Google vs China: A Battle of Two Evil Empires

Google did something rather unexpected this week. They told the People's Republic of China where to stick their censorship. Google's Gmail service had a major breech of security several months ago. It was discovered last week that the Chinese government had been behind it. Of the email accounts hacked, several belonged to Chinese democracy advocates. Google claims that no critical information was stolen.

In response to the hacking, Google launched back more than a warning shot. They shut down all censorship on Google.cn, the Chinese portal. Several years ago, the company had instituted censorship on the search engine to appease the PRC. People visiting Google.cn were barred from searching for terms such as democracy and the Tienanmen protests. That is until last week when Google refused to comply in retaliation. The company is now debating whether they should continue to operate in this country. Google's mission has always been to give people free and easy access to information. That's why they came under such heavy criticism from Western human rights and free speech activists when they volunteered to comply with Chinese censorship in the first place.

There is some debate as to why Google is pondering leaving the PRC. Some say that it's because rival Chinese search engine Baidu is taking over their market in that country. Regardless of the case, it's a major blow to a country who has often considered itself invincible to foreign criticism over its poor human rights track record. If Google pulls out, it leaves a huge gap in Chinese access to information. China has been aggressively attempting to muzzle anything online that sheds the Communist Party in a bad light, that the government finds immoral (such as pornography or Falun Gong), or inspires reformers and democracy advocates. However, much like in Western nations (such as wired neighbour's South Korea and Japan), the Chinese have come to rely on the convenience and economic benefits that the internet provides. Much of those benefits are provided through companies like Google. Stopping the information flow would be a major setback.

Of course Google leaving does benefit the PRC somewhat, in that they can gain tighter control content through domestic, or even state owned search providers. It's bad for people who were talking advantage of Google's supposed security to hide their pro-democracy and pro-human rights activities. In fact, the Communist Party may end up on top eventually should Google leave. In the mean time, they've exposed themselves wide to attacks from reformers and Western critics after this little international incident. Maybe more will be inspired to oppose the socialist oligarchy that has held an iron grip on the country for 60 years. Now if only other Western IT companies would show the same balls and refuse to bow to censorship, we'd be laughing. I'm looking at you Mr. Gates and Mr. Balmer.

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An Email From Tony Clement on Bill C-61

A while ago, I wrote my MP in regards to the resurrection of Bill C-61, also known as the "Canadian DMCA", which proposed sweeping changes to Canadian copyright law that I felt were inherently anti-consumer and anti-free market. Interestingly, I received this email on Friday claiming to be written by Tony Clement, the industry minister. It's your typical generic form letter but it's nice to actually hear back from a government official.

Thank you for your e-mail expressing your views on an Act to Amend the
Copyright Act, or Bill C-61, which was introduced in the last Parliament.

In my view, the Copyright Act must continue to reflect current
technological and legal realities, while supporting innovation and the
needs of consumers. Adequate protection for Canada’s creators must be
balanced against the access needs of Canadians. As you may be aware, Bill
C-61 died on the order paper with the dissolution of Parliament on
September 7, 2008. At this time, I am carefully reviewing the copyright
bill, taking into consideration the views of stakeholders in order to
determine the appropriate next steps in the reform process. In this
regard, I am working closely with my colleague, the Honourable James
Moore, Minister of Canadian Heritage.

Once again, thank you for writing, and please accept my best wishes. Rest
assured that your concerns will be taken into consideration as we move
forward on copyright reform.

Yours sincerely,

Tony Clement

This doesn't sound promising though. However, it's a good example as to why you should write MPs about major issues. Often the only way to get heard is to talk to them directly, or make a big media fuss. I prefer to do both.

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Is Oz Becoming an Online Police State?

I don't really talk about the politics of other nations that often beyond the Americas. However, I can't help but find myself asking what the heck is going on with Australia. In 2007, the centre right Liberal Party of Australia was replaced with the left wing social democratic Labour Party. Since Kevin Rudd was elected Prime Minister, the country has started taking a disturbingly authoritarian turn. I've been closely following the continuing saga on Internet censorship within the country. For years, conservatives have been warning people about the dangers of left wing nanny statism. Banning smoking in cars with kids, or banning pesticides and coffee cups to keep people politically correct might seem pretty harmless but it is, to use an oft complained about term, a slippery slope. Australia has been doing what many other left leaning democracies in the west have been regarding the Internet. The basic idea was to enact a law and bureaucratic body which would blacklist websites dealing in child pornography. Internet service providers would be required to block these sites or face a fine. Those linking to those sites would also face an $11,000 fine. The concept is noble enough and I don't dispute that child pornography on the web is a vary serious issue. However, problems occur when there are no checks placed on the bureaucracy in control of what should and should not be censored. The biggest danger is when governments keep information on what is censored censored. This is the case within countries such as Australia and Denmark.

Whistle blower website Wikileaks had obtained a copy of a censored web sites list being used by the Danish government. The site soon found itself blocked by Australia. The same site managed to obtain a copy of Australia's secret list of blocked sites. On it included an American anti-abortion website as well as the innocent websites of a dentist and a tuckshop owner. Online gambling sites, Youtube links, Wikipedia entries, sites on euthanasia, legal pornography, fringe religions, fetishes, Christianity, and that of a tour operator were also blacklisted. The Australian government claims that the list is not genuine. However, media investigations seem to indicate otherwise. Reports have also come out regarding the censorship of adult content on the Internet (R and X rated) to protect children. I took a quick look through the list and discovered several legitimate porn and gambling sites including Milkmanbook (legal erotic art) and Pokerstars. This is the vary slippery slope I talked about. A tool originally just intended to filter out child porn websites is being cast wider to get rid of things the government does not approve of. Right now it may seem alright to get rid of what are widely considered social vices such as gambling and legal porn but the blocking of the anti-abortion website and particularly of Wikileaks is cause for great concern. Wikileaks has been highly critical of the Great Firewall of Australia.

Currently, most of what is on the list legitimately deserves to be there, but how far is it until the government starts manipulating bureaucrats into blocking website belonging to their critics and political opposition. This would make Australia no better than the People's Republic of China or Chavez's Venezuela. Simply put, these blacklists don't work because they are too easy to abuse. The great danger to us Canadians is that a similar firewall could easily be implemented here. Once we start restricting people from certain types of information, and more importantly restricting people from knowing what is restricted, we loose our democracy; even if the original intention was to protect the greater good.

You can visit Wikileaks for more information on this issue, including the list. I warn you not to view any of the links it contains. UK based technology site The Register has also been following the story closely.

