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YouTube Removal Highlights Media Self-Censorship
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Nov 10, 2006 02:43 PM
from the power-to-the-people-marty dept.
from the power-to-the-people-marty dept.
jamie writes "On 'Larry King Live' Wednesday night, Bill Maher said many of 'the people who really run the underpinnings of the Republican Party are gay... Ken Mehlman, OK, there's one I think people have talked about. I don't think he's denied it.' When CNN re-aired the interview, the mention of Mehlman was edited out with no indication anything was missing. When a minute-long video of the original vs. censored clips was posted on YouTube, a DMCA takedown removed it (the original poster plans to resubmit a shorter clip he hopes will qualify as fair use — good luck, since the DMCA doesn't recognize fair use). Relatedly, the Washington Post today was caught silently editing its published stories to make them less informative. Unnamed GOP officials are also saying that Mehlman will step down from his post when his term ends in January."
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WTF (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:WTF (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:WTF (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the party he belongs to has a strong anti-gay agenda and a strong anti-gay electorate. Politicians may not mind being blatantly hypocritical but once their election chances are jeopardized then they will scramble to avoid that.
Parent
Re:WTF (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought his resignation had more to do with the Republicans getting their collective asses handed to them in the recent midterm elections.
I don't know/care whether he's gay, and would certainly not count Bill Maher as a credible source. But, if he were in fact gay, he would almost surely be pushed out of that position very quickly. The Republicans have done their best to whip up anti-gay sentiment, to "energize their base". Although flaming hypocrisy does seem to be the norm in D.C., a bogey man is more effective when you don't also provide a counter example to discredit your own claims. So they would have to push him out of the public eye.
Parent
Re:WTF (Score:5, Insightful)
A libertarian society has the minimum government influence, in order to maximize personal freedom; taken to the extreme, the government has no role beyond enforcing contracts and preventing outright violence. The problem with this is that nothing stops Bill Gates from paying the local water and power companies to not do business with you. Under current government such attempts would almost certainly be illegal (harassment).
The fatal flaw of libertarian philosophy is that coercion is defined as using force against someone. It is flawed because it ignores another coercive strategy: resource deprivation. If I control the only source of water in a desert, I hold power of life and death over all other residents, and can kill them without ever once using force against them (except when they try to take water by force, at which point libertarianism allows me to use it in defense).
People in the current technical society aren't self-sufficient, they depend on support infrastructure to stay alive. People with lots of money can buy that infrastructure and then coerce others by threatening to cut them out of it, at which point those other people either obey or starve to death.
In short, government stepping down and relinquishing power over some aspect of society will simply result in the next most powerful individual or organization taking over. Power doesn't disappear simply because someone gives it up; in a libertarian society, since the government refuses to wield power, someone else will. And since that someone else doesn't have any responsibility to citizens, he can rule as a ruthless tyrant.
Just look at any nation where the government collapses: if a new one doesn't rise quickly, local warlords take power over their area and then begin to fight amongst each other. Somalia is a good example of this.
Libertarianism is a very simple philosophy, simpler than even Marx's theories; like them, it assumes that as soon as $EVIL has been removed and everyone been converted to the correct worldview, everything will be wonderful. No such ideal has ever delivered what it promised, so why should libertarianism ?
Parent
Re:WTF (Score:5, Insightful)
Not if your party's primary "get out the vote" effort focuses on "we have to stop gay marriage from destroying this country". It is stupidity like that has driven so many (myself include) far away from that party, the results of which we saw this week. Sadly it DOES galvanize a lot of voters (see the last presidential election), but not enough this last time.
Finkployd
Parent
Re:WTF (Score:5, Funny)
Well, at least they'll enjoy the next few years!
Parent
Re:WTF (Score:5, Insightful)
This is patently untrue. Did you see the exit polls for this election? It was all about two things: 1) The war in Iraq/Terrorism (which are, thanks to the Republicans, the same thing now and much worse than either were before), and 2) Corruption.
Did you see the exit polls from the last election? The number one issue back then was "moral values."
The Republicans have a history of fiscal irresponsibilities. The two presidents who hold the record for running our deficit up are, you guessed it, George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan. They also have a history of passing legislation that is great for corporations and rich folks, but bad for the average schmoes and poor people. You know that booming economy we keep hearing about? Guess who's getting all of that money. Yup, corporations and the generally rich folks who own them.
The majority of Republicans aren't rich, they're middle-class folks who like to think, and who the Republicans have told, that they'll be rich someday, or at the very least, they'll be pretty much where they are now. They're betting their current economic situation on a brighter future, and for most of them, that doesn't come true. (These are the same folks who go out and charge up their personal debt to their eyeballs because today doesn't matter and the future is just a vague notion.)
