The Limits of Free Speech

Having seen some version of the post's content, well: pulling it was probably not necessary. But I don't see Mark's judgment on that issue as particularly egregious or worthy of too much criticism beyond, "Hey, Mark, you probably didn't need to pull that."

Note: Why wasn't Momus this incensed by pulling the Japanese fecal porn thread? :)

Also, I find it totally hypocritical that Momus comes down so strongly against people trying to sell you things, when so much of what he posts around here seems to be determined to big up Momus and the Momus image, which I can only think helps sustain his fan base and thus bank account (or perhaps ego). Kate and Ally (huh huh) have criticized each other for 'self-promotion' but I think really they just both have strong online personalities and talk about themselves a lot. Momus seems to push that further by trying to propogate the cult of Momus much as a corporation is always, always, always pushing its brand image.

And finally, I know this is something of a hot-button issue for many people here, but I find it very disenheartening and personally rude when people immediately start talking about fascism just because we're talking about moderating a small internet forum. I don't like fascism either, but it would be nice if people remembered that it is just other people doing the moderation, attempting to negotiate a very problem-filled area - not a bunch of jackbooted Nazis. For christ's sake, people.

"Blimey! I've not had this much fun since that time I ordered a pizza to be delivered to the house opposite"

I'm thinking of collecting a lot of the 'censorship is good' slogans that have come up in these threads and sending them to Falung Gong or someone, to show them the sad truth that 90% of people in the west really don't care about their own or anyone else's free speech and can't be depended upon the help them.

I can only assume educators have stopped explaining the first amendment in American schools and colleges. At some point in the 80s or 90s people who called themselves liberals seem to have decided that allowing free speech is the same as allowing hate speech, or that, as Mark puts it, a free speech position is somehow a free market position.

Kate's big sigh of relief on hearing the content of the post, and her express wish that moderators not try to protect her feelings through misguided chivalry, hasn't made many people change their minds about the original decision to suppress a harmless post either, which is odd. It seems to me a perfect vindication of my arguments throughout.

Only DG spoke sanely about respecting intellectual content. Most others were positively cheering meaningless, random censorship, in a kind of scary 'Let's bomb Bagdhad!' way. Why? Can anyone explain this to me?

Random censorship would, perhaps, be quite cool - seeing as how the fact the message was cut has got everyone excited and wondering just what was in it, where as most people would probably have just skimmed over it had it been left in [OK, that's enough. The rest of this silly and abusive post has been deleted. Grow up 'jamesmichaelward']

Mark has turned his Superman costume inside out. He's now claiming to be the brave protector of shy newbies and herbivores, rather than of Kate, who can stand up to her own flamers, thank you very much.

Does this mean ILM is going to be the Disney Channel from now on? Are we going to have to stop the play every five minutes for announcements, Midsummer Night's Dream-style, that 'this lion, ladies, is just a man in a skin, fear not'?

Scrabbling around for weak minorities, children, newbies or grandmothers to justify suppression of dissent sucks. Come on, Mark, just admit that you were a little trigger happy and tell us it won't happen again and we can all be charmingly rude to each other again.

Jesus, Momus, I expect better of you! Surely you're aware that (a) it's not a "cliche" but an example drawn U.S. Supreme Court opinion, and more importantly that (b) it's obviousness and uniquity are precisely why I said "Start from 'yelling fire in a crowded theater' and work your way up."

Secondly, you consistently avoid defending precisely the part of your argument that everyone is disagreeing with, which is your apparent belief that this forum should operate based on the same ideals as entire national entities. Based on your previous point, you'd apparently have no problem with Falun Gong "practitioners" doing their excercises in your bedroom. I don't believe that's true, and it's only through sheer dogmatism that you continue to cling to this point without recourse to ever justifying it. I agree with your arguments -- I even agree with you that Mark was a little trigger-happy, even though I don't particularly blame him for it -- but I think you're being particularly stubborn by refusing to even acknowledge that there might be a difference between "free speech" in a public context and "free speech" within an organized "owned" space.

I say this not out of any sort of antagonism toward you, as I've always enjoyed your posts, threads, and music, and still get an odd thrill about the fact that you've performed a song about my previous employer. But your smarmy provocation and deliberate intellectual dishonesty in this discussion are beginning to resemble that of my country's president.

I don't like either of these discussions because it reminds me of my high school newspaper class. One spiteful and needless comment would be edited and the writer would become enraged. Then the rest of the hour would be spent discussing censorship the Big Evil and (even though we'd been over it many times) it could have been a mind- stimulating discussion. But no-one wanted to keep their emotions in check. Just like on the two I Loves. There is nothing I hate more than such needless ball-cutting drama. And I hate censorship!

Ouch! That really hurts. (By the way, who was the ex-employer I sang about?)

I think you're being particularly stubborn by refusing to even acknowledge that there might be a difference between "free speech" in a public context and "free speech" within an organized "owned" space.

I just don't buy into the idea that you can have 'free speech, but not in my back yard' (or bar, or internet forum). It's like saying 'I believe in justice, but not for everyone' or 'Charity is fine, but only at Christmas'.

Okay, perhaps the Bush thing was uncalled for.