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Canadian Content Laws Foolishly Archaic

Flashpoint, an action/cop drama TV series was picked up by CBS before CTV did. Apparently, it's quite popular in the United States. It's also a Canadian show following a fictional group of elite Toronto police officers, filmed in Toronto, and produced by CTV. Degrassi: The Next Generation, another CTV program, is also hugely popular in the US and has been picked up by many so called "Superstation" networks. This is why it puzzles me when the CRTC keeps saying that there need to be Canadian content regulations on Canadian airwaves in order to protect Canadian media from being overshadowed by the United States. This sort of concept is just so mind bogglingly archaic in the information age. The CRTC now wants to try and project this power to the internet, an impossible task which would likely involved increased censorship online, opening up a huge can of worms if they limit what sites Canadians can visit.

Back in the 1940s & 1950s, Canadian airwaves were dominated by by American broadcasts. It was thought that these were poisoning the minds of Canadians so the CBC, the government subsidized network, was created to provide Canadians with more "highbrow" programming that was exclusively Canadian. However, laws limiting what could and could not be broadcast didn't come in until much later. They appeared in the 1970s under everyone's favourite liberal fascist Pierre Trudeau. Since then, the government mandates that media providers in Canada must be Canadian owned and must dedicate a minimum percentage of broadcast hours to Canadian programming. I do not have the data in front of me but I believe it is about 8% to 20%. Off course, these laws were created at a time before satellite TV became popular, and long before the internet became a third television medium. We claim to be a multicultural society yet we still hold onto these archaic laws. I'm sure many Canadians would love access to TV programming from their own countries without being harassed by the CRTC for it not having enough "Canadian" content. Canadians who wish to use American satellite services are harassed for buying "grey market" dishes just so the CRTC can keep Starchoice and Bell in a duoopoly.

Shows like Flashpoint have proven that Canadian content can succeed internationally in the internet age without the long arm of the government propping them up, as they do with the never ending list of bad CBC programming. Arguably, the Internet has been a powerful medium to broadcast our content through sites like Youtube. It costs very little for Canadian artists to produce their own TV series and upload them to the web. Any sort of web regulation protecting this is totally unnecessary and just another case of a government body attempting to overregulate. Forcing Canadians to watch Canadian content is no longer an appropriate way to go about things. Rather, the government should be encouraging investment in our nation's media industries to encourage them to produce more high quality content that people would actually watch. US networks have shown that Americans do enjoy our stuff as long as it's not about weird sex and snow shoes, as one movie title on the Canadian film industry put it. Lets end broadcast censorship in Canada and openly embrace the digital age as a new way to showcase our tallent to the world.

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The Dangers of Fairness

Those following American politics might be familiar with something known as the Fairness Doctrine. The nuts and bolts of it would basically require radio broadcasters to devote equal time to differing opinions. The Democratic party is strongly pushing for this bill as they feel they are being underrepresented on the nation's airwaves. For many years, radio has been dominated by right wing talk shows. Liberal shows such as Air America have been introduced but are considerably less popular. Therefore, the Democrats feel the need to force broadcasters to give them an equal voice, or so they say. There has been a lot of talk about the Fairness Doctrine lately but it is nothing new. To my knowledge, the concept was originally introduced during the Clinton administration but was later shot down by house Republicans. Now that the Democrats, who control the executive and both houses, want to resurrect it.

On the outset, such a law would make sense as you don't want one view to have too much air time. However, it is curious in the fact that the Doctrine singles out radio. Most major television and print media in the United States has a liberal bias. The New York Times, USA Today, CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC are all liberal. It is commonly claimed that they are in fact Conservative despite no proof to back this up. Sean Hannity hardly anchors all of CNN alone and Ted Turner is as much a raving liberal lunatic as you can get. FOX News is the only mainstream Conservative TV news network in the country. If the Fairness Doctrine was truely fair as it claims to be, it would also apply to the liberal dominated television and print media, yet it does not. I applies only to conservative dominated radio. So I guess controlling 95% of all media is not enough for liberals and to make things truly fair and balanced, they need to control 97.5% of it. What we have here is blantant censorship by liberals to try and scilence conservatives. If it had been a case of the other way around, there would probably be mass outrage. The media is still a business and should give consumers what they want without government control impossed on it. If liberals can produce a successful program, they should fully be allowed to do so. Conservatives have done this, with hugely popular radio personalities such as Rush Limbaugh. For a group that always claims to be under attack, it seems that American liberals are the ones launching most of the attacks, and abusing their law making powers to do so. Of course this is different from political ads during elections, where a demand for balance accross all networks in regards of allowing advertising is reasonable.

Canadian media is a little different. Could this happen here? Possibly but the Canadian government has done a pretty good job at staying out of the media, notwithstanding the ludicrous "Candian content" rules.

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The Why Files: School Bans Oh Canada

Every so often, I come across news stories regarding strange rules or behaviour and I just have to ask myself "why?" In the first of what I hope will be a continuing series, lets head over to New Brunswick and to Belleisle Elementary School where the principal has scrapped the daily tradition of singing Oh Canada before classes.

A principal's decision to eliminate the morning tradition of singing O Canada at a tiny New Brunswick school has sparked outrage among parents across the country and renewed a heated debate about the encroachment of political correctness in the classroom.

Principal Erik Millett of Belleisle Elementary School in Springfield, N.B., a small community about 90 kilometres southeast of Fredericton, scrapped the morning ritual in the summer of 2007, citing concerns from several parents. But the issue failed to gain much notice until this week, after a mother complained about the policy to local media.

The debate has since traveled to the upper echelons of government, drawing a sharp rebuke from federal Veterans Affairs Minister Greg Thompson, who said publicly he views Mr. Millett's decision as an assault on a proud tradition.

For his part, Mr. Millett has stood firm behind his decision, offering a myriad of reasons for nixing the morning anthem - most notably the effort to accommodate parents who did not want their children taking part. Citing privacy reasons, he has not explained the source of the parents' objections, whether religious or otherwise.

"Is it right or is it fair for children who are not allowed to sing the anthem to be forced to?" Mr. Millett asked in an interview with the Telegraph-Journal newspaper. "Different families have different beliefs.... It's not up to me as a school administrator to subject kids to something their parents don't want them exposed to. I have to protect the minority rights as well as the majority rights." --National Post Thursday January 29th, 2009

Well, this is certainly odd as I cannot find anything possibly offensive about singing our national anthem. I do know that New Brunswick does have a sizable francophone population but I was unaware of any strong separatist movement existing there, so that rules out that as reasoning. Maybe it has to do with immigrants being offended by it, to which I ask "why are you even in this country if you don't like what it stands for." Most likely, it's political correctness run amok and creating victims of "offensive" content where none exist. For making a fool of himself for the tireless practise of trying to hard to be inoffensive, Erik Millet, you're being inducted into the Idiots Hall of Shame.

I'm also adding Google to the Idiots Hall of Shame because of the way Blogger handles bold and italics. Why is it I can't turn off italics after I've written something using it. I hit the button to turn it off, it shows it is unselected, yet it continues to write in italics. Could somebody please fix this?! Blogger has been a bit squirrely lately, which is why some of the text layout in my recent posts looks off.