So why would they take a gamble like that? Because the Republicans are packaging a nice and tidy message that these folks want to hear with their "family values" and morality speeches. They're telling these middle-class folks not to worry about economics, because what really matters is not allowing gays to get married, "pre-born" babies to be killed, and so on. The sad truth is that most Americans aren't content to just live and let live, but want their morality and beliefs imposed on others, and their message sells really well.
Meanwhile, the rest of us have to suffer having other people's morality and beliefs imposed on us while we get downsized and outsourced and take jobs with pay cuts, while we lose our health insurance and retirement benefits, while we get raises that don't keep up with the cost of living, and while our country's financial foray into the red numbers just keeps getting deeper, and deeper, and deeper.
I'm sorry, but anyone who is a Republican for economic reasons is either 1) very well off or 2) pretty damn stupid.
Parent
Re:WTF (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps it will allow the Republican Party to purge these idiotic socially ultra-conservative nuts and return to being economically conservative instead (which is the *real* base of the Republican Party).
Sorry, I'm an old-timer fiscal conservative. Which means I've hated the Republican party since Reagan came into office. Before 1980 the Republicans were for smaller government and less spending. But for the past quarter century, they have been spend crazy. They have created a far far bigger bloated government than any Democrats ever did. For the past 26 years, the Democrats have acted much more fiscally conservative than Republicans. If you are a fiscal conservative and still a Republican these days, you are as ignorant of the world around you as people who claimed 'the world changed on 9/11'. Wake up.
Parent
Fiscal conservativism doesn't have a party. (Score:5, Insightful)
In large sections of the country, although Republicans may be more socially conservative than Democrats, they're certainly not anywhere near the level of the rabid, religiously-motivated, hateful far-right (really authoritarian) bloc that seems to be most Democrats' stereotype of conservatives.
Given the bipolar political system, if you want a political party that supports lower taxation and doesn't believe in providing "bad luck insurance" by punishing people who plan ahead (say, by saving up money or property to give to their children rather than spending it) to pay for others' mistakes, you don't have a lot of choices.
The Republican party over the past few years has been almost completely hijacked by religious-right, and by ultra-hawks who have run up the deficit in order to fund the war. However, this doesn't mean that the Democrats are any more attractive than they have always been; basically offering only marginally more fiscal control, in order to fund welfare and other social programs. It's only because of the depths to which the Republican party has fallen, and sold out its core values, that the Democrats look fiscally responsible.
I would say that many Republicans that I have met in New England (and if you look at 'Yankee Republicans' in general) are not really that socially conservative on an absolute scale, and are torn between disliking the quasi-socialist fiscal policies of the Democrats (particularly New England Democrats), and the authoritarian social policies of Midwest and Southern Republicans. I suspect if you looked at stances on the issues, many Northeast Republicans (say, Olympia Snowe) would actually be very fiscally conservative Democrats, if they were in another part of the country, and vice versa.
Parent
Re:Fiscal conservativism doesn't have a party. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm from a very rural area. Most of my old hometown friends are farmers. The inheritance tax isn't an issue for any of them. None of them knows anyone who has lost a farm because of it. If you know of a documented case, please post it. Otherwise, it's nonsense.
Only 2% of estates pay any estate tax at all. Most of those just pay a relatively small amount. The inheritance tax only has a real effect on a very small fraction of the top 1% of estates. A quarter of the total estate tax is paid by only about 500 estates each year. Half of the estate taxes each year come from only about 3,000 estates in the entire country. Current estate tax exempts the first million of an estate, and for the owners of businesses (including farms) it's even higher.
Republicans have been challenged over and over to provide one example of someone losing their farm because of the estate tax... they haven't. It just doesn't happen.
Parent
Re:WTF (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet for the last 30 years or so, the Republicans have been the undisputed champion of big wasteful government. The Democrats have consistently been better "Republicans" than the Republicans.
Maybe you should stop and look around a little bit instead of repeating ancient sayings that lost their truth decades ago.
The Republicans have proven that not only do they want to fuck up the country, but given the slightest opportunity they will run full speed ahead toward that goal regardless of how illegal or unconstitutional they have to go to do that.
Only somebody with a delusional religious belief in a freaking political party of all things, and a complete ignorance of the last 30 years could possibly attempt to defend the Republicans by claiming the Democrats want to fuck up the country.
Take the worst ideas the Democrats ever had taken to the extreme, throw in radical religious lunacy, and you have todays Republican party.
Parent
Re:WTF (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Get the State out of marrige. (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly, I would like to see them just eliminate all the "pro-family" marriage subsidies as a result of this. Let the homophobes keep marriage, just make it a totally religious, nonsecular distinction. Get rid of it from tax law, probate and inheritance law, and other aspects where it usually comes across. If people want those things, they can lobby their congresspeople for tax breaks for everyone, not just married people; write a will and medical-power-of-attorney to sort out the inheritance and medical decision-making issues, and have the "benefits" of marriage with whomever they want.
