Death of Free Internet is Imminent – Canada Will Become Test Case « Dandelion Salad is one of the posts that have hit the top at WordPress at the moment, and I can see why. Is it inevitable, or will the open source spirit that sustains projects like WordPress at the moment find work-arounds? I did appreciate this bit:
…The free transfer of information, uncensored, unlimited and untainted, still seems to be a dream when you think about it. Whatever field that is mentioned- education, commerce, government, news, entertainment, politics and countless other areas- have been radically affected by the introduction of the Internet. And mostly, it’s good news, except when poor judgements are made and people are taken advantage of. Scrutiny and oversight are needed, especially where children are involved.
However, when there are potential profits open to a corporation, the needs of society don’t count…
At present, the world condemns China because that country restricts certain websites. “They are undemocratic; they are removing people’s freedom; they don’t respect individual rights; they are censoring information,” are some of the comments we hear. But what Bell Canada and Telus have planned for Canadians is much worse than that. They are planning the death of the Internet (free) as we know it, and I expect they’ll be hardly a whimper from Canadians…
That should be “there’ll be” of course… And some may see more than a bit of the conspiracy theorist in the entry, but contemplate what it says nonetheless.
Another cautionary tale emerged over several months in the Sydney Morning Herald – as pointed out there today, and acknowledged by the ABC, but the amazing example of the ugly face of capitalism they had revealed was beautifully summarised on last night’s Four Corners:
Go and weep!
After which came an excellent Media Watch dealing with the media excess on World Youth Day — wonderful as that event proved to be beyond all the hype — and the reactionary excess of The Usual Suspects. The story on that follows:
Again, do take the trouble to investigate.
Finally, the strange world of Climate Change Denial, our contemporary, and primarily American, flat-earthism. There has been much hype around the twin bogies of Al Gore’s movie (not Holy Writ of course) and the alleged refutation of that in a propaganda piece called The Great Global Warming Swindle, which I blogged back in May 2007 when The Same Usual Suspects as in the previous item were cheering said documentary long and loud.
Now we read in the Sydney Morning Herald: Climate program swindled viewers.
THE controversial documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle misrepresented several leading climate scientists to try to convince people that human-induced climate change is a fraud, Britain’s broadcasting regulator, Ofcom, has found.
The film, which claimed it would expose “the biggest scam of modern times” and was aired by the ABC last July, had been hailed by some commentators as a definitive counterpoint to Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth.
But Ofcom found the film to have unfairly represented the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and mangled the views of several leading climatologists. The final report, released in London last night, says the film breached several broadcasting guidelines in Britain.
The ABC said it was unable to comment because it was yet to see the report. A spokeswoman, Lesna Thomas, said it stood by the decision to screen the film accompanied by a panel discussion and an interview with the program’s writer and producer, Martin Durkin.
“We knew it was unique in that there was a lot of discussion about this issue, so we put it in the context of a debate, a discussion,” Ms Thomas said.
The ABC’s Science Show presenter, Robyn Williams, said the claims in Swindle were “obviously flawed for many reasons” but not to screen it would have been censorship. “I’m in favour of free speech but in this area the waters have been completely muddied by propagandists, so I thought the way we did it in the end was reasonable,” said Williams, who participated in the discussion after the show…
Oh yes!