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The Broken CCRF

"Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;"

I thought I'd just confirm that with the Justice Department since I believe a lot of people are not wholly clear on this little tidbit. The line comes from Section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, a constitutional document that guarantees the rights of all Canadians. Your rights are enshrined here to protect you from abuse by the government. Despite this, there are certain people within the Canadian government who break the charter on a regular basis. These are the judges and tribunal commissioners who misuse the bench as their own personal soap box. This week, the Moon report was released. It painted a critical picture of the way human rights trubunals are held in Canada. It was drafted partly in response to the Styne/Macleans fiasco that happened over the summer of 2008. The problem arose from section 13(1) of the human rights code that deals with how human rights abuses are to be handled. It found that people were abusing the tribunals to silence any criticism of their particular group. The Moon report called it blantant government censorship. It stopped short of closing the door completely on censorship by noting that documents that deliberately incite violence against minorities should still be prosecuted.

The problem though is not simply with the human rights tribunals but the way the vary legal core of the country has evolved since Trudeau "brought home" the constitution in 1983. Are Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is chock full of vague language and legal loopholes. In fact, the first section of the Charter opens the door wide open for its abuse.
"1. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society."
The reasonable limits clause is defined by Supreme Court Justices and lower courts but that wording in itself is fairly meaningless since who gets to determine what a reasonable limit is? This was how the tribunals came to be misused. Censoring any language that could possible be deemed to incite hatred or is bigoted in any way is considered a reasonable limit to your Section 2(b) rights. This segues into my previous article back in June that dealt with Macleans and Styne. Who exactly gets to determine what is unacceptable language? The tribunals certainly aren't made up of legal experts. Is it them determining what should be censored? These tribunals often poke their noses into issues, looking for problems that are not actually there. Now, I'm not defending people who are genuinely trying to incite hatred. That's a common misconception of what free speech crusaders are trying to do. We believe you should be able to say whatever you want, no matter how stupid or wrong. Someone with an opposing view should have the right to openly disagree with such statements as well. This is how democracy works. If we cannot say things that may offend, then we are not a democratic country at all, not even close.

Currently, you as a Canadian citizen have been given a list of supposed rights. However, the government has no obligation to maintain them. That's clearly listed right in the document. In fact, it's one of the only things that is clear. They can have some rights trump others, or choose to omit entire sections if they so choose. Often, it's non-democratically elected judges making these decisions with an impotent Parliament just keeping mum on the subject. There is nowhere in the constitution that says you have a right not to be offended. In my opinion, the Charter itself needs a serious overhaul to prevent these abuses from ever happening again. First of all, Section 1 and Section 33 need to be removed entirely. Section 33 being the infamous Notwithstanding Clause that allows Parliament to take a whole host of basic legal rights and fundamental freedoms away. There are other parts of the CCRF that I object to but these two sections are indeed the most troubling. If Canada wants to call itself a proper democracy, its constitution needs to reflect that by providing no path for a government to abuse our free speech rights.

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Naked Culture: On Canada's First Homegrown Porn Channel

The media has been mulling over a recent CRTC decision made early this week over Canada's first homegrown pornography channel. The channel will be known as Northern Peaks, and is based out of Edmonton. The CRTC was originally created by the Trudeau government as a federal tool for maintaining Canadian culture. For the most part, this has involved and endless string of tired CBC shows about Muslims living in Saskatchewan, comedy shows that air well past their prime, and bizarre movies that nobody will see. Why the CRTC feels that Canada now needs its own porn channel is a bit of a mystery to me. Do we really need a homegrown alternative to Playboy? The debate recently has got me thinking about the nature of our naked culture that we have in North America today.

I feel that we in the west are drowning in our own sexuality. Today, sex is easier to get than ever, and its not just the "world's oldest profession" that's flourishing. Since the mid 1990s, anyone with an internet connection can now log on and see as many men and women as they like doing acts that are said to border on art to stuff that's downright vomit inducing. The problem is that the proliferation of pornography has desensitized our society to sex. When Playboy first hit news stands in the 1950s, it was considered to be scandalous but its now pretty tame compared to what else is being offered. Pornography no longer needs to be purchased and hidden notwithstanding a quick clear of your browser cache.
Religious groups and radical feminists have long been declaring that pornography is evil and should be banned. (For the record, this is about adults over 18, not child pornography) Their reasons for doing so vary though I believe they are largely correct, though it's the solution that I have a problem with. You can argue all sorts of moral and ethical reasons to ban porn. Others have plenty of reasons not to ban it. One of the most common reasons against banning it is that it features consenting adults and in a sexually liberated world, they should be able to do and make money however they choose. The problem I have is with the term "consenting". One of the sad realities is that many of these so called consenting adults are college students desperate for money, or those who are victims of human trafficking. In the case of the former, many girls who need money for school or other habits will often turn to selling their bodies for hardcore sex filmed on camera. Its a quick and easy way to make a lot of money. The latter opens the window to a much darker world. Impoverished and naive girls, from South-East Asia (Thailand and the Philippines being particularly infamous for this, but it is more widespread) and Eastern Europe (former Soviet Bloc) get roped in to sex slavery. Some are sold by their own parents, those who are too uneducated and poor to know what they're getting their daughters into. In this case, they may be adults over the age of consent, but they certainly are not willing participants. We cannot confuse these young men and women with the likes of Ron Jeremy and Jenna Jamason who have made livings and enjoy doing it. Unfortunately, the desensitized public doesn't want that anymore as they seek more and more to fill in their high. For those who consume pornography, it becomes all to easy to forget that there is a thinking, feeling human being on the other end of the camera. I think we all to often focus on those consuming porn rather than those being used in pornography's production. Consumers though are victims in a way. Many men and women have become addicted to chasing the high pornography gives, thus further spreading the misery it fuels. Pornography is a cold, heartless, and mechanical mode of entertainment. Consumers are ultimately the reason for it to exist in the first place.

Clearly pornography is morally and ethically wrong on many levels. However, should it be banned? I have been staunchly anti-censorship for many other cases but this is one of those issues that leaves me conflicted. Banning adult pornography is not going to get rid of it. A ban in this case is simply not realistic. If you ban something like that, you run the risk of pushing it underground. In that case, it can open the door for all sorts of horrific abuses and further increase human trafficking. The demand will still be there, and as long as there is demand somebody will always be there to fill the market. It is currently a legal product and at current, we can exercise some control over it. We can require domestic producers by law to protect their employees from STDs, pay them fairly, and treat them well. The problem is the stuff we can't control; that is porn produced in foreign countries using human slavery and other less-than-willing subjects. In that case, it should be treated in the same way in which we have demonized other negative social habits such as drunk driving and cigarette smoking. Unfortunately, you cannot realistically criminalize it since it's not as black and white as child pornography is. It would be impossible to prove whether the person knew or not that the subject was a sex slave who was being abused. The public should be made blatantly aware of the mistreatment that goes on in an attempt to discourage people from consuming it. More government control should be exerted over domestic pornography produces, not to censor what they are doing, but to make sure employees are not being abused.

