Censorship

[Shu]

Well here is a pretty broad subject, which I want to hear you opinion on the regulations of censorship. I also want to hear your own personal views on censoring thoughts as far as Political Correctness comes.

In America we have a thing called the... Bill of Rights/Constitution. Our first amendment has been written and worded as the following... Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, and Freedom of Expression. I don't care about the religion part, since most folks can worship whoever as long as it brings no harm to themselves or others. I do care about the expression and speech part though.

To be honest, I believe the First Amendment is not exactly existent due to the fact we have so much censorship in the country, and of course the world. If someone questions, or speaks their mind on governmental issues valid or not, stupid or not, it is often called harmful propaganda. Even if we don't have the McCarthy Trials here in the States anymore, it's like we still demonize these folks for wanting to voice their opinion. To me censorship is an act in which hinders intelligence and creativity. I don't mean racial censoring, that's often times needed, I'm talking about swearing...I'm talking about Media Censoring, I'm talking about the whole shebang.

Skip the below if you don't want to read my very detailed thoughts, just comment on the above:
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Musical Artists

Take any musical artist you listen to, now make sure they aren't poppy. Meaning you actually identify with their lyrics, rather than the beat or the music. Have you ever noticed that some folks have put some implicit meanings behind some of their songs towards a certain group of folks. Now some are a little more out there than others, such as Rage Against the Machine.. Machine being from what I believe (welcome to disagree or correct me) the American government. Now most folks don't think two seconds about groups political beliefs, unless that is all they are about (RATM being one example completely about politics). Some of their songs get played, because obviously they are good band, but others are censored from hitting the air for being to Anti-American, when in fact they aren't exactly anti-American they are more about "change." Let's take artistic talent, and I'll also focus on an musical artist. Take in my my favorite band Tool.

Tool needs it's own paragraph. They are undermined due to they get dismissed as angsty, angered filled, druggy, music; when in fact that was only their starting gig. Art in general That's not what chafes me though, the thing gets me is when the artist Alex Grey puts very disturbing art out there for their music videos, which is not about death or killing, but anyway besides the point. Point being the videos don't get air time because I believe groups like the "FCC" don't understand the artwork, nor the music behind it. They see it as different, and it exposes the youth the misdirection. They don't set a good example.. for free thinking individuals, they (the FCC) want to conform people to a poppy, lack of talent at creating videos or music... artists in general.

News
Now let's take the Media Censorship with the news. It's funny how I can see the same news up for near a month, about issues that don't relate to me in the least, for instance the girl who went missing in Aruba. Let's take for another example the Lady who killed her kid, a good looking mid twenties lady, who killed her kid, yet the police can't figure out if she did it for like 3 months straight on the news. No offense, but a lot worse happens in the world, call me jaded if you will, but I think most folks need to be informed of real news. What's real news you ask? Well War is always relative to me, the fact that we can't back a black President, due to the fact he's just like Bush a pawn to the Congress. Who knows if he's truly thinking for himself. Why don't we actually talk about flaws with the US government, and not everyone elses flaws. It's like.. oh yea, we are just fine.. "here's your health bill" oh yea.. we are just fine... (ten years later) "oh hey, do you have the money to pay back that bill?" (referring to the people in the US) and then the American people go... WAIT WHAT?!

We push stuff under the table, due to the fact our media doesn't focus on what's important. Like.. "what's being done about the oil spill as of right now" You know.. it'd be nice to know the daily progress of this. If the media covered the daily progress of Katrina and FEMA's response time, I believe we would have been very up in arms about how our government handles disasters. I agree that showing people's limbs being blown off by IED's and such would be a bit harsh to the child audiences, but what if... entertain this thought for a second, what if there was a Mature media, that was aired by the FCC? Well that will never happen, because the government I believe is way to involved with the media.

Here's a funny thing.. you might think about. Notice how Youtube used to be it's own entity where vloggers could get on and rant about real issues, or just about some funny shiznit. What happens? Well Google sees it as a big business opportunity and buys it out and turns into the most worthless garbage you've ever seen. Go to youtube, click on music, notice what pops up when you see "Top Music" ? I know I have different tastes in music than most folks, but seriously..

Here's the thing, Disney owns Justin Beiber and Miley Cyrus. Google and Disney made a deal so Youtube could broadcast their tunes. If Justin were to try to shake the Disney label, he would be another New Kids on the Block. Same goes for Miley Cyrus, she was born into the lime light, and if she tries to shake her image, her stuff will no longer be aired. Bottom line is, these corporations are actually brain washing our kids, by buying out these networks (youtube in this case) and putting on the G-Rated material that has simple chorus's about ludicrous stuff. Bottom line? Bottom line is this.. Disney seeks profit, Google seeks profit, they look into the ratings of websites/television channels and then based on how many kids tune in they try to get these kids who have a decent look about them (Beiber) and get to seem more adult like. Which makes the pre-teens and teenagers go, goo goo ga ga, because it's like some Heroin induced drug. So in a sense this is a play on censorship. Why? because I could understand why you could say this makes no sense.

