Too rude for YouTube

YouTube, the online video-sharing site, has recently been called on to remove ‘animal cruelty’ clips from its sites, reports The Times. The clip that most ‘distressed’ viewers shows a goat being squeezed to death by a python whilst onlookers laugh in delight. Teachers have further called for the site to be banned in schools, due to ‘cyber-bullying’. Hentai (the more violent strain of Manga) should be removed, according to its Japanese makers, because its posting violates copyright. Still, most violent scenes from Hentai episodes have been cut from YouTube, leaving surreal senseless narratives and montages set to eighties dance music. Rumours of a blanket ban in Thailand have yet to be confirmed, whilst the Chinese are marching ahead launching their own version also to be available in train stations.

Having successfully created a ‘false’ account (I was a 37-year old man, but both ‘paedo’ and ‘paedophile’ were unavailable as names, as were ‘despot’ and ‘goatkiller’), I searched for ‘offensive’ clips of animal death. I discovered they aren’t difficult to find, but most are for pro-animal rights campaigns; and even then, they’re just not very good. Let alone original. It’s not the depiction of animal killing that people complain about, but the fact that it’s not condemned. Likewise, it’s not so much the depiction of tentacle rape, but the thought that you might get off on it.

This censorship is both petty and pointless: it attempts to crack down on certain actions by attacking the products of animal cruelty, bullying and copyright violation rather than their root causes. If you don’t buy into animal rights, or think bullying is part of growing up, and are too broke to pay extortionate DVD prices - in short, if you think that things weren’t actually better in the 1950s, and that people should get a life and get over themselves - it is patently ridiculous.

If you shared the vision of the internet finally providing unlimited access to information and facilitating the open exchange of ideas without monitoring and moralising, think again. YouTube is supposed to be a forum for individuals to upload and watch whatever they like - a sort of free market of clips - with demand set and met by a community of users. Viewers rate clips from one to five stars, with higher-rated material returned first in searches, ensuring greater distribution.

But then comes the need for centralised intervention - users must complain to admins if a clip is “inappropriate”, and these mysterious admins decide whether to take any notice. Often media coverage puts pressure on the site. Extra vigilance and tighter control is justified by the existence of ‘digital-paedophiles’. Governments restrict access and companies attempt monopoly through asserting financial pressure. The python-killing-goat clip apparently had three stars (mediocre), but this played no role in any discussion about its removal. Nobody complained about bad camerawork or boring storyline; just as nobody pointed out the set up was sort of innovative, the image fantastical.

With the ongoing rise of social networking sites promising peer-to-peer relationships and community control of content, which offer unfettered spaces for expression and discussion with likeminded people, the anaethetisation of YouTube is a sorry sign of people’s pettiness. It shows our apparent inability to create alternative spaces where we can truly be free, and signals the stunted potential of self-governance on the web.

Sarah Boyes

Debate at the Tate

On Friday 1st June the Tate Britain hosted a debate on the limits of freedom of speech. The event was advertised as an inquiry into the principles of free expression and what could constitute the moral imperative to transgress the law and exercise the right to speak out. The assembled speakers promised an engaging discussion. They included Lisa Appignanesi, Deputy President of the English branch of PEN, a worldwide association for the protection of writers’ rights to free expression; novelist Hari Kunzru; Claire Fox, director of the think tank the Institute of Ideas; and Maya Sikand, a criminal defence barrister. So it was unfortunate that free speech was not discussed more than it was. Instead, much of the argument centred on the current exhibition by Mark Wallinger, which displays the assembled placards, banners, flags and posters of Parliament Square protestor Brian Haw.

Nonetheless, the event provided a brief but compelling insight into the health of contemporary free speech debate. The chair, Lisa Appignanesi, opened the discussion by highlighting what she saw as the two principle restrictions on freedom of speech: security and the need for social harmony. She also stressed the need for free speech advocates to address the conflict between the right of the individual, usually an artist, to free expression and the right of a larger group to express itself in opposition to it. She added that in such cases the government usually sides with the majority, citing the example of Gurpreet Bhatti’s play ‘Beshti’, which enraged parts of the Sikh community, whose protests forced the play to close. However, she did not explore the issue further.

The second speaker, Claire Fox, offered a far more comprehensive analysis of the need for limitless free speech and the role it plays in shaping contemporary attitudes. She argued that one of the effects of multiculturalism was to encourage various groups to identify themselves as victims in need of protection. She went on to say that although legislation enacted to protect such groups may not directly affect the praxis of free speech for ordinary people every day, it still creates an atmosphere whereby people are entitled to feel offended by certain statements or viewpoints, with this entitlement leading to the proscription of the offending views. The consequence of such an atmosphere was a cultural conformity, with a dominant orthodoxy holding sway on the majority of current issues, from the environment to immigration.

Maya Sikand seemed slightly overawed by the discussion. When she was asked by the chair whether or not there should be limits to free expression, she replied that there should be, but seemed unable to explain why. Hari Kunzru was similarly evasive, and instead focussed on the current exhibition and the legitimacy of artistic protest, a topic that was to dominate the rest of the debate.

