US Elections

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy says that the Internet is not special, and just as Australia censors books, television programs, magazines, and movies, it should be able to do the same for online material. The bad news for opponents of Conroy's filter is that he sort of has a point.

In Australia, unlike the U.S., we think it perfectly reasonable for the government to control what speech we are allowed to see or hear. To sell a movie or a book or a video game in Australia, you need to get the government's permission. If it refuses to classify the work in question, then too bad; it's illegal to distribute it. And apart from the occasional complaint Margaret Pomeranz makes when an artsy European flick gets banned, Australians don't bat an eyelid at this.

Even opponents of Conroy's filter seem OK with the government banning other forms of speech. The Herald article I linked above quotes the University of Sydney's Bjorn Landfeldt splitting hairs over different form of censorship:

University of Sydney associate professor Bjorn Landfeldt said the difference between submitting a book for classification and having an organisation classifying and blocking websites without anyone's knowledge was that, in the book case, "it is well known that the book was censored and there can be a debate about the correctness of the decision."

The U.S. has a much more robust conception of freedom of speech, and even though the U.S. Supreme Court does not consider it totally illegitimate for the government to ban certain types of non-political speech, in practice it tends to side with the First Amendment's sweeping instruction that "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech." That's why in America, there is no equivalent of Australia's Office of Film and Literature Classification. Classification bodies like the Motion Picture Association of America are industry-run and submission of content to them is voluntary. Even the infamous Federal Communications Commission, which is a government agency, has authority over a very small slice of American media; it can ban content from network television and radio, but it has no authority over cable.

In America, people consider it far less legitimate for the government to decide what sort of speech is acceptable for adults to make and hear. That's why the U.S.'s own attempt at Internet censorship, the Communications Decency Act of 1996, was found to breach the First Amendment in Reno v ACLU. 

I disagree with Conroy; the Internet is special. It combines content distribution with telecommunications in a way that makes it comparable to neither magazine publication nor telephone discussions. But it is not that special. The reason Australia is even considering joining dictatorships like China and Iran in online censorship is that, unlike the U.S., we consider it fundamentally reasonable for the government to control our speech. It is no wonder the U.S. and Australian governments disagree on this issue; they are operating from different cultural assumptions as to what constitutes free society.

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What frustrated me most was the total misuse of the word "censorship."  The Obama Administration has been accused of censoring the Fox News Channel, something that is manifestly untrue.

Ok, so strictly speaking, the word is accurate, if  and only if you take the meaning of "censor" to mean to admonish or criticise, a literal if rarely-used meaning. And I suppose, if you take that meaning, and that meaning alone, one could accuse the Obama administration of censoring Fox News.  But it's hard to imagine anyone seriously making the argument that when someone hears "Obama Administration censors Fox News", they think the administration simply criticised them. The problem, of course, is that few would understand the meaning of the word in that way, especially in the realm of politics.

"Censorship" isn't a word devoid of meaning or context.  Used the way it has been by much of the press in this situation, to "censor" is far more likely to mean to suppress or delete information.  This practice, of course, is one of the oldest forms of political oppression.  For many, censorship is associated with totalitarian rule, with the suppression of democracy, with silencing the minority, or just silencing unwanted voices.  And the Obama administration has not silenced Fox News

Yes, the Obama administration called Fox News a partisan organization.  Yes, they openly acknowledged they would not treat them the same way as a straightforward news network. That might not by wise, but it's not censorship

 The White House did not censor the Fox News Channel. They did not rob them of their first amendment protection.  They did not prevent the Fox News Channel from attending White House press conferences. They even promised to continue providing White House staff to be interviewed on the Fox News Channel, though possibly not as frequently as the network would prefer. 

And the Fox News Channel has certainly not been silent.  The ferocity with which they've condemned the White House is evidence enough of their continued freedom.  There's no talk, anywhere, of limiting the Fox News Channel's voice.  There is no ban.  There is no suppression.

There are certainly interesting issues to talk about around the so-called "war on Fox", but using the term "censor" in these discussions is both misleading and dangerous.  So lets call it what it is or, more accurately, what it isn't: the White House has not censored the Fox News Channel.

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