too free?

http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2007/jan/21/ben_bova_has_internet_made_our_speech _little_too_f/?local_news

I love this. It's top notch word smithing, aimed at people who find a mixture of opinion and fact uncomfortable. I used to be one of these, but have since learned better.

Anyway, this article speaks directly to the dilemma posed by the Internet today; namely, it forces us to grapple with facts we would not otherwise have to grapple with.

From Sneakers - "No More Secrets".

Indeed.

Thoughts?

This forum proves that at least this paragraph is accurate:


"But, as a wise man pointed out more than half a century ago, when radio was a new phenomenon in public discourse, freedom of speech can lead to giving the village idiot the freedom to shout his blatherings around the world with the speed of light."

Well Deane, if Newt Gingrich, the hero of the conservatives has his way, your speech of the net will be limited. All in the name of fighting terrorism of course. He's said he'll push for this if he's elected president. Now let's all go wrap the flag around ourselves.

The real threat to free speech is coming from Dennis Kucinich and his fellow radicals in trying to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine. The motivation is so obviously an attempt to silence conservative talk radio, it's almost funny. It won't go anywhere, of course, but it does give Dennis a little attention for awhile. He can't get it any other way.

Sorry to take off on your poster child, but facts are facts.

I guess the old saying "Buyer beware" should be changed to "Reader beware"

Nothing has changed really, you have always had to make a reality check or what you see or read, if you read certain magizines, your trusting to their editors to filter the info.

But you have made a decision to trust those editors.

I have taught classes on the internet, and I always stressed, you have to be able to verify what you read, anydone can create a web site and give it a fancy name, then post whatever they want.

I strongly agree with this. Gotta be able to sort out truth from bullshit.

IMHO, making the decision to trust the editors is rapidly growing out of favor. That's the big change and is the single biggest driver behind these ongoing strikes against the Internet in general. There are a fair number of people, who have a vested interest, in cultivating and exploiting that trust relationship and it's all coming to a stop.

What happens over the next generation or two will be very interesting. A lot of law is going to be decided that will affect all of us for a long time to come. I hope these decisions are made with the peoples best interests in mind, just as our founders did, and not the best interests of those so affected by the changes the net brings.

But Deane, if the Fairness Doctrine kills off Conservative Radio, wouldn't it do the same for Liberal Radio? (Would certainly force KBOO into a bad situation, I can predict that right now.)

Not trying to show political bias, just mathematic reasoning.

"Gotta be able to sort out truth from bullshit."

Yep. That's why I'm asking Herb to put those ham-fists of his to work and find me some facts on his oft-cited "rape rooms".

I read it over and over, and never questioned it until today...

>>>"But Deane, if the Fairness Doctrine kills off Conservative Radio, wouldn't it do the same for Liberal Radio? (Would certainly force KBOO into a bad situation, I can predict that right now.)"

Yes, it would have the same effect.

The internet became as big as it is because of the freedom. People want to be able to decide for themselves what's right and what isn't.

They want to interact, whether it be through opinion or fact...everyone's passionate about something. Look at what brought everyone here....it's a love for the medium.

Sure we have our disagreements, sure this side is riddled by rhetoric on both sides...but that's what is great about it-- it provides discourse. When was the last time you remember feeling moved or outraged by a newspaper article? How about the last time you felt engaged in a news cast? Let's face it...the homogenized media played a big part in the internet's growth.

People wanted to go somewhere else. They want to be engaged...and fluffy little stories about kittens following their owners 700 miles doesn't do it. Neither does a continued feature about meth heads.

Now I can get Asian news from Asian sources, European news from Europe....all without getting a subscription to something that is more ads than news....

Freedom of speech is THE most important thing in my book. Well, besides lives and anything like that. It's the most important freedom. It keeps us human and what distinguishes humans from animals is the ability to communicate with each other and engage ourselves in cultures. (which are just stories about us...really.)

AFAIK D NET IMHO IS AFAICT AISI NOT A PROB. IJWYTK WYSIWUG!

L8R G8R

What I'd worry about is if blogs and partisan web pages end up becoming people's standard for "serious" reporting. I think that this was the main concern that Ben Bova was trying to express in his piece.

Depending on when one started reading various different Internet forums, one might have a different perspective on the "has speech become too free?" issue. I started following Usenet newsgroups in late 1993. Many of these forums were unmoderated. Over the next couple of years, those forums became cluttered with spam postings and with people who repeatedly, sometimes with intentional defiance, posted things that were off-topic to the newsgroup or offensive to some of the participants. Eventually, many of the more serious posters drifted away in frustration. Today, moderated forums, such as PDXRadio have become the dominant venue for discourse; usenet newsgroups still exist, but many of them have become "ghost towns" of spam with no actual discourse. I think that it could be argued that the original unmoderated Usenet model was OK when Internet access was restricted to academic professionals for non-commercial use, but it was "too free" to be viable to the general population.