So what about Northern Peaks? I can't say I approve of this channel but for the reasons I mentioned, it allows some government control over what the producers are doing in order to keep employees safe. I don't think they should stop them since its their freedom of expression to air that content. By the same token, they should not be openly encouraged to do so by the government. They should also not receive any federal funding to produce "Canadian content" on the station. As Trudeau famously said, the government does not belong in the bedrooms of the nation. However, it should also not be providing fuel for the home fires either.

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China: Where Every Day is 1936

It was several months ago now when many people, including myself, wanted the West to boycott the Olympics in Beijing similar to what was done with Moscow in 1980. The critics called us selfish for even insisting that "hard working" athletes be denied from going to the games. They felt that maybe opening China to the world would bring about some real change. It is not surprising that in 1936, many people felt the same way about the Olympics in Berlin, hosted by Hitler and the Nazis. During the games, all hate media disappeared from Nazi Germany only to return shortly there after. The Olympic stadium even became a staging ground for party rallies. If one and only one positive thing can be said about the Nazis, they were competent. They managed to fool the world by sweeping their mess under the rug. The savages that make up the Chinese Communist Party can't hold the same claim. The real question is what's worse: an incompetent and brutal dictatorship or the West that naively believed them when they said they'd make the country more open.

China has made major strides in liberalizing itself since the death of its insane communist leader Mao Zedong in the 1970s. Ironically, just as Russia still does with Lenin (despite the collapse of the Soviet Union), they keep his mouldy carcase on display for his loyal followers to view. This is the same country that gets upset at Japan for still having shrines to it's WW2 dead. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. How many died during the Cultural Revolution? (a recent report suggests between 750,000 to 1.5 million. Imagine all of Toronto being wiped out) Attempts to liberalize the country have so far been cosmetic and mostly economic. They still imprison people for merely speaking their minds. Delusional left wingers here in the West usually counter criticism of the PRC as being the results of cultural differences between us and them. If they want democracy, it's the west that has pushed them towards it, so they say. I guess Tienanmen really didn't happen using their logic. Unfortunately, the real issue is how impotent the West really is when it comes to influencing dictatorships like this one. There is a fear of rattling the tiger's cage. Is it that we're afraid they'll put economic sanctions on us? What, no more lead based toys and poisoned dog food? A real shame. As I noted before, despite Steven Harper repeatedly pressing China on human rights, nobody in either the Conservative, NDP, or the Liberal parties seriously brought up the idea of boycotting the Olympics. So here we are in August, the games are only days away, and already China is starting to reconsider some of the special allowances it was going to give even foreign visitors. There are mixed reports as to whether Internet censorship and the Great Firewall of China would be brought down. In all likelyhood, the Internet will remain locked down. Some are saying China is now going to limit what foreign visitors can post and view. There are also strict limitations on where foreigners can go. Even the types of cameras being allowed into the games are being tightly regulated. Spectators are forbidden from using SLR type cameras. Are we to be surprised by this? The way the Western media is putting it, apparently so. All this shows to me is that the Chinese government never had any intention to open up and allow new freedoms, either to its guests or its own citizens. China will continue as it always has to unjustly occupy Tibet and imprison & murder it's own citizens for speaking their minds or believing in something the government doesn't approve of. Unlike with the Soviet Union, the PRC has plenty of foreign dollars to feed the beast and keep its rulers afloat. We are, though indirectly, to blame for what goes on in that country. Democracy is not a Western construct only for Western peoples but it is something that is and must be universal. No country's regime can call itself legitimate if it doesn't allow its citizens to speaks their minds. China's people have demonstrated on numerous occasions that they want freedom, yet we just ignore it. It becomes the CNN headline of the hour and fades off into the blackness of our collective psyche by the next. If the West had some balls, we could have embarrassed communist China for its crimes. In the end though, 2008 is no different from 1936.

You can still act. Here's a list of some things you can do to boycott the Beijing Olympics on your own. Be thankful that you can choose whether you want to do these things or not without government interference. If I can even influence one person to join in on this, I've done my job.
1. Refuse to watch the Olympics on TV. You could also write the CBC and tell them why you won't be watching the games.
2. Hold a peaceful public protest against the Olympics
3. If you know an athlete or spectator going to the Beijing Olympics, politely voice your disapproval. Inform them of the consequences of their actions.
4. Do not congratulate medal winners. Once again, be polite about it. If you know them personally, let them know you are disappointed in them.
5. Write your MP and tell them how you disapprove of Canada not boycotting the games.
6. Refuse to shop at places or use services that sponsor the Olympics. Don't buy or accept any Olympic merchandise. The IOC gets royalties for the use of its logo. Doing this will hurt them financially.

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Musings On Macleans, York U, and Islam's War on Words

Islam was thrust into the spotlight in 2001 when several religious zealots hijacked American planes and crashed them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. It's one of those events where you can remember exactly where you were and what you were doing at the time. In the nearly seven years since then, I've had a lot of time to muse on the nature of terrorism and Islam. While not all Muslims are terrorists, all the terrorists involved in 9/11 and similar atrocities were Muslim. I ultimately believe that the West did not push the Middle-East towards this and the events were orchestrated by a mad man. However, the wars in Iraq and strained relations with Iran have done little to help the situation in recent years.

On the home front, Islam has been fighting a war of words against the West, or rather a war on words. The religion has found it very difficult to deal with Western styles and multiculturalism. Islam has taken an lesson from Scientology and is now using the legal system as a method to attack and ruin their critics. Currently, journalist Mark Steyn and Macleans magazine are being hauled in front of the BC Human Rights Tribunal for "smearing Islam." The Canadian Islamic Congress called the Steyn article hate speech. The article in question was called The Future Belongs to Islam. The article basically brings up the issue of a weakening Global North. Islamic youth, who are one of the fastest growing segments of the global population, are further becoming radicallized and will change the shape of the world. You can read it for yourself and make your own judgements. Islam certainly isn't the first religion to use the legal system to attempt to silence critics. I already mentioned Scientology, who is currently fighting with Wikileaks and internet group Anonymous. Christianity as well has a very long history of doing this. What makes Islam any different? The answer is nothing, but that still doesn't make it right.