(By the way, who was the ex-employer I sang about?)

Reckless Records. Although your focus on the Broadway store was unappreciated by those of us at the other locations. :)

I just don't buy into the idea that you can have 'free speech, but not in my back yard' (or bar, or internet forum).

I guess I don't really buy into the idea that you actually believe that! But if you honestly think that's true, then I trust you'd be perfectly amendable to my hacking your website and amending the front page with the most disagreeable material allowed by law.

And when you attempt to point out that the front page of your site does not constitute a "forum," I'll simply ask who you are to draw such distinctions between a public space and one that you "own," "control," or "moderate."

I wish the original impulse behind what a crusty old Spectator reader would call PC (which was really making sure you were able in speech to treat diverse people equally in principle) had not been obscured by neo-paternalistic Thought Police of every possible gender. Mark isn't one of these, and he's no censor. Real censors, after all, are so secure in their oppressive powers that they can ignore dissenters, or persecute them like the Falun Gong.

As for the crowded theatre, I'd say it's the job of the fire inspectors to make enough exits that people can escape whatever bloody nonsense people are shouting. That's what theatres are for, shouting nonsense.

Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me.

'Art is where you can crash the plane and walk away.' (Eno)

Ditto computers and simulations and representations of all kinds. As Kerry said, if someone means to do you physical harm, censoring the threats isn't going to help you much.

But soon even those people realised that they were policing language and limiting its greatest strength: the capacity for modelling other ways of being, for envisioning the world differently. So PC receded, and now we have the more healthy anti-global protests instead. Real political action, back in the realm of political action where it belongs. And language went back to being the free zone it wants and needs to be.

ILM started as the discussion board for my Freaky Trigger webzine. If FT has any guiding principle at all, it's the idea that the music listeners experiences as listener *and consumer* are as important as the music being discussed. In other words, you can't shove commerce sniffily off to one side. This isn't the internet of 1995 any more, and more to the point the internet of 1995 wasn't all that good. As I said just now on ILM, we have a category, called "Hype", for these kinds of posts.

I would broadly say that it is OK for regular posters to fill other regular posters in on what they are doing - the definition of 'regular' on ILM should be at the posters discretion. Kate's tour dates fall into the same bracket as DJ Martian's weblog, for me. If you want to post your tour dates, Momus, or Alasdair M or Dave Q or anyone else does, that's fine by me.

Jesus, Nick, I can't believe you're being quite so juvenile about this! If I didn't have some respect and admiration for your actions outside of this thread, I'd suspect you were only doing this for attention.

Look: what's bothering me here is that your level of dogmatism here is approaching that of a twelve year old's, and it's showing in your poor rhetorical choices -- responding to my intentional cliche with "but that's such a cliche" and spouting nonsense about theaters having enough exits to accommodate any level of stupidity. All I want you to admit is this: in private spaces, it is reasonable for the "owner" to set some limits on people's behaviour. This is what allows you to make records without having to let me write arrangements for them; this is what allows me to watch television without having to let you drop by and comment on everything; and this, I'm arguing, is what allows a person to organize a web-based forum in which there are certain ground rules concerning people's contributions.

I only ask that you admit this. You're free to argue that in this instance, censorship was unnecessary; you're free to argue that this forum as whole doesn't need moderation of any sort -- in both instanced, I might be tempted to agree with you. But your evasion and your refusal to admit this basic point -- which is already codified in international law -- is currently striking me as positively infantile.

I re-iterate what Milton said about freedom of the press, back when Cromwell was trying to get all books and plays approved by the government: vitue which is untested by exposure to malice, sedition and simply *other ways of thinking about the problem* is no virtue at all.

Serge Gainsbourg: 'Provoke, always provoke. But remember, stay human.'

I'm going to go listen to Ping Pong and remind myself why I generally like this person.

Yes, PC started in academia and the media and kept the denizens of those zones busy bickering while the politicians and corporations carried on business as usual with their same-old New World Order. And of course people were bound to realise mere lip service was being paid to the notion of equality. But I see the anti-globalism impulse as an evolution of these ideas, not a repudiation of same.

Anyway, this thread is rather Miltonesque: testing the virtues of a virtual Paradise could hardly be called anything else.

("Retarded" in the kindly American sense, of course...)

One of the fondest memories of my life in regulated group situations was in my co-op. We go by roberts rules and thus can "move the question" at which point a vote is taken on if we are to end the discussion and vote on the motion. Think fillibusters and how to beat them in Congress. Anyway, some hippie assholes decide this is "undemocratic" and bring up a motion against this procedure. We move the question. The next week, the same thing happens. My point, as it relates to this discussion? Fuck hippies.

Also, lynching was not about speech but organized and institutionalized racial terror and oppression for the purpose of maintaining a particular political economy with black ppl. on the bottom. Also, Momus should take a good look at who Falun Gong are before he starts praising them. Irony time: momus cries fascist at innocent moderation and the FG are racial purists. Who also encouraged a twelve year old girl to self immolate.

http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:2j5flSKw_GNYeM:http://images.newsfrombabylon.com/articles/09-2005/09-24-2005/104_0421.JPG

What a retarded thread. and what, why the revive?

You see where moderation transparency gets you?