Blacklisted.
This morning, like every Monday morning, I checked in with a few of my favourite blogs from around the world.
Girl with a satchel, Aussie Erica Bartle’s “Daily blog with a girlie slant. Pop culture, magazines and pretty things” is a regular destination of mine.
It’s not usually a particulary controversial place to spend a few minutes.
In fact, a self-proclaimed “girlie” blog would not, you’d think, prompt me to start worrying about freedom of speech, Little Julius, Lulu Xingwana and DSTV’s porn channel.
But there you are.
It did.
In her very gentle, intelligent and Christian way, Bartle peruses the magazine scene, both in Oz and internationally, with a fan’s passionate eye.
Then she reports back.
I have always loved GWAS’s enthusiastic and perfectionist coverage of the mag scene.
The blog is by an insider, who remains a fan, for the fans.
But today, in an extended mea culpa, she explains her decision to change, (quite dramatically, it seems to me), the content of her blog.
An item she posted last week went down badly with one of the big Australian publishers.
And they responded by blacklisting her.
I am in no position to comment on the details of what exactly, caused Bartle to apologise and decide to amend her content.
She is clear that changing is a question of her conscience guiding her, and not as a result, at least in part, of what to me, looks just a little …like bullying.
And it made me think about the net, and it’s freedoms and constraints.
The expolosion of so many media platforms has allowed everyone, whether blogger or contributor to comment forums, the chance to be heard.
On all the bigger sites (whether Perez Hilton, or News24, or The Mail and Guardian, here) it doesn’t take long for any opinion to be challenged.
Often by anonymous lunatics, it must be said.
But the free exhange of opinions, whether sane or insane, relevant or not, is healthy and neccessary.
Even if, in my opinion, the power the mass (Daily Mail/Perez Hilton readers?) and, of the cowardly anonymous comment is disproportionately large.
Forums and platforms like the school yard which Twitter can resemble (whatever my personal Twitter Guru, Chris Roper or the Deputy sex Ed on M24*says!) are perfect opportunities for “robust,” sometimes bullying challenges of whatever anyone is brave, (foolish?) to say.
I have always believed that if, as a journalist, a blogger or a commentator, if you dish opinion out, then you should be prepared to take it, in return.
Never hate speech, but opinion.
But when, for example (and the GWAS example is only a small example, just one that I stumbled on this morning,) a large corporation responds to a bloggers’ personal opinion by blacklisting her, ( in a country like Australia!) it seems the plates are shifting into a place where freedom of opinion, is under threat.
And that is when you say a silent prayer to whichever deity happens to suit you, for a fair and just law.
Laws which this morning, for example, found The Future President of our Nightmares, to be guilty of Hate Speech.
Sometimes, laws work in the favour of someone with whom we disagree:
The UK journalist, Jan Moir, for example, wrote a truly terrible piece in The Daily Mail about the singer Stephen Gately’s death, and was thoroughly villified on Twitter and in every possible arena where ordinary people had their say.
A record number of complaints were lodged at the British Press Complaint’s Commission.
This weekend, the commission found that she had contravened no law and that there was no case to be heard against her.
In this case, she voiced her opinion, the readers responded, a complaint was lodged and the law held.
Just as it should.
But voicing an opinion, even a strong (and maybe repugnant) one, is not a terrible thing.
What is terrible is the subtle or not so subtle shutting down of voices with whom we disagree.
Even in the case of gentle, non-threatening outlets such as GWAS.
And there are many ways to shut others down.
Our esteemed Culture Minister, Lulu Xingwana, feels it is the role of media and art, to report only stories that refect her notion of what is good and proper.
DSTV might, or might not, have made the decision to not launch a porn channel, because it had been swayed by a well-orchestrated lobby group.
Or it might have been the will of the people.
This morning an anti-porn lobby group, possibly, emboldened by the DSTV decsion, has lodged a complaint at the FPCB, against COSMO SA.
They object (again!) to the sex content in the magazine.
But this kind of hassle?
I welcome it all.
Without the push and pull of honest opinion, ideas and disagreement, consensus can never be achieved.
Without everyone having the right to air their own opinions (not hate specch, opinions) whether though the medium of print, word or picture we’re back in the grim days of the last regime.
If individuals with strongly held opinions do not stand in judgement of each other, then we will not need an old-regime censorship board, we will do an effective job of self-censorship ourselves.
Opposing opinions in conversation are necessary and healthy.
It’s also important to be exposed to ideas with which you do not agree.
Ideas lead to debate.
But when situations get into David and Goliath territory?
Where government money is only spent on supporting smiley, happy Rotarian art?
Where which movies or television programmes we see are chosen by the most organised, not the most representative?
Where magazines and newspapers are under threat of being edited by the same well-organised lobby groups?
Where people with something to say feel they cannot say it because of the threat of being blackballed by the much more powerful?
Then we have to remind ourselves that the freedom to vote was not the only freedom that this country fought for.
* In answer to a question from COSMO on whether anyone had been bullied, or knew anyone who had been bullied on Twitter: @liliradloff said: @ChrisRoperZA I’ve been publicly insulted on Twitter but never bullied. Tell Cosmo they must harden the fuck up.
Haha!