Hate speech tends to be a very subjective thing. Who determines what is offensive? An individual, a group, or a government? Who determines how severe the offensive remark or piece is? That's the ultimate problem with this kind of censorship, it's a slippery slope. There is no set formula for determining hate speech, nor can there ever be. The government simply defines it as something that incites hatred, which is a very vague statement in itself. People need to realize that words are words, not weapons. In an open and civilized society, if someone makes a remark you disagree with, you are entirely free to counter that position. The issue at stake here is that interest groups can now use your own words as a weapon against you. The problem with human rights tribunals is they're nothing more than kangaroo courts. They are not proper courts of law but rather civilian bodies stocked with civil servants. They are considered the lowest rung of the legal ladder and they do answer to the higher courts. The fact that you are being put on trial by people who may or may not be trained and qualified justices is something disturbing. The tribunals can't really do much other than to smear your good name. There's no guarantee you're going to get a fair trial. They are not required to follow precedent. Much of what goes on gets twisted in legal babble and psychological warfare. If hate is against the law, why aren't the courts dealing with it? I suppose people would be up in arms if that happened. Canadians as a whole are less tolerant of censorship than Americans are, at least concerning the explicit variety. The tribunals present a more implicit form of censorship since they tend to fly under the radar of the media. Many Canadian news outlets have failed to even discuss these issues.

A double standard does exist when it comes to hate speech and how Canadians deal with human rights. Such cases of this can be seen at Canadian universities. I picked York University, located in northern Toronto as one case study since it happens to be one of the most pronounced local cases of this happening. It's student's union has made pushes to censor and dispel any debate on campus. Their basic argument is that you can have debates on issues, such as abortion, as long as you tow our line. The abortion debate was one of the more recent cases when the student's union met for an emergency meeting a couple weeks ago and decreed that pro-life groups on campus would no longer receive funding in an effort to silence them. I consider myself pro-choice but I find this to be an appalling case of deliberate censorship at an institution that is supposed to openly encourage unencumbered debate. Islam falls into this due to similar issues over the debate of Israel. To me, the whole Israel-Palestine conflict has seemed childish. The whole conflict has been over a small strip of land out in the dessert that people on both sides are willing to slaughter children for. To me the optimal solution would simply be to unite the two sides into a federal republic with two semi-autonomous provinces. This would certainly be the civilized way of doing things. While religion does play a role in the Israel issue, it is really over who controls what land. However, other Muslims have chosen to highlight religious tensions to distort what is really going on. Many universities have begun to hold "Israeli Apartheid" weeks in which Islamic students and their socialist comrades protest all things Jewish. These frequently turn into mini-riots with Jewish students being harassed. If these events involved white men adorned with Nazi tattoos and sheets over their heads, we would call this racism. If the students perpetrating these acts are Muslim, suddenly it becomes an expression of their beliefs. Sorry, but I'm going to have to call this out on what it is. Muslim students that participate in these events and the students unions that allow this to go on are racist and anti-Semitic. I suppose it's interesting to note though that Karl Marx, who students unions love, was an anti-Semite himself despite having Jewish ancestry. I'm hardly an appolegist for the Jews. I'm rather indifferent towards Israel. However, I do feel that these campus unions are so deeply hypocritical when campus hallways are adorned with posters that tell you to denounce racism and create a positive learning space. The problem is that most students do not vote in student council elections. I admit that I never did. The reason was because they all ran on nearly identical socialist platforms. I could vote for either Team Yellow or Team Orange but either way, I'm going to get the same thing. If I do not support that, I have nobody to vote for. It seems that everything on campus now is religion or ethnicity based. Things like the chess club of old have been replaced by the Chinese Students Club, or the Christian Club, or the Muslim Club. It seems to me that universities are becoming more exclusive rather than inclusive. The social engineers always proudly refer to Canadian multiculturalism as being the tossed salad compared to the United States' melting pot. However, I'm not sure this is really working to anybody's benefit. The universities are a shining example to the failure of this thinking.

The face of our country is changing, that's a given. Whether this has been a positive thing or a negative one is up to an individuals own interpretation. The issue is different groups essentially abusing the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the legal system to launch attacks at one another. This I think we can all agree is a very negative thing. The goal of the Charter was to encourage unity, not divisiveness. Canadians cannot let go of the values we've spent 130 years building simply because some group finds them offensive or incompatible with how they lived back in their old country. There should be a sign at every immigration line at the airport saying "Welcome to Canada, you're Canadian now, leave your past and current conflicts at the door". We badly need to adopt the US melting pot if we're going to survive in a multicultural society. Our current salad bowl policy is going to lead to disaster.

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ACTA Grossly Unconstitutional

Should your constitutional rights be violated in order to protect a statute right of another individual or corporation? By statute rights, I mean a law that is not part of the constitution. Of course you're going to say no. However, there is an increasing movement to do so under a new trade agreement known as the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). This new agreement deals with international copyright. Over the past 10 or so years, the amount of abuse copyright law has taken has been steadily increasing as content providers try to put the "internet genie back in the bottle", as one writer put it. The ACTA however brings this to a new low and in my opinion is grossly unconstitutional.

This new agreement was first leaked on freedom of information champion Wikileaks the other day. It will be tabled as an international agreement at the G8 meeting in Japan in a few weeks time. The agreement would turn border guards and public security personnel into copyright police. All laptops, iPods, and other media devices being brought across borders would be checked to make sure they do not contain pirated media. Under the agreement, this would include rips of CDs and DVDs that the user has legally purchased. Anyone found with pirated content would have their device confiscated or destroyed. In an interview with the Victoria Times Colonist, David Fewer from the University of Ottawa Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic noted that "the process on ACTA so far has been cloak and dagger. This certainly raises concerns." The agreement also gives authorities the ability to act agaisnt copyright infringers without complaint from the rights holder. Michael Geist, also from UofO and copyright law expert told the National Post that "The lack of consultation, the secrecy behind it and the speculation that this will be concluded within a matter of months without any real public input is deeply troubling." Both men noted that the agreement would be almost impossible to back out of once in place. The deal would also impose strict restrictions on internet service providers, forcing them to hand over information without a warrant.

Right from the get go, the ACTA violated both the Canadian and US constitutions. We've all heard of police stopping black men just because they are driving a nice car. This is no different. The way the law is set up, just because you own an iPod, you're a pirate. The part where internet providers would have to hand over information without warrant is also worrying. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees that all Canadians have the right to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure. What separates this from inspecting bags for weapons or drugs at the airport is that there is no possibility of endangering the person's self or others with your iPod. The agreement also violates the Fourth Amendment of the United States for the same reasons. Of further concern is the fact that this agreement has been kept under wraps from both parliament and the public. That tells me that the respective governments of the countries involved did not want the public to be aware of this. Such an agreement has wide raging implications and should be discussed before parliament. The problem is that trade agreements are not laws and thus do not have to be.

