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More YouTube Censorship
J-Mac:
OK, kidding aside, I couldn't find much about what the professor wrote in her paper but if anyone is paraphrasing her accurately then I agree that she seems a bit wacky. At the same time, that whole web site featuring Alex Jones appears to be more wacky yet. Look up "wild-eyed conspiracy theorist wacko" and I bet it links directly to that web site!!
Talk about a pot and kettle! Whew!
Jim
mwb1100:
As far as I can tell, the source of the idea that this professor advocates "pharmacological or psychological treatment" for people who deny global warming comes from press statement about the talk at the conference. According to http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/02/rewriting-history-treatment-of-sceptics-disappears-from-university-of-oregon-press-statement/, that statement said:
Resistance at individual and societal levels must be recognized and treated before real action can be taken to effectively address threats facing the planet from human-caused contributions to climate change.-http://uonews.uoregon.edu/archive/news-release/2012/3/simultaneous-action-needed-break-cultural-inertia-climate-change-respons
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(note: the words "and treated" have been removed from the uoregon.edu page, presumably due to the events that started this thread).
I think it's a stretch to read that sentence as meaning the professor advocates a Soviet-style reeducation gulag for climate change skeptics. Even if you disagree with what the professor actually does say.
In case anyone cares, I'd read that sentence as meaning something more like "... must be recognized and dealt with before real action can be taken..." rather than "... must be recognized and treated with drugs and psychotherapy before real action can be taken..."
Update: Here's a story in the Eugene, Oregon Register-Guard newspaper about this incident: http://www.registerguard.com/web/newslocalnews/27862556-46/norgaard-climate-mann-professor-bloggers.html.csp?print=true
Renegade:
Google can NOT engage in censorship. They're a private entity choosing how they want to use their resources.
-CWuestefeld (April 11, 2012, 12:21 PM)
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It's still censorship no matter whether they're public or private. Censorship is censorship.
However, it is certainly within YouTube's purvey to censor. Sure. No problem there.
But, it would be the exact same case for a restaurant throwing someone out and telling them that black people are welcome there. There is no significant difference. A privately owned restaurant is under no obligation to serve anyone that they don't want to.
a bit longThe same would go for a privately owned bus company refusing to allow children on the bus. Hey, it's their bus.
YouTube is a privately held company owned by Google. It is a UCC or social media site that specializes in video. The key there is "social media". But it has no "theme".
For example, if I were to post a video of cute puppies and kittens at YouPorn.com, I would fully expect it to be taken down, because YouPorn is for porn, and not cute animals. Conversely, most other sites, like Vimeo, have terms of service that prohibit porn.
It is the "terms of service" that laregly defines what is and is not acceptable at a site. The video that was pulled by YouTube did not violate the terms of service. That is censorship.
So the question is, do we treat large media or social media sites as media and demand a certain level of integrity, honesty, and tolerance?
Again, it is certainly within YouTube's purvey to censor.
But that still makes them censors in the same way that kicking a black kid out of your restaurant makes you a racist, or blocking 2 men (or 2 women) from getting married makes you a homophobe.
Now, it's not my place to say whether you or anyone else can or cannot be a racist or homophobe or censor. I just think that they're all douchey.
I'm willing to be that each of you would willingly engage in this same kind of "censorship". If someone came into your home -- even with an invitation -- and started saying insulting things to your family, wouldn't you ask them to leave? It's your home, and you're well within your rights to control the kinds of things that others do there.
-CWuestefeld (April 11, 2012, 12:21 PM)
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I don't really think that's a valid comparison. A private home is not comparable to a private business. We have very different standards for them.
My restaurant example above is closer.
Indeed, our system needs to work this way. We recognize that the government must not interfere with people's ability to speak, but that doesn't mean that we want to have profanity and porn displayed on every street corner. Instead, we rely on the values of the people to exert social pressures on each other, so that the overall cultural values are preserved.
-CWuestefeld (April 11, 2012, 12:21 PM)
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The censorship in this case was simply someone disagreeing with a position and making a joke that didn't include any profanity or obscenity.
We have the right to hate people of different races, or whatever - but that doesn't mean we should. Same for censorship. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
Renegade:
OK, kidding aside, I couldn't find much about what the professor wrote in her paper but if anyone is paraphrasing her accurately then I agree that she seems a bit wacky. At the same time, that whole web site featuring Alex Jones appears to be more wacky yet. Look up "wild-eyed conspiracy theorist wacko" and I bet it links directly to that web site!!
Talk about a pot and kettle! Whew!