What made the debate so disappointing, but ultimately instructive, was not so much the lack of attention that the keynote issue received, but the conspicuous absence of coherence and intellectual rigour in the arguments employed by the panel. With the exception of Claire Fox, none of the speakers attempted to contextualise and explore the intellectual basis of the free speech debate. It is all very well saying that free speech is a good thing, and that we should have more of it, but this does not amount to a defence, or even a debate. As part of a coherent argument in favour of free speech, it must be shown why here and now, in this particular place, at this particular time, an unqualified right to free speech is necessary. Free speech is not a fringe issue that only touches a select group of extremists and artists. A suffocating discursive atmosphere that encourages people not to speak their mind for fear of offending others or saying the wrong thing or getting sacked is something that affects us all. Nor is free speech independent of contemporary social and political issues. It is absolutely fundamental in shaping our response to those issues: when certain views are excluded for being offensive or contrary to mainstream opinion, the spectrum of debate of a particular topic is narrowed, which can lead to artificial consensus. So the notion of a robust discursive culture is not a luxurious ornament: it is necessary to the critical exploration of politics and society, and thence to the political and social health of the nation. As such, it must remain at the forefront of public discussion. The poverty of argument on show on Friday suggests that there isn’t enough debate on this issue. Greater discussion of free speech will develop a more rigorous and coherent intellectual arsenal for its defence, and, if the debate at the Tate is anything to go by, free expression currently stands in dire need of stronger arguments and stronger arguers.

Beau Hopkins

Showing the race card

With depressing predictability, incoming Fifa vice-president John McBeth is to be investigated by a new ethics committee following some unguarded comments to a group of Scottish Sunday newspaper reporters. The former Clyde FC chairman's brief with football's international governing body - assuming he still gets the job - will be to tackle corruption, and he suggested that the African associations are particularly guilty: 'I know two or three whom I'd want to count my fingers after shaking hands with them', he said. Inevitably this has provoked charges of racism. In reality, McBeth's only crime was to be in possession of conventional prejudices about Africa (which may be well-founded in this case) in lethal combination with a sense of humour. He also joked that he only got Britain's vice-president slot because everybody hates the English. Didn't he know football bureaucrats are supposed to be boring?

Dolan Cummings

Making Offending An Offence

Enough has been said, on speaking our mind and elsewhere, about the 'blogging code of conduct'. Tim O’Reilly’s proposal will undoubtedly remain a point of discussion as it gets taken up by bloggers and commentators around the world. Most recently, Tessa Jowell, UK Minister for Culture, endorsed the idea in a (very lightweight) speech to Progress. She then elaborated on it on the Guardian’s Comment is Free blog on Wednesday 2 May. It is easy to dismiss this: firstly one can ridicule her air-headed effort to re-brand the public sphere, including the new virtual space provided by the internet, as ‘Ourspace’ (yes, she is soooo 'in' with the kids). Secondly we can mock her attempts to legitimise the call for speech codes: on the Guardian blog, she unfavourably compares degenerate online discussions to the ‘boorish’ House of Commons, thereby evading any charges of elitist condescension (‘us lowly MPs ain’t perfect either’) or hypocrisy. But both these approaches miss the point. What is at issue here is a more profound discomfort with incivility.

Witness the recent attempt by five MEPs (from all sides of the political spectrum, harmoniously united against 'hate') to coerce internet service providers (ISPs) into including an injunction on hosting ‘hate sites’ in their terms and conditions. Never mind that such a policy is bound to fail and will never eliminate 'hate sites' (or indeed hate/prejudice/discrimination itself). What is at issue here again are two separate, but connected, ideas. Firstly is the idea that 'consumers' of information cannot cope with offensive material. This has been widely commented on here at speaking our mind. Secondly is that 'producers' of information, or indeed anyone engaged in online person-to-person or group discussion, has an obligation to behave 'reasonably'. The concomitant idea to this is that discursive activity online can (and should) be regulated by some external authority or by a pre-determined compact between participants and the host. This is incorrect: it is high time we stood up for our prerogative to be uncivil.

There is no a priori code that must be adopted before entering the public square. A truly free public space means we can be uncivil, disruptive, unpleasant, subversive or aggressive if we want to. Of course, I do sincerely hope that the standard of discussion on the internet improves beyond the name-calling and harassment we find today. But faced with establishmentarian exhortations to 'be nice', I think I'll politely decline. Faced with the prospect of a placid and passionless public space, give me puerility and pugnacity any day.

Alex Hochuli

A tyranny of one

The British House of Fraser chain has pulled a promotional poster from its 61 department stores across the UK and Ireland after one woman complained that it was ‘racist’. Promoting this season’s fashionable colours, the poster declared: ‘Black is back, White is right.’ The woman who complained said these words reminded her of a 1960s racist poem. The store’s management pulled the ad, seeming to accept the woman’s assertion that the marketing team must not be very ‘culturally aware’.

Society has always had its fair share of self-appointed moral guardians, usually groups of individuals with that unfortunate combination of over-sensitivity and over-zealousness. Such illiberal groups, made up of hundreds or just scores of people, have been able to convince individuals, businesses and councils to back down over the merest slight or ‘risque’ advert or campaign – and thus to police public space and debate. Yet now we have moved from the tyranny of the minority to the tyranny of the individual, where one seemingly thin-skinned complainant can determine what is appropriate for the rest of us to see and hear. This is more pernicious than anything Mary Whitehouse’s army did in the past - and it is happening more and more.

Read my full article on the new tyranny of the individual at spiked - click here.

Alex Hochuli