I live in a town called Oxford, Mississippi home of the Ole Miss rebels, till about 2 months ago we had a pretty semi decent radio station. Well guess what happened? The ratings sort of went down due the fact that they were playing Nickelbackish music, and to save the radio station, they turned it into a purely classic rock station. I don't frown on this, but the fact is I have no outlet but to look online now for my music, unless I want to hear classic rock continuously or country music or pop. I don't like listening to a same cd more than 3 times in a row, due to I don't want to get sick of the artist. If I have no outlet on a radio station, due to the FCC saying what an artist can or can not sing about (Hence why Nickelback is so straight edge to them, because they probably confide to every rule), then where am I going to see upcoming artists? I used to look at Youtube, and they had some excellent bands, but now .. uhh what happened that google and youtube merged.. I can't find a single decent band due to how many copyrights are out there. Again.. most often times this isn't the artists decisions, this is the Label who owns them.

If you have read this, and don't think it's some conspiracy bs.. then hopefully I've either enlightened or have a few folks who completely agree with this.

 

[Sepalcure]

Ooh, debate time again. This makes me rethink my decision to not join my highschool's debate team.

I'll start from pulling the full First Amendment's quote as a referential point.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
— The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

The bolded parts are what we should be focusing on, I think. As a niece of an uncle who staunchly believes in conspiracy theories and whom despises the crazy censorship the government enacts, I gotta say that I agree with you wholeheartedly on a lot of your points, Shu. Nice introduction too.

I'll start with the censorship of News since this is a big one.

News

The handling of national and international news are normally done by a variety of media sources: newspaper companies, radio broadcasting services, websites, or just through word of mouth in its simplest form. If we were to take an in depth look at what makes the media report certain types of news more than others (i.e.: what brand of cologne Justin Timberlake is wearing versus a heinous scandal within the Republican party that could break our society's "already crumbling" perception of the government) then we'd note that there is a very nice term that's of great relevance and importance to the media industry in general. Newsworthiness. Let that sink into your head and stew there for a while.

Newsworthiness in Wikipedia's definition is defined as: ". . . as a subject having sufficient relevance to the public or a special audience to warrant press attention or coverage."

Another site claims that it: refers to a story of enough significance to the public at large to warrant news coverage. (http://www.cafepress.com/cp/learn/index.aspx?page=pr_newsworthiness)

So what does that basically mean? Well a reporter will have to determine whether the story that he/she has come across is relevant enough, groundbreaking enough, interesting, captivating, and generally "informative" enough to pitch to his/her boss and thus in turn have them pitch it to the news stations for broadcasting after being printed in newspapers. So there's no telling whether your newspaper will have an article on how much Michael Jackson's teeth are worth versus the ifs and maybes of the Iraqi War and whether we'll EVER pull out, 'cause let's face it, most of us are sick of it by now.

That said, news is further divided by politics, and has been for quite some time. Though when you look at it through un-fogged lenses both of these divisive groupings are spoon feeding the public the same thing. That's because the distribution of news, what goes through the metaphorical "paper shredder" of what's news and what isn't, is directly influenced by our government. This is where the illusion of "freedom" which means in this case, "exemption from control, interference, regulation, etc." has been broken forever.

In truth, news was never uncensored, the moment the Constitution was writ in ink, the government had to tighten the reins on the newly birthed industry that was the media.

An example of the earliest exercising of censorship in the U.S. can be found outlined here, "The bawdy novel Fanny Hill (1748), written by John Cleland as an exercise in what he imagined a prostitute's memoirs might sound like, was no doubt familiar to the Founding Fathers; we know that Benjamin Franklin, who himself wrote some fairly risque material, had a copy. But later generations were less latitudinarian.

The book holds the record for being banned longer than any other literary work in the United States--prohibited in 1821, and not legally published until the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the ban in Memoirs v. Massachusetts (1966). Of course, once it was legal it lost much of its appeal; by 1966 standards, nothing written in 1748 was liable to shock anybody."

While not really fit to be in the 'news' category, it's still an example of how the earliest forms of art were banned for 'explicit' content.

In 1873, one of the biggest culprits of the enforcement of U.S. censorship, this guy, Mr. Anthony Comstock:

Here's some info on the guy so you can get acquainted with him: http://womenshistory.about.com/od/laws/a/comstock_law.htm

According to the article, he established one of the first uses of the banning of news through the manipulation of the "freedom of speech" rule. So in reality, 'freedom' is merely a safety word within this amendment as far as the media is concerned. So long as you have the descendants of these forefathers tightening the metaphorical bindings on our ability to vocalize what we want and report what we want, then the media will always spoon feed us bits and pieces.