Jim
-J-Mac (April 12, 2012, 12:40 AM)
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http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/30/climate_scepticism_racism_slavery_treatment/
The discussion, she said, is comparable to what happened with challenges to racism or slavery in the U.S. South.
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http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-san-diego/climate-change-activist-kari-norgaad-equates-skepticism-with-racism
Climate change activist Kari Norgaard equates skepticism with racism
Global warming alarmist, Kari Norgaard, equates skepticism about climate change to racism. They have been labeled with many names, but skeptics now endure the most egregious, insulting, name-calling of all.
So, who is Kari Norgaard that we should worry about whom she calls racists? Miss Norgaard is a member of the Sociology Department at the University of Oregon and current caller of climate catastrophe in ‘Planet Under Pressure,’ a climate conference in London. She presented a paper calling for climate change skepticism to be treated as a 'sickness' or mental illness.
...
So, yeah, I am alarmed by Miss Norgaard and the way-off-scale sociological socialists in her academic neighborhoods. They have ignored the hard science of climate change, have not noticed that the debate goes on, and are using the perpetuated lies to gain power over people. Their arguments appear logical at first blush until the ‘sickness’ they see in others manifests from within themselves. An alarming cancer is growing within the global warming alarmist group.
This reminds me of the scarey stuff we read about in George Orwell’s book, 1984. Is Big Brother watching us? No, Kari Norgaard is.
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2123260/If-dont-believe-climate-change-sick-Oregon-professor-likens-skepticism-racism.html
The scientists behind the event recently put out a statement calling for humans to be packed into denser cities so that the rest of the planet can be surrendered to mother nature.
And fellow attendee Yale University professor Karen Seto told MSNBC: ‘We certainly don’t want them (humans) strolling about the entire countryside. We want them to save land for nature by living closely [together].’
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The difference between Alex Jones and pretty much any other site that reports on the same material, is that he'll say what he thinks or give some analysis, or simply call something for what it is, or point out the obvious implications that people don't want to hear.
The entire "conspiracy theory" stuff is just a tool to shut down debate on a topic. More often than not what people call "conspiracy theories" are really just plain old pieces of history that makes people uncomfortable. e.g. The US regularly uses false flag attacks, just like it did with the Gulf of Tonkin incident that it used to drag the American people into war in Viet Nam. Sure - lots of people will call it a "conspiracy theory". It's just history. There's nothing controversial in saying that the US government lies to its people on a regular basis in order to drag the country into wars. History proves it.
So, yeah... If knowing a bit of history makes someone a "conspiracy theorist", I guess Alex Jones is. I guess I am as well.
But isn't it strange that a lot of these inconvenient facts never seem to make it into most history books... Hmmm... ;)
Censoring history? :P Yeah, I'm not a fan of that either. ;)
tomos:
Update: Here's a story in the Eugene, Oregon Register-Guard newspaper about this incident: http://www.registerguard.com/web/newslocalnews/27862556-46/norgaard-climate-mann-professor-bloggers.html.csp?print=true
-mwb1100 (April 12, 2012, 01:19 AM)
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thanks for that :up:
it confirms my suspicions that the attack, while based on something all right, is also very distorted (intentionally, or simply through lack of responsibility i.e. presuming she meant something from one word and not actually checking) and grossly exaggerated.
“I don’t think this is a space where there’s a real public discourse,” she said. “It’s obvious to me that people aren’t interested in what I actually have to say.
“These are personal attacks. ... If you’re interested in my work, read it. It’s OK to disagree about things, but do so in an honest way and don’t attack people personally.”
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Me, I'm tired of all this BS where people pounce on something and rant and rave and exaggerate and ignore. How abouts getting back to good old down to earth responses. All this ranting and raving only serves to marginalise... I for one would love to see a real dabate about what's going on with climate change but dont trust anyone at all at this stage - well especially not people who rant and rave about the other side. It like mutually exclusive religions - and unfortunately both sides are treating it as a belief thing, and adding lots of unhelpful attitudes into the mix.
Not having read her paper (have any of us read her paper?) I cant say I honestly trust any representations of it here or linked here. I mean it *sounds* like it's over the top, but I know that very many of the "against" people -yeah, just like very many of the "pro-people" ;-) love to exaggerate and generalise without actually quoting very closely - or giving decent references, or maybe without even quoting at all...
I reread any quotes I could find linked here or linked from the pages linked here, and nothing I found quoted actually said what people said she was saying. Now possibly that's because she said it in too wordy a manner. But I think if you're going to attack someone so personally, why not make sure people can believe what you say (that she said) ?
-tomos (April 11, 2012, 11:47 AM)
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