Censorship Run Amok: XM, Big Money at the FCC, and the Rest

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com>
Date: May 17, 2007 11:16:43 AM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Cc: lauren () vortex com
Subject: Censorship Run Amok: XM, Big Money at the FCC, and the Rest



           Censorship Run Amok: XM, Big Money at the FCC, and the Rest

                  http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000239.html


Dave,

I haven't seen noted here the controversy regarding XM's suspension
of the raucous "Opie and Anthony" team for a month (see
http://tinyurl.com/22me2z ), over their admittedly vulgar remarks
regarding some highly-placed female personages.  Apparently the
suspension has caused considerable outrage and blowback from many XM
subscribers, who thought they were paying XM's non-trivial fees for
uncensored programming free of the usual Nanny-FCC constraints.

I am not a fan of O&A's style of humor, nor of Howard Stern's for
that matter, but Howard nicely crystallized the rapidly declining
environment for freedom of speech when he reacted to this case by
telling his Sirius audience, "If you want free speech, walk in a
closet and talk to yourself."

There are two primary forces at work creating an increasingly
suffocating situation.  One is persons using religious, racial, and
related concerns to try enforce a "we'll tell you what you can say"
attitude, often with threats of new regulations and laws, which
given Congress' willingness to pander is not an outcome to
be easily dismissed as unlikely.

Related to this is the mess at the FCC, where the enormous amounts
of money involved in broadcasting and telecommunications have caused
distortions that can impact many facets of our lives in extremely
negative ways.

In the O&A case, many observers feel -- including myself -- that
XM's action is a thinly veiled attempt to garner favor at the FCC
for the proposed XM/Sirius merger (to which I'm firmly opposed).

There's lots of speech that is crude, obnoxious, and just plain
disgusting, even outside of government offices!  But that's the price
we pay to live in an ostensibly free society, and that freedom is
ensconced right there at the top of the Bill of Rights.

Holier-than-thou demagogues are now engaged in a concerted campaign to
restrict public and even private discourse -- on conventional
airwaves, satellite and cable, the Internet, and even on the streets,
to meet their small-mind mentalities and restrictions.  Preying on
the fears of government officials and legislators is key to their
modus operandi.

We may individually dislike -- even strongly hate -- much of what we
see or hear when it comes to speech, but if we let these wannabe
moral dictators have their way, we'd better start clearing out some
room in our closets right now.  As Stern suggested, those may soon
be the only uncensored venues left.

--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren () vortex com or lauren () pfir org
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Co-Founder, PFIR
   - People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, IOIC
   - International Open Internet Coalition - http://www.ioic.net
Founder, CIFIP
   - California Initiative For Internet Privacy - http://www.cifip.org
Founder, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
DayThink: http://daythink.vortex.com





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