Over thirty organizations want the Federal Communications Commission to open up a probe on “hate speech” and “misinformation” in media. “Hate has developed as a profit-model for syndicated radio and cable television programs masquerading as ‘news’,” they wrote to the FCC earlier this month.
[...]
The groups who want this new proceeding include Free Press, the Media Access Project, Common Cause, the Prometheus Radio Project, and the League of United Latin American Citizens. Their statement, filed in the Commission’s Future of Media proceeding, comes in support of a petition to the agency submitted over a year ago by the National Hispanic Media Coalition.
“Hate speech against vulnerable groups is pervasive in our media—it is not limited to a few isolated instances or any one media platform,” NHMC warned the FCC in 2009. “Indeed, many large mainstream media corporations regularly air hate speech, and it is prolific on the Internet. Hate speech takes various forms, from words advocating violence to those creating a climate of hate towards vulnerable groups. Cumulatively, hate speech creates an environment of hate and prejudice that legitimizes violence against its targets.”
[...]
In addition, the groups wants the FCC to examine “the prevalence of misinformation” in the media, since misinformation “creates a climate of prejudice.”
The words ‘henhouse’ and ‘fox’ spring to mind.
“If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you’re mis-informed.” – Mark Twain
I wish he were here today. Would he Tweet?
His autobiography comes out soon, a century after his death, per his wish.
#36. I made it very clear that censorship is a double edged sword. I’d rather do without it. The truth ultimately wins, right?
#38 suck my ass and your spelling is attrocious. Yeah is spelled ‘yeah’, not yea. What kind of moron are you?
Monitoring “hate speech” is a gray area for me.
I strongly believe that any speech, as long as it remains speech, should be left alone by the government.
However, these days, there is no way to track terrorists (domestic or foreign; Christian or Muslim) without monitoring their “hate speech” on the Internet.
#43 Greg
Linking hate speech to terrorism is a very precarious thing. Am I a terrorist because i write in an email ‘You know, Gerald, I really hate America!”?
I’m also pretty sure terrorists don’t communicate via hate speech.
#43 Greg Allen
“However, these days, there is no way to track terrorists (domestic or foreign; Christian or Muslim) without monitoring their “hate speech” on the Internet.”
I seriously doubt that the best way to track potential terrorists is by listening to all the millions of jerks on every online forum such as this one. Serious terrorists would not waste their time arguing in public forums. Intelligence about future attacks would be useful, but not “hate speech”. Is there any evidence that any act of terrorism in history could have been prevented by “monitoring online hate speech”? Meanwhile, our troops are dieing everyday because of our inadequacy in gathering real intelligence. And way more people than this are murdered in our cities. If even some of these are preventable with additional police resources, that would be preferable to spending these resources chasing people venting online when not a shred of evidence suggests this could have ever prevented a single terrorist act.
By the way, I find it interesting how some people think that porn is free speech but speech is not free speech.
Now about this mis-information business – Who decides what information is true or false? Congress can’t even figure out what is true without some kind of special investigation or truth council. You can bet if this ever happened, news outlets would become even more useless, restricted to regurgitating the official government approved lines. (And you thought AP stories were bad.) What recourse will news outlets have if they actually do take a chance and report something opposing the official government approved story, when later the real truth comes out? Does anyone honestly think this is a good idea?
#32
I want everyone to get a decent wage. I really don’t mind paying more for it. Other countries pay much more than we do and so they buy local and seasonal produce, like the US USED to do.
Ever wonder why the food got such rave reviews at grandma’s kitchen? The tomatoes were in season and RIPE. Not under ripe and hit with gas to bring on a red colour. We have become far too used to getting everything we want at any time of the year. And we don’t get the taste of really good fruits and vegetables.
I buy from my local farmer stalls along the roads. And I eat much better and cheaper. Sure it means I don’t get tomatoes in winter, that’s why I have sauce.
No big deal.
And I like Carver as well. As everyone should.
# 34
So you had to choose between Columbus and Martin Luther King Jr? What kind of twisted people do you have in AZ that two paid holidays on opposite ends of the calendar cannot exist?
What is anyone going to do in that ONE day that makes all the difference in the world?
Nuts. Just plain nuts.
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Looks like MSNBC and NBC will be shut down.And Huffpost too.
Like Obie I said, too much info is bad for America (read Obie Admin ratings).
lol, vulnerable groups… thats the problem right there, not everyone else’s opinions, ‘vulnerable’ sort that out first, then check in and see what ppl are saying about you.. if the street cred of your race matters so much…
To all the people defending hate speech and such, it may fall under “freedom of speech”, but last I checked, subjective opinions don’t belong in news. News isn’t there to make an opinion for you or anything else. It’s there for the sole purpose of telling you what’s happening, and having hate speech in news makes it, dare I say it, extremely subjective. This is also known as, “not news”. So with the assumption that it would put a huge cap on subjective opinions in news, I’d be all for controlling it. Might get rid of the easiest way to control people (fear), too.
#50 – You may be “all for it”. But, the 1st Amend isn’t. For good reasons that are known by all educated people.
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Seriously, do you like paying taxes? If you want to pick up the tab I’m sure we could get Arizona to make a paid holiday called Fantasy Land : Cursor_’s Paid Holiday Jubilee.
@51 If you’d bother to read anything besides “all for it”, you’d note I was mainly hoping it would be aimed at the news, so news could be news instead of political soap boxes. There’s no way they can successfully censor the internet and trying would be an utter waste of time. And controlling doesn’t mean completely obliterating either. Games have enforceable ratings, why can’t things that are broadcasted through radio or TV have enforceable ratings? Note I say enforceable, not the “oh heads up this might not be suitable for kids” messages.
#53 If you bothered to read ANYTHING you’d know that broadcast and cable fall under different jurisdiction and control. But, I can see that you don’t read…
I’m against censorship. Period. Let the learned pass on their wisdom and the loonies rail.
But is it “Free Speech” when you’re getting paid to do it?
Just wondering.
Heigh-ho!
The War on Misinformation. I like the ring of that. Sorry. In truth I don’t like the ring of that. If I had stopped typing before “Sorry,” I would have had the FCC on my back. Dang.
That this is even being considered is scary. Must be disinformation..I hate that.