The last issue of concern is the fact that this agreement seems poised to eliminate the provision of "fair use" under copyright law. Under the ACTA, every single person who owns a computer or MP3 player is a pirate. Everyone who has ripped a CD for their personal music collection is a pirate and should have their property taken. Originally, Digital Rights Management software was used to limit what you could do. As this has proven unpopular, media distributors have turned to the toughening the laws. This is the bottom of the barrel for a long range of steps by content providers such as the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to attempt to remove every single right you own for legal products you legally purchased. When it comes to purchasing media, we are on a long walk of a short pier when it comes to removing consumer rights. The government should not be in the business of handing content providers with these outlandish laws and trade agreements. The government's only role should be in protecting consumers and let the market handle manufacturers. Governments recently in the western world have been taking disturbing authoritarian turns for these special interest groups. At one time, we used to refer to this as corruption but now it's just business as usual. This needs to stop.

What needs to be done is a complete revision of copyright law ensuring consumers some reasonable protection and freedom of use for media they have legally purchased. This would involve the outlawing of Digital Rights Management. Also needed are iron clad fair use laws that allow people to use media in any way for personal uses provided they are not distributing it for financial incentive. As the digital media age progresses, we have slowly lost the rights we once had back in the age of analogue. It's time we take them back. To borrow a line from the skaters, listening to my iPod is not a crime.

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Stephen King on Game Censorship

Boston's mayor Menino may not be dead but his brain sure is. He's the latest to speak out on the supposed harms of video game violence. This comes on the heels of a Massachusetts law that would ban the sale of violent video games to people under 18. Stores who violate this law would see heavy fines. The king of horror Stephen King though has come out blasting the law. He is concerned about the politicians acting like "surrogate parents". King is quite right. Lazy parents are turning to the government to raise their kids for them, and this sets a dangerous precedent.

You can read the article about King here.

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Art Spiegelman on Political Correctness

Art Speigelman is well known for his graphic novel Maus, about a Polish Jewish family during the Holocaust. He is in Toronto for a lecture on censorship. An interview with the National Post explains his views on political correctness what it's not just conservatives that need to be concerned about it.

Politically Correct 'Fever' Grips Canada

His lecture is tonight at 7:30pm at Isabel Bader Theater at UofT St. George campus.

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David Suzuki: To Protect Planet, End Democracy

If you're Canadian, chances are you're familiar with David Suzuki. He hosts the low rated CBC nature show "The Nature of Things". He also has a doctorate in genetics and holds the Order of Canada. Recently, he's become a very controversial figure due to his increasingly radical views on climate change. While on a university tour recently, Suzuki remarked at the University of Toronto that politicians who fail to act against climate change should be jailed. In his opinion, failure to act is a crime. A Freudian slip maybe? No, he reinforced the remark again while speaking at McGill. His publicist noted that his remarks should not be taken literally. I'm curious how they are meant to be taken though.

These remarks remind me of the movie Being John Malcovich, since it allows us to walk inside the reads of the radical environmental left. We'll take the assumption that his jail comment wasn't to be taken literally but it does show us one important factor. That being that Suzuki feels that democracy is harming his cause, and in order to stop that, we must eliminate democracy. If a democratically elected official does not agree with our agenda, then me must make him/her "disappear". We've long been joking that denial of global warming has become equated to denial of the holocaust, but it seems like people such as Suzuki are making that closer to a disturbing truth. Terry O'Neill of the National Post wrote "We should also not be surprised at the intolerance that permeates Suzuki's "lock 'em up" rhetoric. After all, despite the multicultural mantra that we "celebrate our differences," there's a disturbingly illiberal tendency these days (as shown in the recent "human-rights" prosecutions of Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn, for example) to censor those with whom one doesn't agree. It's only a very small step to try to throw such disagreeable persons into prison, too. " Due to how weak the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is on ensuring our Section 2 rights, I would tend to agree.

I refer to people like Suzuki as eco-fascists. I don't use fascist to only define right-wing since I believe there are left wing fascists. Josef Stalin, Fidel Castro, Mao Zhedong, and Kim Jong Il are perhaps the best known. It's becoming increasingly totalitarian and it's almost taking on a religious mantra. It would not be an issue if there weren't sizable portions of the population taking people like Suzuki seriously. The issue has come to dominate the left, yet at the same time is rejecting nearly everything the left wing supposedly stands for in the west. The deniers need to begin protesting and becoming more vocal, to stand up to radicals like Suzuki. Let them know that they are wrong and their trash is no longer going to be tolerated. No liberty, no green.

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YCJA Unconstitutional

First post in some time. Unfortunately, this one begins on a sad note but also deals with the theme of censorship that I frequently discussed in 2007. Toronto's first homicide of the year saw a young, 14-year old girl stabbed and left for death in a snow bank. The accused killers are a 15-year old girl and her 17-year old boyfriend. At this point, these two have not been tried and details about the murder are yet to emerge in court. However, my point here is that the Youth Criminal Justice Act of 2001 is failing victims and Canadians as a whole. Furthermore, I believe it to be unconstitutional.

In Canada, youth under 18 are protected from adult sentencing and having their identities released to the public. The goal of the YCJA was to protect young people who make mistakes such as stealing a car or taking drugs. I think the majority of Canadians agree that young people make mistakes and shouldn't have their names forever dragged through the dirt for trivial issues. The problem comes when the same treatment is applied to youths who commit violent crimes such as armed robbery, assault, attempted murder, and murder. Such crimes are not mistakes and you can't honestly tell me these kids didn't know what they were doing. Youths convicted of these crimes will only go to jail for a maximum of five years in a youth facility. Most will not see the inside of a prison. Furthermore, they are entitled to a full university education at these facilities worth up to $100,000, courtesy of the tax payer. What makes the latter infuriating is the huge number of law abiding youths struggling to pay tuition and student loans. The newspapers have dubbed this the "hug-a-thug" attitude. It seems in general that our justice system, judges in particular, are not taking violent crime seriously.

The last straw for this unjust law is the fact that the YCJA is unconstitutional. It violates Section 2b of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The section that guarantees "freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication." Shielding youth who commit violent acts such as cold blooded murder is not a reasonable limit on Section 2b. The public has the inalienable right to know who these people are in order to protect themselves, especially from violent youths who have a high risk of re-offending. Any justice who tells you otherwise should be immediately removed from the bench. Once again, judges are the weakest link. This is blatant censorship by the justice system. A system that has a long track record of not fully disclosing its practices. The goal here is not to expose youths who have made the mistakes, those who have summary convictions. Those who knowingly commit indictable, violent crimes are a whole other story.
While on this topic, I'd like to discuss the failure of the media as well. If they know the names of these youth, it is their duty as responsible journalists to report them no matter what punishment the government has for it. The fact that the media is complying with this unconstitutional law only shows how apathetic, partisan, and weak journalism has become in this country.