Fox News' website will always look like this: http://www.foxnews.com/
because they're being backed by huge Republican senators, congressmen, and members of the Senate and that dictate what you all tune in to when you turn on your tvs and sit for the local 10 pm news. They get money from these stories, they don't have time to consider whether the general public likes what they put out to you. If they want to withhold how Obama really runs the country then so be it, they will, because at the end of the day their reputation and the foundation of these mega corporations monopolizing smaller ones, are what run their world and ultimately this nation.

Music

From the earliest times of civilization, music has been utilized as a tool of expression, free in its lyricism and musicality, but no more. With the establishment of the music industry there have been these things known as rules. What music can come out of national radio stations and even local ones are dictated by a group of organizations known as the IFPI (http://www.ifpi.org/), the BPI (http://www.bpi.co.uk/category/about-us.aspx / because it's just as huge and expansive as the IFPI and as influential), and the biggest one of all the RIAA which determines which records: CDs and vinyls get shelves and which ones get stocked and shipped out (http://www.riaa.com/whatwedo.php). They also control every single recording company in the nation . . . every single one, major ones at least so Island Records, Bad Boy Entertainment, ARISTA, etc. are all housed under the RIAA.

Music has become a commercial industry, dominated by 'what's hot' and rarely if ever by 'what's important.' No one wants to listen to the likes of Tool, CYNE, RATM, The Roots, Nas, etc. clambering instead to leak out songs from popular artists like Lady Gaga, Usher, Rihanna, Justin Bieber, and Miley Cyrus. Why? Because it's what's fed to the general public through sites like Youtube, VH1, MTV, BET, etc. because once again this is controlled through that large seemingly omnipotent entity known as the government. The big man's gotta make moolah and how he does it is by brainwashing the general public. Ever notice how these channels constantly circulate the same slot of music videos within an allotted time frame? That's because they know what the general public will buy to, at some point they're hoping to get certain songs stuck in your head. This sort of brainwashing technique: repeating the same slew of songs on multiple radio stations, airing the same music videos on multiple tv stations, is sort of--a form of torture. Seriously, you no longer get any say on what music videos you can watch on tv, what you'll see on Youtube, what you'll listen to on your favorite radio station.

F that, thinks the big man . . . it all boils down to this: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/05/greedy_government_vs_americas.html

The government was and always will be greedy and they will always be in power. Depressing? Damn straight. True? Unfortunately. No matter how many underground blogs, websites, newspapers, webcasts, vlogs, music stations, journalists, reporters, and musicians there are . . . there will always be a government around to ensure that their voices barely get heard over the din of the masses. The general public in reality dictates a good 99.99% of what we listen to on our iPods, what's featured in government-funded businesses like iTunes, MTV, VH1, BET, etc.

Do you know what's worse? Take a good look at what used to be the formal music stations of yesteryear: http://www.mtv.com, http://www.bet.com, http://www.vh1.com, etc. Note how they don't just promote commercial music but also entertainment, if what's considered reality tv nowadays, can also be called that. Jersey Shore, Best Week Ever, The Hills, etc. are all shows intended to keep you from asking these questions and ultimately to keep you "happy" and clueless as to what's really going on behind the television screens and the general industry known as the media.

 

[M1ghty Mous3]

I can understand the freedom of speech thing to an extent. If i'm not mistaken the first ammendment says people can say what they want so long as they aren't of threatening nature to other people or gov. But what's messed up is the gov have the power to change a not yet released newpaper if it contains an articale that can be viewed as bad rep for the gov, or just is about something super wierd that might freakout the public. Which i find to be complete rubbish. If i want to talk shit on the government i will, and no one can tell me otherwise, even a govenment offical.

The music area of this doesn't really bother me so much since i know what i like and when i go to youtube i don't search the music sections. I just look up the band or artist i want to listen to. Occasionally I'll run across an artist i haven't heard of and actually like them. And the best part? Their either super underground or really indie. Same goes for hip hop and such aswell.

TV and Movies - Parents are the best front for what kids can and can't watch on tv. I'm not expecting spongebob to get super gory and cuss out his ass if censorship goes away, but even if he did, it's not the govenments duty to say "Don't watch that" It's the parents. The gov is taking too much responsibility in what we can veiw and can't. The same thing goes for obscene content. If people want to look it up, shouldn't they be able to? Atleast on the internet? I remember when i felt like trying to sit through the whole 2 girls 1 cup video. Couldnt find it. Why? Gov had concluded it was "Obscene" and the public cannot view it. Which is complete bullshit, only I, me, and myself can determine what is onscene to me, and if i choose to NOT watch it, i should have that power. And the same applies to people that wish to watch such obscene content.

The Government thinks they can make the country better by choosing for us. Instead of allowing US to choose for US.