The Futility of Censorship

Here's the great irony: There's more censorship -- all kinds, everywhere, involving more media and culture -- than ever before. But it's doomed to fail. As the Net and Web become more commercial, and as parents, government, schools, politicians, churches and corporations have belatedly grown interested in controlling networked computing and the speech and intellectual property therein, battles over censorship and content -- from school blocking filters to music wars to efforts to curb sexual imagery -- have raged throughout cyberspace. That's why Chicago artist Antonio Muntadas' website "The File Room" may be one of the most significant sites ever created on the Web. Despite relentless efforts to curb art, speech, software, writing, thinking and the free flow of ideas, censorship as a contemporary idea is virtually impossible. The Net killed it, and now the Web is becoming a living, global archive of ideas people want to kill.

Artist Muntadas created "The File Room" (discussed in Steven Wilson's book Information Arts: Intersections of Science, Art and Technology as an archive of censorship, a living record of society's ceaseless efforts to control culture and values. The site uses the Web's global scope to collect and store essays, speeches and artistic works from all over the world which have been subject to censorship, from the Republic of Korea's criminal code to high school newspapers to art exhibits in rural areas city halls. "The File Room" classifies its growing holdings by location, date, media and so-called grounds for censorship.

Anybody can contribute new examples of censorship by filling out a short form on the site, which is also part of an art gallery in downtown Chicago.

The strange dichotomy is that the more censors try to curb information, the bigger and richer "The File Room" grows. Sadly, the site makes clear that the United States -- the creator of the modern idea of free speech -- has become one of the world's most ubiquitous censors. "The File Room" literally feeds off censorship, its archived categories growing all the time -- explicit sexuality, language, nudity, political/economic/social opinion, racial and ethnic, religious, sexual/gender orientation and numerous others. Many of these battles involve the so-called protection of children. The access to information and opinion the Net has given kids is one of the most terrifying ideas of the 21st century.

Beautifully organized -- with sections on visual arts, film/video, print, broadcast and electronic media, public speech, personal opinion, even commercial advertising -- the site has become a trove of ideas, opinions and artworks. It also carries an emotional punch. It's truly moving and outrageous to see some of the works (and thoughts) people and institutions are still trying to kill off. What a curious time -- the most sophisticated and open information machinery in history spreading like wildfire, and narrow-minded idiots all over the planet trying to turn back the clock. There are countless governments and institutions who still believe they can impose their views and values on their children and the rest of the world, if only they can practice censorship.

Online rights is a seminal issue, but the smaller fights sometimes obscure the new and much larger reality. Censorship as we used to know it is no longer a viable option as long as there is a World Wide Web.

Justice Talking

[the_rev_matt]

I highly recommend checking out "Censoring the Web" (Kathryn Kolbert with Zak Mettger). It consists of a debate between Nadine Strossen (ACLU) and Bruce Taylor (National Law Center for Children and Families) along with relevant legal documents and annotation.

http://www.justicetalking.com [justicetalking.com] usually has some decent content...

Re:Cool..

[Anonymous Coward]

how many people are going to report that whole moderation mess in the Oracle thread where the editors kept bitchslapping people who posted in there?

Slashdot, actually, is reporting on itself. One user [slashdot.org] wrote several [slashdot.org] articles [slashdot.org] on that incident, and additionally Taco started a discussion about it in his journal entry here [slashdot.org]. You may note two things:

1) As Taco states in his journal, this only affected a few users who just didn't understand, so it's trivial to the point of being uninteresting.

2) Moderation isn't Censorship. Read the FAQ; it states this plain as day.

Yawn.

Re:Censorship at schools a good thing

[inerte]

but think of this: how would you react if your child, aged 9

Gee.. I don't know. Probaly the same way when we walk on a street and he moves his head to a newstand with porn magazines on it. When we drive and there are 'erotic' theaters around. Better yet, when we among people and someone shouts "Holy sh%t!", or when we are watching TV and the news guy says "30 killed, blood every where, look at their moms crying".

Things that our children are not supposed to see exists in all areas. I guess one of the most important things, is not to 'hide' from them that all this 'evil' exists, but instead, teach them what are the moral paths that a healthy and sane human being should follow to live happier, to not hurt other people.

If at the end of the day, they can divide what is real and what is not, what is wrong and what is good, I said we have done a good job.

That's one of the things parenting is about, right? Inform them what is the best path. I know this might sound harsh to some of you, but take abortion for example. You are denying someone their 'right' to live (personally, I am not against abortion). And so, after they are here, and there, and everywhere, you are denying life itself, by artificially making the world look like it's a better place than it truly is.

But correlating abortion and freedom, I am not taking sides. Just using some points that conservative people usually take. Also, not saying that you are a conservative, that's not a personal reply (since I went to far away from your original point).

I guess somethings can change, but an important question is, should we change it?

Re:Censorship at schools a good thing

[domsol]

The big problem is the false-positive filters. I'll give you a cogent example.

Let's say you're a 5th grader (age 10-11) and you're doing a research project in 2000 on New Media. But your school filters out one of the most prominent new media commentary sites (Suck.com) in a mistaken belief that it's porn.

Let's say you're a 5th grader now and you want to understand what's going on with Enron -- you can't go to Enronsucks.com (or whatever) because of the same mistaken filter.

And of course the whole AOL breast cancer nonsense, and NetNanny filtering the National Organization of Women... well, you see the trouble.

I don't mind school filtering for *little* kids -- sub 10 years old, in general -- but once a kid is old enough to start wanting to gather information independently, the school's filtered computers become useless.

I encountered the first example myself attempting to show a niece some new media journalism at the SJ Tech. Suck was filtered; fortunately, I could still get through to Salon as a poor substitute :-(

Filters aren't a panacea. While I applaud the filtering of the more mature sexual and violence sites, the actual filters I've encountered in .edu type sites are pitiful.

I hope your experience in .nl is better than mine here in the us.