I doubt any of this will change soon. The justice system is filled with hardcore liberals who use their position on the bench as their own political soapbox. Anybody who thinks judges in Canada are impartial is only fooling themselves. Once again I reaffirm my past proposal for a non-political, civilian body of inquiry that reviews questionable decisions of judges. Furthermore, the same body should be in charge of appointing and confirming judges in order to avoid patronage and politics from entering the courtroom. This is how things are done with the Supreme Court in the United States.
Lastly the YCJA needs to be completely scrapped and replaced. The new act should include mandatory adult sentences for youth who commit violent crimes. The act also needs to remove the censorship aspect for those who commit indictable crimes.

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Censorship in 2007: Fahrenheit 8-12

Of course you can't examine censorship in the media without talking about book bans. The title of this article refers to Ray Bradbury's dystopia novel Fahrenheit 451, about a book burner in an anti-intellectual, hedonistic society. 451F is the temperature books supposedly burn at.

Now, our society has moved somewhat past burning books but the spirit of it is kept alive. The latest furor over a book comes with the Golden Compass, part of the "His Dark Materials" series written by Philip Pullmen. It is a children's fantasy book written for ages 8-12. It was originally published in 1995 according to Wikipedia, though it's only attracted attention recently due to an upcoming movie based on it. Now, what makes this particular book so controversial is the supposedly anti-religious overtones in it. Now, I haven't read it but I've heard enough commentary and analysis that I feel I can talk about it to some degree. The Catholic Church is perhaps the most vocal critic. Other religious figures feel the book should be banned from schools, other want it banned entirely. The Catholic League in the US has been waging a sort of holy war against it. According to leader William Donahue it "denigrates Christianity" and promotes "atheism for kids" and that the author is "trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief." My response to this is so what? Organized religion seems to feel like it's under attack yet it is more visible and popular that it has been in decades. Moreover, if a child decides to become an atheist, why is that so wrong? Many religious people view this as leading children down a moral sewer and to eternal damnation. Apparently, that's justification for banning the book. Such statements are most likely made by people who are uncomfortable with their own faith.

It wouldn't be the first time Christians have tried to ban books for children for the same reasoning. The hugely popular Harry Potter franchise was heavily shelled by these people since it was claimed to promote black magic and the Wiccan religion. Same goes for R.L Steine's Goosebumps series. For once in ages, we are actually getting kids to read without forcing them and they put it down as being evil. Fortunately, banning books is illegal in this country as well as in the united states due to Freedom of Expression rights. Of course there's always the perennial anti-censorship argument that societies that burn books will eventually burn people. I agree with this statement, though not necessarily in the literal sense. Atheism has been under heavy attack to the point of persecution in the US and many other countries for a number of years. Mind you in the US, some atheists certainly aren't helping their cause by trying to counter religion. In this case, passive resistance works best. If the Golden Compass is anti-religious, it brings up the chance for parents to discuss religious issues with children once they get older, instead of shielding them from criticism. People need to be exposed to new ideas so they can reaffirm their views. If they choose to change them, so be it. Banning books is not the answer.

Myself, I do not believe in god and I will defend atheists. I will also defend Christians in cases such as attempts to ban nativity scenes and such. Freedom of speech is an inalienable right. Neither side of the religion debate has the right to take it away from the other, and nor should they.

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Censorship in 2007: Regulation of the Internet Dangerous

A group of artists based in Quebec has determined that the internet needs to be regulated to protect Canadian content and should be subject to the same rules as TV and Radio. I ask, is this really necessary? There's the obvious argument here that Canadians aren't interested in Canadian content at all. The proof in the pudding is all the Canadian programs on the CBC that get very low ratings yet remain on the air just because it's Canadian content. Is such regulation really protecting Canadian culture or is it just another form of censorship?

Canada is unique in that we are supposedly a multicultural society. I argue that based on this, regulation of TV, radio, and the internet in order to preserve Canadian content is inherently un-Canadian. We are supposed to be embracing other cultures and any limits placed on our ability to do so is counter to this. So what if we are swallowed by American culture. We already have been. This art group is only attempting to have the internet regulated because they are not good enough to compete on the global stage. It's typical socialism. If we can't compete, lets force everyone else out.
Regulating the internet to require a certain amount of Canadian content is an impossible task since it is so large and there are literally billions of websites in existence. The only way to do so would inherently require censorship by blocking websites from the states or forcefully redirecting Canadians to Canadian websites even though they do not want to visit them. The CRTC already does this forceful redirection with TV broadcasts and that too is wrong. The internet was supposed to be an open arena to access information. Any kind of regulation or censorship is dangerous and un-Canadian.

Besides, as the internet is an open arena, there are no restrictions on what Canadian content can go up there. Professer of Law and Technology Michael Geist at UofO correctly pointed out that there is a lot of Canadian content online and a lot of it is from Quebec. In fact, Canadians are some of the biggest internet users on the planet, all adding their thoughts and creative ideas to forums, podcasts, Wikipedia, Youtube, etc. All this is viewable by anybody in the world, unlike TV and Radio. Also unlike those other two mediums, putting content online is relatively cheap. It costs nothing to post an art film on Youtube so why would they need government regulation and subsidies to help them. Based on the National Post article, scholars are not on board with this. Once you open the door to regulation, it doesn't end there. Not only do you start regulating what content goes up there, but who can post it and what kind of content is allowed and what isn't. This same issue is strongly evident with the issues over the FCC in the united states where a bureaucracy and a handful of special interest groups control what's exceptable to put on TV and radio. If you regulate the internet for any purpose, you destroy it.

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Censorship in 2007: The Internet

I was originally going to talk about China for part 3 of this series. However, this topic has a great deal to do with how China has been censoring its people. It's not simply a Chinese problem but a global one.

The internet, with all it's faults, is truly one of the seven wonders of the modern world. We live in the information age, of course you knew that or you wouldn't be reading this. I can discuss politics with someone in Europe, or play an online game with someone in Japan. Amazing to think that only 15 years ago, that was impossible for the majority of people. The internet was originally created as a free and open environment to share knowledge and information around the world. It does that job quite well. In recent years, this has become more true with the introduction of Web 2.0, so the buzzword goes. This blog, as all blogs are, is part of this concept. This also includes online forums, Wikis (such as Wikipedia), video sharing (such as Youtube) and social networking sites. The internet has become such an integral part of our daily lives worldwide. As such, the demon of censorship has begun to take notice. There are generally three types of censorship that occur on the internet. Government, corporate, and private. Lets take a look at them.

GOVERNMENT CENSORSHIP

Government censorship of the internet in North America isn't very common, not that it doesn't happen but it's still very rare. Cases of such usually include "hate" sites. In other countries, it is far more common. China is perhaps the most notorious. There exists the Great Firewall of China, which monitors all incoming and outgoing internet traffic from the country. Chinese internet users are required to use their real names when posting to blogs and forums. Also, China has blocked certain information from being accessed. In China, if one does a search of the Tieneman Square incident, they will be told this information is prohibited. China's oligarchical government does this to insulate itself from criticism and possible rebellion if people were to find out what actually happened during these events. Though China is no longer a communist country in the traditional sense, the government still operates on the Soviet/Maoist model and is very secretive. China will punish citizens who post information that the government disagrees with. The Chinese government has also put online gaming under their radar and will forcefully "treat" people who seem to be spending too much time in these games. Shock treatment (aka electro-therapy) is sometimes used.

