Tag Archives: media

The Day in Print

Two interesting pieces out today:

Veronica Kitchen and Karthika Sasikumar published an op-ed in today’s Globe and Mail. Entitled Air India’s Lesson for Promoting Security at Home it discusses how human security needs not only to be championed abroad, but is a basic principle that should be used when designing security policy at home.

Also, Peter MacLeod sent me this interesting piece in the Hill Times about the (failed) Liberal Renewal Commission. As many of you know most of the Liberal Renewal Commission reports were never formally published or translated. Several of those on the commission released their reports independently after the fact. I’ve posted links to three of them here.

Free Speech? Free Culture? The Limits of Freedom in Canada

If you haven’t had a chance yet, check out this excellent article in The Walrus about why Canada – the home of America’s greatest comics – has such a hard time producing good political satire on the home front.

The problem? Canada’s libel laws chill free speech (not to mention good comedy). Rebecca Addelman outlines it beautifully in her article: “In a stubborn refusal to adhere to the modern legal status quo, defendants in a defamation case here bear the burden of proof—that is, they are guilty until proven innocent. Our law presumes that the defendant’s words are false and that the plaintiff has been damaged by the accusations. Unfortunately, “I was just joking” is not a defense.”

Problematically, this issue isn’t limited to comedians. Do you have a blog? Ever linked to a blog? Then you too are exposed. As this blogger learned, anyone, even those who just link to something potentially libelous, could be exposed.

Welcome to the limits of free culture.

The next big rights debate (and major piece of any new progressive agenda) could be around whether or not we establish a legal infrastructure that ensures citizens can assess and shape our country’s political and public discourse online. It’s already starting to bubble up in the US. Check out this amazing story about how Digg, fearing it might be breaking the law, tried to censor its own users.

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

6 Replies

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]

Online debates

Who knew a comment piece about Vimy and the Peace Prize would lead to a debate about whether or not Angola was Cuba’s Vietnam? Less difficult to understand (although perhaps only somewhat) is the debate about whether Pearson would be in the Conservative Party if he were alive today.

Finally, one highlight moment is when “Popeye Dillion” tries to refute my friend Robin Anawak (who unlike Popeye uses his full real name in the online discussion) by stating “Asif, you and Robin must be ‘newbies’ to this country…”

The top 10 hits of a google search of Robin’s name all refer to him. In three of these, the two sentence summary under the link indicates he is Inuit. Yes, you don’t even have to go to the webpages.

Robin is no newcomer, his family has been here longer then almost all of ours… but more importantly, why did it matter in the first place?