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CBS censors a ‘Good Fight’ segment whose topic was Chinese censorship

nytimes.com

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Re: CBS censors a ‘Good Fight’ segment whose topic was Chinese censorship

#251

Post by corey_moncure »

icelancer wrote: post #246
sonnyblarney wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A) Nobody really knew about such camps. B) The 'final solution' stuff did not happen until much later ie. i) scale and ii) death C) That was in 1930. There was barely radio. There was no 'globalism' or 'global news'. There was no global awareness. What 'went on in Germany' might have been going on on mars. It's 2019 now, China has no excuse, and we have no excuse.

a) and c) are definitely not true. They were widely reported in Britain in 1933. http://www.camps.bbk.ac.uk/themes/the-public.html

So you're saying it took 3 years for the news to get to Britain. It takes 3 minutes for radio to get to Mars. You proved GP's point.

Re: CBS censors a ‘Good Fight’ segment whose topic was Chinese censorship

#252

Post by graeme »

tepidandroid wrote: post #237
TomMckenny wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. Most corporations have no more loyalty to one "side" or the other nor any more loyalty to an ideology than the Coke/Fanta hybrid-monstrosity of the 1940s. It took employees to force Google to reverse some of its policies, not its board of directors. At the same time, as the US withdraws from the world, China fills in. They zealously sell the surveillance state and its equipment world wide just as the US e…

> For those annoyed by the occasionally harmful American hegemony, just wait till you see what China is going to do. There are plenty of abuses to call out on all sides, but let's not resort to euphemisms when comparing the historical abuses [1] of one side to future abuses from another. It's a great disservice to all those who have been just "occasionally harmed" (I'm sure they don't feel the same way as you do). [1…

US hegemony was 1945-present, which is important context for interpreting the grandparent comment and also the list.

Much of that list predates 1945. You can also exclude any internal repression when considering the effects of US hegemony, which is experienced only by people outside the US.

There's still a LOT to account for. Vietnam and Iraq being the two biggest.

But, on the other hand, 70 years, a couple hundred total countries. When you average it out, "occasionally harmful" isn't inconsistent with reality. It's consistent with a lot of interventions in a lot of places over that timeframe.

Re: CBS censors a ‘Good Fight’ segment whose topic was Chinese censorship

#253

Post by j16sdiz »

scohesc wrote: post #18

It's a bit telling when a media giant like CBS can't strike a happy medium by you know - both not censoring it in the US and censoring it in china - instead, choosing to censor the whole thing outright on the entire platform. It's almost like all these American companies are moving en masse to do business in China with the sole purpose of increasing profits every single quarter, irrespective of (and arguably, now enc…

RMB, is still not a freely convertible currency. If you factor that in, those "profit" are nothing but numbers.

Re: CBS censors a ‘Good Fight’ segment whose topic was Chinese censorship

#254

Post by smsm42 »

tepidandroid wrote: post #237
TomMckenny wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. Most corporations have no more loyalty to one "side" or the other nor any more loyalty to an ideology than the Coke/Fanta hybrid-monstrosity of the 1940s. It took employees to force Google to reverse some of its policies, not its board of directors. At the same time, as the US withdraws from the world, China fills in. They zealously sell the surveillance state and its equipment world wide just as the US e…

> For those annoyed by the occasionally harmful American hegemony, just wait till you see what China is going to do. There are plenty of abuses to call out on all sides, but let's not resort to euphemisms when comparing the historical abuses [1] of one side to future abuses from another. It's a great disservice to all those who have been just "occasionally harmed" (I'm sure they don't feel the same way as you do). [1…

Human rights abuses in China are in no way "future". They are very much in present and in the past. Somehow in the West it becomes fashionable to dismiss those just because US has its troubles. But the fact that US government has troublesome part in no way absolves the crimes that Chinese government perpetrated and continues to perpetrate. It's not "either-or" proposition.

Re: CBS censors a ‘Good Fight’ segment whose topic was Chinese censorship

#255

Post by leggomylibro »

nickysielicki wrote: post #26

I feel like free speech has never been under such attack. Culturally, we don't care about it, we find offensive content more offensive than censorship of offensive content. Politically, they can censor you completely if they want to by hitting you with an NSL. EFF says that happens 60 times a day. The most hard hitting journalist in the west, Julian Assange, was just put in jail. I'm scared about the future. It's not…

>Mr. Coulton said that he was told that CBS had concerns for the safety of its employees in China if the segment were included.

