More on the blogwars – freedom of speech
For me the most outrageous point made by Tim Ireland in his attack on Guido was that Guido may cause the rest of the political blogging scene (such as it is – its not a unified group anyway) to have restrictions put upon it.
This may be a legitimate worry – the way our government behaves makes this even seem likely – but it is no reason to censor yourself (or ask others to do the same). It is giving in to the very concern you have – the government’s ends have been achieved without even the need for active intervention. When people start behaving this way the authoritarians have won, we fear them sufficiently that we don’t do anything which may raise their ire, no matter how legal it actually is.
This is actually the most insidious and most effective form of censorship. It is silent and thus raises little objection. Restricting your freedom voluntarily to ensure that freedom is not lost leaves you with no real freedom.
As for Guido – if he libels someone, they can sue him for it. There’s no need to resort to legislation.
Finally – on the internet, censorship is difficult – the only way to do it is with something like the Great Firewall of China, which requires the apparatus of a totalitarian government and even then doesn’t work particularly well – dissidents will find ways around the firewall and will be able to hide their actions. If laws are brought in, then sites will migrate to foreign countries under pseudonyms. A great opportunity for third world countries though – hosting political blogs for dissidents… (or for places like Sealand.
In short, the suggestion that we should censor ourselves is short sighted and plays into the hands of those who would silence us. It ushers in some of the most sinister aspects of totalitarian regimes.
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January 17th, 2007 at 3:34 pm
Your links don’t work. You seem to have lots of ‘x’s in front of your ‘href’s for some reason.
January 17th, 2007 at 4:20 pm
Its a bug in Wordpress – I have a habit of accidentally using the ‘clever’ editor but then putting in html raw.
This causes ‘href’ to be replaced by ‘xhref’ which doesn’t work.
I think its fixed in the wordpress 2.1
January 17th, 2007 at 4:20 pm
Oh and I’ve fixed the last few posts
January 17th, 2007 at 4:40 pm
I didn’t say ‘censor’; you did.
:o)
“Restricting your freedom voluntarily to ensure that freedom is not lost leaves you with no real freedom.”
Amazingly enough, I agree with you on this, as my many, many posts on the war on terror should make clear.
Now, do me a favour and put yourself in the position of a minor MP or councillor who has been libelled by Guido. Do you have 5 grand lying around and time to pursue it?
Now put yourself in the position of a blogger with a small audience and/or a minor MP or councillor who has been almost-libelled by Guido (say, if you’re the victim of the repeated hinting smears in comments that Guido is in the habit of not deleting). If you pursue via the means that most bloggers deem fair and acceptable, Guido will delete your comments. Persist, and the anonymongrels will rubbish you far and wide. Not a lot of new players could stand up to this kind of attack.
This, too, is a form of censorship – and an increasingly popular one. (Especially in the US – ever been freeped?)
If things keep developing the way they are (actually, ‘decaying’ is a better word), then come a time when the stakes are high (say, at the next General Election) there are going to be so many sock-puppets and astro-turfers dominating the blogosphere that the potential of self-publication in this channel will be all but gone.
(By the way, we already indulge in a great deal of self-regulation; we just call it ‘etiquette’ so no-one panics.)
January 18th, 2007 at 7:08 am
If you’re a local councillor who has recently had to make an out of court settlement for about £5k you probably won’t have much spare, but whose fault is that?
January 18th, 2007 at 10:38 am
I expected this matter to come up (to be honest, I expected you, specifically, to bring it up much earlier), and I’m happy to chat about it once I’ve had a talk with the individual(s) concerned. (Something I’ve been meaning to do, but haven’t done as yet.)
January 18th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
My answer:
The case you mention is short on accurate detail + important contextual data, and you have the advantage because some of those involved are not at liberty to discuss the details (that have been so carefully enhanced for the benefit of an unwitting audience).
January 19th, 2007 at 10:19 am
The reporter that ran the story is friendly to Piper…
January 19th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
Ah. Good. More hearsay.
January 19th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
They both say so. It’s on the record. Obviously, Tim thinks that everything I say is unsourced or a lie. He will fail to prove this, but look ridiculous in the process.
January 20th, 2007 at 12:28 am
“They both say so.”
Show me a record, or bring them forward; otherwise it’s hearsay by definition. Oh, and you may as well bring it over to my blog instead of wasting everybody’s time over here… because you banned me from your blog for the unforgivable crime of revealing you to be a hypocrite:
http://www.bloggerheads.com/guido_fawkes/2007/01/comment-ban-shock.html
January 20th, 2007 at 7:43 am
This article should be sufficient evidence. At the height of his travails Bob accepted a call from the Stirrer where they had a friendly chat. I will not respond to further balderdash from TI because all he does is (ignorantly) unleash false accusations always trying to get the last word. QED.
January 20th, 2007 at 10:08 pm
If “the reporter” says he is friendly to me… that’s his opinion. He is no ‘friend’of mine, no matter how many times he phones up pretending to be matey. The story reproduced in The Stirrer contained some gross inaccuracies taken from the same media lies that PragueTory chooses to reproduce. That’s up to them… but it doesn’t prevent them being untrue. Just for the record, I made no ‘out of court’ settlement and I did not pay £5,000 to anyone. Sadly the people pushing this myth no that I am forbidden by law to reveal the details as part of a compromise deal for which they paid me handsomely… and I can only imagine this myth is designed to cover that up. PragueTory believes every piece of tittle tattle the media tell him, presumably… but then he has a nice hotline to some of them.