Headline: CBS opposed to free speech and an open internet!

It has been fun to watch the traditional media find new reasons to explain why they are indispensable and the internet our enemy. Previously, my favourite ‘story’ had been that traditional media (and newsprint in particular) are essential to democracy.

CBS however, seems to have found a new problem. Check out the line of questioning followed by the CBS reporter in this video as he interviews Jeff Jarvis. As he suggests, the internet clearly promotes some dangerous, unmediated “free speech.” Obviously this new medium must be monitored and mediated (perhaps by CBS?).

Who would have thought that CBS would one day – even implicitly – advocate censorship?

This should serve as another warning. The traditional media is simply not going to cover stories about how they and the large cable companies are trying to restructure the internet in their favour (by directing users like you to their content as opposed to the sites of their choice). Indeed, they are doing the opposite, building the case for why the ‘wild internet’ must be tamed and turned into an online gated communities.

9_oGbQ1VZp8

Thank you to Taylor Owen for pointing my browser in this direction…

[tags]netneutrality, cbs, free speech[/tags]

6 thoughts on “Headline: CBS opposed to free speech and an open internet!

  1. Debra Drainie

    So well said. I’ve also noticed more fearmongering stories in our national newspapers about the dangers of the internet. Shows the democraticisng power of the blogosphere and the fear it creates in those whose interests are threatened. Read Ray Conologues essay in the LRC’s May 2006 issue called Skulking to the Right: The Decline of Canada’s newspapers for further insight.

    Reply
  2. Debra Drainie

    So well said. I’ve also noticed more fearmongering stories in our national newspapers about the dangers of the internet. Shows the democraticisng power of the blogosphere and the fear it creates in those whose interests are threatened. Read Ray Conologues essay in the LRC’s May 2006 issue called Skulking to the Right: The Decline of Canada’s newspapers for further insight.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.