Monthly Archives: May 2014

HOBBIT: DESOLATION OF SMAUG (CENSORED), funniest/best moments, unnecessary censorship parody recap
Once again, starring Dr. Watson from Sherlock as Dildo Daggins aka Bilbo Baggins. In anticipation of There and Back Again / The Battle of the Five Armies, let #39;s look back at the awesome movie...

By: NinjaPandaProductions

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HOBBIT: DESOLATION OF SMAUG (CENSORED), funniest/best moments, unnecessary censorship parody recap - Video

Editors note:Geoff Yang is a founding partner at Redpoint Ventures.

Intellectuals for centuries have campaigned against censorship. From Ben Franklin to John F. Kennedy to Justice Earl Warren, the argument has been much the same: Censorship is antithetical to democracy. More recently, megastar Jay-Z reiterated the point in his 2011 book, Decoded, writing simply that we change people through conversation, not through censorship.

Its pretty hard to argue with Jay-Z let alone Franklin, Kennedy and Warren. But I find myself, uncomfortably, thinking more favorably about the concept of censorship as we in Silicon Valley grapple with the emergence of several social networks built around the concept of anonymity. Companies like Whisper and Secret, among several other lesser-knowns, have attracted outsized attention and funding as the next generation of social media platforms. While each has its own unique features, they all allow users to send messages to groups without names attached.

Let me first say that anonymity can be a very good thing. Having the ability to speak freely without fear of repercussions can spark honest discussion about important, delicate or emotionally charged topics. Just being able to share feelings and fears within a supportive network can be a productive mental health exercise and even connect people in meaningful and fun ways. Upstart Secret, for one, has shown strong success in the quality of discourse on its mobile app. It isnt perfect. I mean, some of it is silly and some of it is a little mean and petty. But overall, its much better than I expected. In general, the content is about real emotions, real fears, real aspirations and real desires.

Part of the genuine nature of the conversations on Secret stems from the fact that users are only sharing their personal reflections with people somehow relevant to them, as they come from their personal networks (via phone contacts). Secret is more like going to a masquerade ball with your friends versus being in a completely dark room with a bunch of strangers. You sign on to Secret with a verified identity and then can exchange messages anonymously with other people to whom you are digitally connected to, and who are also on Secret. This is an important distinction and works because the lack of total anonymity on Secret forces users to refrain from sending truly offensive messages they may otherwise send if they were among strangers. Deep down you worry that people might be able to figure out who you are.

I think of Secret as qualified anonymity, and this aspect of a companys network is hugely important in establishing both credibility and value and why startups like Secret have a shot at real success. But it is not enough by itself.

Here comes the tough part. As abhorrent as the concept of censorship is to many people who embrace the ideals of anonymity, including me, we need censorship to keep the dimly lit corners of cyberspace safe. It is just too tempting for people under the protection of anonymity to devolve into irresponsible and immoral behavior.

We have all seen how damaging it can be to offer an unbridled platform for the worst kind of human impulses, particularly for teens. Prejudice, bigotry and sheer meanness can easily proliferate, transforming a winning concept into little more than a digital bathroom wall.

That is why any platform leveraging anonymity will have to have some group of moderators that delete inappropriate and dangerous posts in real time and then banish those posters from the site forever. To be clear, I am only in favor of striking comments that are truly hateful or dangerous. Unpopular or controversial viewpoints that are part of honest discourse should be allowed to flow freely.

Whisper, for one, has already hired dozens of employees whose sole job is to constantly monitor the site for inappropriate content. These are important actions because they ensure consequences for behaviors that deliberately cause harm. To purists, it may inhibit free speech, but to me its no different than why we prohibit people from yelling fire in a movie theater when one doesnt exist.

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The Case For Censorship In The New Social Age

DW: A lot of the discussion around this particular landmark case, which involved the Spanish data protection agency and a Spanish man against Google Spain and Google Inc, has centered around the distinction between a data controller and a data processor. But underlying this is what happens on a day-to-day basis for Internet users. Your position is that it centers around media freedoms. How do you feel about that?

James Waterworth: Much of the way people access information today is from the internet, often getting to it though services like the one in the judgment, i.e., through Google. We are really concerned that today's judgment opens the door to censorship, a new form of censorship over the internet, potentially to the whitewashing of history where people who have a grudge against something that is being said online in a link can simply write to the Internet company and have that information taken down. We think this is a dangerous precedent.

In this particular case, we're talking about information that was published around 1998 and was correct at the time. So when you talk about censorship and whitewashing and rewriting history, surely that is a reflection of how much time we are spending online and how much of our lives we are putting online. Sometimes we slip up and make mistakes, don't we?

James Waterworth is concerned the Google ruling may impact freedom of information

I might prefer, and politicians might prefer, for information not to be out in the public, but if it's true, people have a right to know. So it's a very dangerous route if we decide that something that is legally allowed to be published in a Spanish newspaper can't then be shown on the Internet. This is a very dangerous trend.

So how do you feel about the fact that this article was published in a newspaper with a relatively high circulation? There is probably a physical version of this article tucked away in some archive in a library, which is probably still accessible. Yet in this case, we are saying that the Internet version of that article should be removed, or we should all have the right to have that removed.

Exactly, and this raises the potential that we go to all the libraries in Spain and ask to have that article removed from those libraries.

And obviously, picking up on what you are saying, that's not the way to go, is it?

Clearly it is not the way to go. Given the heritage we have, whether the literary heritage or the information about people, it's important that people have access to information. The Internet has provided people with even easier access to information at a lower cost. That sometimes is uncomfortable for people who have done something wrong, but it is also extremely beneficial for society that politicians and other powerful people are held to account.

But the difference between a physical copy of an article on a piece of paper tucked away in an archive and what's online is the interconnectedness of all this information. Through an online search you can build a profile of a person. Isn't that what really makes the internet different in this age - that we can connect details of people's lives in such a way that can be perhaps a disadvantage to them, that people might not really recognize that what happened to a person in 1998 is not really relevant today?

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Waterworth: 'Today's judgment opens the door to censorship'