It's ridiculous that we still have the State sanctioning marriage and childbearing, as if we really need to be encouraging people to pump out more babies. If we need more workers, we can just import them from Mexico or India. Given the state of our educational system, they'll probably be more qualified anyway.
Parent
Speech issues aside... (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually... (Score:5, Informative)
This all seemed unlikely to me, and reading the original letter:
1) The only mention of the DMCA is in the return address. They're not claiming any DMCA violation
2) DMCA or not, there's no fair-use right to be able to put content on YouTube. The guy isn't being sued.
Re:Actually... (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
DMCA confusion (Score:5, Informative)
You're confusing two very different parts of the DMCA.
One part deals with circumvention of copy protection devices. That part does not recognize a fair use exemption. It doesn't apply here since the content was not copy-protected.
The other part deals with take-down notices. The way it works is:
Entity A posts some content to service C.
Entity B alleges that he is the copyright owner, that the content A posts infringes his copyright and that he wants C to remove it.
C removes it. C renders no opinion on this; he simply removes it as required by the DMCA.
A files a counter-notice with C that he believes the content does not infringe the copyright because of fair use or any other reason. The reason doesn't matter: having received the counter-notice, C is required to restore the content.
C then restores the content and provides B with the name and address of A (required in the counter-notice).
B then sues A under the old pre-DMCA copyright infringement laws.
A and B go to court.
Re:DMCA confusion (Score:5, Informative)
Question: What are the counter-notice and put-back procedures?
Answer: In order to ensure that copyright owners do not wrongly insist on the removal of materials that actually do not infringe their copyrights, the safe harbor provisions require service providers to notify the subscribers if their materials have been removed and to provide them with an opportunity to send a written notice to the service provider stating that the material has been wrongly removed. [512(g)] If a subscriber provides a proper "counter-notice" claiming that the material does not infringe copyrights, the service provider must then promptly notify the claiming party of the individual's objection. [512(g)(2)] If the copyright owner does not bring a lawsuit in district court within 14 days, the service provider is then required to restore the material to its location on its network. [512(g)(2)(C)]
A proper counter-notice must contain the following information:
* The subscriber's name, address, phone number and physical or electronic signature [512(g)(3)(A)]
* Identification of the material and its location before removal [512(g)(3)(B)]
* A statement under penalty of perjury that the material was removed by mistake or misidentification [512(g)(3)(C)]
* Subscriber consent to local federal court jurisdiction, or if overseas, to an appropriate judicial body. [512(g)(3)(D)]
If it is determined that the copyright holder misrepresented its claim regarding the infringing material, the copyright holder then becomes liable to the OSP for any damages that resulted from the improper removal of the material.[512(f)]
Parent
I'm confused (again). (Score:5, Funny)
CNN is simply being responsible (Score:5, Interesting)
David
Re:CNN is simply being responsible (Score:5, Insightful)
David
Parent
In my day, it was Roosevelt's crutches (Score:5, Insightful)
The struggle between news writers/reporters and their management chain and the tendency of the management to cover their backsides and not publish anything unfavorable to {advertisers, the legal department, the higher-ups} has been ongoing ever since the invention of the newspaper. Indeed, in some form, it probably dates back even farther. This is nothing new, happens every day, and should be criticized when it occurs (particularly internally within the organization), but it's not particularly newsworthy.
The best way to handle this sort of thing is to decide what is more important---the bits from the story or your job. If you decide that the higher-ups are censoring something that needs to be heard, you tell your news director "the story airs as-is or I quit" (ideally after you have been there for a while). Sadly, most journalists don't have the stomach for that these days, but when this occurs you have to stand up for yourself or the upper management will walk all over you. Of course, this also points to a weak and ineffectual news director who doesn't have the guts to protect his/her reporters from the upper management.
However, that's probably not what happened in the case of CNN. What probably happened here is that they condensed the interview for time and cut out bits that they considered less important. This, too, happens every day. Unless the reporter was pressured to remove those pieces (and there's no reason to believe that this is the case), there's really not a story here at all. It's just the normal, day-to-day operation of a TV news outfit.
The Washington Post story, however, is very disturbing. If the reports of them changing their story are true, and if, in fact, Bush said the things claimed in the original version of the story, their editorial staff should be held accountable for their actions in turning a factually accurate story into a factually inaccurate story and deliberately removing highly relevant factual content from their story.
Re:Issue here is privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, I haven't a clue who Ken Mehlman is, but if he is a politician, or political operative, who creates or influenced policy on issues affecting homosexuals, then his orientation may indeed be salient.
I'm not trying to say Bill Maher is wrong or right (back when I was born, it used to be a free country), but a news organization altering facts and then using copyright law to cover up that modification is certainly not okay.
Parent
Re:Im shocked! (Score:5, Informative)
The republicans do. They want to limit what rights you have if you are gay. These rights include serving in the military, teaching, joining civic organizations and marriage amongst others.
Parent