China isn't the only country that does this. Cuba is yet another example that we have plenty of information about. Cuba is a more traditional communist country. Cuba has a state owned "intranet". Cuba's censorship of the internet is harsher than China's in many ways since it doesn't allow most people to access the outside world. When it does, it monitors them heavily. Cuba's reasoning for doing this also somewhat differs from China's. Their idea is to keep Western influence out of the country.

Turkey is another country that has been in the news recently for banning Youtube due to a video that insulted the country's founder. The ban was repealed. Morocco is also suspected of banning Youtube though there is no solid evidence as of yet.

Other countries with substantial and pervasive censorship of the internet include Iran, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Uzbekistan, Tunisia, Syria, Myanmar, Maldives, North Korea, South Korea, Brazil, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.

At this point though, as I know there are some people who think this is censorship, I'd like to draw the line at child pornography on the internet. This is not free speech. It is a criminal activity and I find it acceptable for governments to block those sites.

CORPORATE CENSORSHIP

Corporate censorship of the internet is not as pervasive as government censorship but it does exist. Perhaps the best example is this blog's host, Google. The problem with Google is the fact that has given into certain demands from highly censored countries such as China. Google China prohibits searches for certain topics. Yahoo has done similar things for France and Germany concerning neo-nazi material.
There is also the case of corporate groups such as RIAA and the MPAA trying to censor file shares.

Corporations have also been known to censor employee email though filters to make sure they cannot receive personal emails at work. They have also been known to censor websites. The idea is to keep employees focused on work, but it is still censorship none the less.

PRIVATE CENSORSHIP

Private censorship of the internet is the most common type of censorship that most western internet users will encounter. Particularly with the way in which private, non-corporate websites deal with their members. Comments on this blog as well as it's (unused) companion forum are unmoderated. Private forums tend to be particularly bad. Most forums will censor certain words to avoid being flagged by search engines and attracting undesirable attention. For example, words such as "porn" will be censored to prevent it from being accidentally flagged as a porn site. Swearing may also be edited out of posts if the site has many young visitors. These are both understandable. Most of these communities are heavily moderated, and that is where the problem lies. Moderators on these forums are there to maintain the site and handle member disputes. However, some become overzealous and abuse their power to delete posts and remove people that they have disagreements with, no matter the severity. These sites are not compelled to comply with free speech laws. Censorship here is much more implicit but is a reoccurring problem.

Another topic of private censorship of the internet concerns the recent treatment of sites such as Myspace and Facebook. The latter in particular has become hugely popular here in Canada, especially in Greater Toronto with as many as 600,000 members in that region.
This stems from anti-bullying laws and the new concept of cyber-bullying. There are several recent examples of students being suspended from school for expressing their dislike for teachers and fellow students at school. This type of censorship is done under the guise of anti-bullying but has become more of a way of solving personal vendettas. Since this action happens outside of the classroom, this calls into question school authority concerning the issue. In my opinion, once the bell rings and the student is off school property, then school staff no longer has authority over them. This is what has made the recent Facebook suspensions concerning.


Internet censorship is indeed becoming a concerning trend in society, especially since it was never meant to be censored. Aside from government and corporate censorship, it has now opened the door for private individuals and organizations to censor other web users in order to fulfill their own agendas. It's high time to put the breaks on this trend and return the internet to what it was originally intended to be. The obvious solution is to lobby governments to extend freedom of expression laws in the constitution to apply to non-government organizations and private individuals as well.

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Censorship in 2007: Venezuela

Part two of our look on censorship in 2007 looks at one of the great enigmas of politics in the Americas. That would be Venezuela under it's socialist leader Hugo Chavez. Communism was marred with censorship and abuse of citizens. This is a simple truth that has occurred in every country that has signed onto this political and economic doctrine. Since the fall of the USSR, it has been dying a slow death. There are only five communist countries that remain: China, Laos, Vietnam, North Korea, and Cuba. Arguably, China is communist only on paper now though the abuses continue, which I will address in part three of this series. Vietnam has also largely followed China's path.
So communism is dead, but in comes Hugo Chavez. A mid-ranking military officer, he staged two coup attempts in 1992 against the Venezuelan government. He later became president in 1999 through democratic means. (There is definitly parelles that can be drawn between Chavez and Hitler here) He was briefly removed from office in 2002 after an anti-socialist coup but regained his position two days later. He is the leader of the Fifth Republic movement, an increasingly radical socialist movement that seeks to dramatically change the country. Since Chavez's landmark reelection in 2006, the movement has become increasingly radical. At a recent visit to the UN, he referred to US president Bush as the devil. In ironic choice of words in my opinion considering his political stance and the events of 1992. Chavez hails Fidel Castro, Cuba's long time president. In many ways , Chavez wishes Venezuela to become the next Cuba. He is attempting to stamp out private enterprise, and many of the country's industries have been nationalized under his rule. Chavez has gained a vast number of supporters across Venezuelan society.

The problem with Chavez comes with his treatment of those who do not support the Fifth Republic movement. Though they are the minority, they are a large and vocal one. According to Chavez, they are also a threat to national security. This week, the Chavez government denied RCTV, a popular TV station based in the capital of Caracas, a broadcast license renewal. The station will remain on cable TV (which the vast majority of Venezuelans don't have access to) and will be replaced by TVES, a pro-Chavez, public television station. This move has outraged the Venezuelan political minority. Chavez cited a few reasons why the license was not renewed. He claimed the TV network has supported the 2002 coup attempt against him, something that RCTV denies as the station blocked off by demonstrations during the events. He also claims that the station corrupts the masses through it's pop culture entertainment programs such as soap operas and a popular satire/comedy show that often pokes fun at Chavez. RCTV was the only opposition aligned TV station in Venezuela that has a nation wide free-to-air broadcast range. Today, there are none. This further solidifies Chavez's power as he now controls the media. Any good revolutionary knows that one must control the media to control the country. Chavez has known this since his first coup in 1992. However, by doing this, Chavez is leading Venezuela down a very dangerous and all too familiar path. The government has threatened severe punishment if RCTV broadcasts illegally. This basically cuts off any opposition to his leadership. Without a voice, the opposition will shrink and Chavez becomes a dictator, and Venezuela yet another totalitarian country. I somehow doubt that this is what Venezuelans bargained for when they first elected him. Social change does not mean social silence and no revolution can be legitimate if it doesn't allow people to speak their minds.

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PAC

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