press.” Blogging software allows anyone with an internet connection to become their own publisher. Heck, there’s even a blog written by a homeless guy entitled, fittingly enough, Homeless Guy Blog. In the Brave New World, we’re all Rupert Murdoch.

  8. What happens when Time Warner AOL decides it doesn’t want to carry your blog because it competes with their corporate blog?

  11. 3.

    Fox News Corp Censors Myspace.com

    Nico and The Velvet Underground were kicked off Myspace.com on February 13, 2006. This is the 8th time the band has been censored by Rupert Murdoch’s popular yet controversial site. Even as the shadow of New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer looms over Myspace, and U2 and Madonna build a web presence, Nico and The Velvet Underground enter 2006 as the most censored band on the internet.

    According to the Associated Press, “Complaints also have been directed at News Corp.’s purchase, including accusations of censorship as MySpace occasionally blocked video stored elsewhere and embedded in profiles, just as MySpace was readying its own video-sharing service. ” (Social Networking Site MySpace Is Latest Online Darling Monday, February 13, 2006: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,184607,00.html).

    With Myspace.com as an attractive buy, News Corp. earned $1.08 billion up to December, a significant jump from last year’s $386 million gain. Media giant Rupert Murdoch, who is the majority shareholder of News Corporation, recently bought out Intermix Media, owner of Myspace.com for 580 Million.

    With legal problems mounting against News Corp and Rupert Murdoch, New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has accused Myspace.com of false advertising and deceptive business practices. Within the last year, Myspace was fingered for spyware attacks to redirect members to its search engine.

    Intermix Media agreed to settle for 7.9M, having admitted no wrongdoing.

    While Nico and The Velvet Underground arent ruling out a record deal with Viacom, Paramount, and MTV, it is concerned about this shocking news. Nico’s press conference is set to air on several media outlets including WBBM AM/FM Chicago and Spike TV. In related news, Paramount bought out rival Dreamworks for $1.5 Billion, wrangling entertainment giants Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg. Viacom, which owns Paramount, reportedly negotiated a purchase of Myspace.com before the shocking buy out from Fox News on July 19, 2005. Spokeswoman Anna Astley is concerned about these recent developments and commented on the censorship fiasco. “Myspace.com and Fox News made no warning that the band’s account was being cancelled. Cancelling Nico and The Velvet Undergrounds’ Myspace.com account is tantamount to censorship and a violation of their First Amendment rights.”

    Anna Astley refused to comment regarding any future legal action against News Corporation, Fox News, and/or Myspace.com regarding Nico and The Velvet Underground’s First Amendment rights. “We cannot make a statement at this time,” stated Astley. The investigation will result in an announcement in early summertime.

    No word if the band intends on releasing the album just yet. Stay tuned for breaking details.