Sounds like you're right to be scared. US comedy television isn't allowed to mention Tiananmen Square because the owners fear violent retaliation? How did we get here? This is insane.

Re: CBS censors a ‘Good Fight’ segment whose topic was Chinese censorship

#256

Post by smsm42 »

mikequinlan wrote: post #116
scohesc wrote: post #18

It's a bit telling when a media giant like CBS can't strike a happy medium by you know - both not censoring it in the US and censoring it in china - instead, choosing to censor the whole thing outright on the entire platform. It's almost like all these American companies are moving en masse to do business in China with the sole purpose of increasing profits every single quarter, irrespective of (and arguably, now enc…

CBS said "This is the creative solution that we agreed upon with the producers". I have been wondering if the producers insisted that the segment be censored in all regions so that everyone would know about it. Otherwise Americans would never know about the censorship.

"Agreed with the producers" might be just "execs told them either you agree to air it as we say, or it doesn't air at all and look behind this door - there's a line of people just like you waiting to take your spot in the lineup, so think quick". In this position, one doesn't have too much space for disagreement if one want to keep one's job.

Re: CBS censors a ‘Good Fight’ segment whose topic was Chinese censorship

#257

Post by smsm42 »

MichaelDickens wrote: post #219
mikequinlan wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CBS said "This is the creative solution that we agreed upon with the producers". I have been wondering if the producers insisted that the segment be censored in all regions so that everyone would know about it. Otherwise Americans would never know about the censorship.

If the segment was about Chinese censorship, surely the best way for Americans to learn about Chinese censorship would be to air it?

Now Americans learned about American censorship. Maybe it's even better for Americans to know that exists.

Re: CBS censors a ‘Good Fight’ segment whose topic was Chinese censorship

#258

Post by smsm42 »

derefr wrote: post #55
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair they should censor any content that would be subversive in India. Then why stop there? Make sure all media is vetted by all nations for moral and political purity.

They don’t care about fairness, they care about profit (or rather, they care about how much their share value would drop if they sacrificed a given source of profit.) If the American stock market would punish an American [public] corporation for reneging on being a lapdog to China, then said American corporation is basically constitutionally incapable of leaving China (if it’s structured in the usual way with a board…

> If the American stock market would punish an American [public] corporation for reneging on being a lapdog to China

If.

Re: CBS censors a ‘Good Fight’ segment whose topic was Chinese censorship

#259

Post by tepidandroid »

smsm42 wrote: post #254
tepidandroid wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For those annoyed by the occasionally harmful American hegemony, just wait till you see what China is going to do. There are plenty of abuses to call out on all sides, but let's not resort to euphemisms when comparing the historical abuses [1] of one side to future abuses from another. It's a great disservice to all those who have been just "occasionally harmed" (I'm sure they don't feel the same way as you do). [1…

Human rights abuses in China are in no way "future". They are very much in present and in the past. Somehow in the West it becomes fashionable to dismiss those just because US has its troubles. But the fact that US government has troublesome part in no way absolves the crimes that Chinese government perpetrated and continues to perpetrate. It's not "either-or" proposition.

I knew my comment would draw exactly this response.

My comment was simply stating that the past abuses of one side should not be compared to future, hypothetical abuses of the other (referring to the sentence "just wait till you see what China is going to do").

One may compare the historical abuses of one side to the historical abuses of the other.

Is that fair and reasonable?

Re: CBS censors a ‘Good Fight’ segment whose topic was Chinese censorship

#260

Post by tepidandroid »

graeme wrote: post #252
tepidandroid wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For those annoyed by the occasionally harmful American hegemony, just wait till you see what China is going to do. There are plenty of abuses to call out on all sides, but let's not resort to euphemisms when comparing the historical abuses [1] of one side to future abuses from another. It's a great disservice to all those who have been just "occasionally harmed" (I'm sure they don't feel the same way as you do). [1…

US hegemony was 1945-present, which is important context for interpreting the grandparent comment and also the list. Much of that list predates 1945. You can also exclude any internal repression when considering the effects of US hegemony, which is experienced only by people outside the US. There's still a LOT to account for. Vietnam and Iraq being the two biggest. But, on the other hand, 70 years, a couple hundred t…

You are right on the point about the list containing internal repression and incidents from before 1945, which should be discounted. I will not pull the list of post-1945 'interventions', but again we are in agreement that it is still a substantial list.

On your other point, I respectfully disagree.

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