Blogging about a blog...
If anyone else has been following the "pie ad" controversy on dailykos I wonder what everyone's thoughts are in so far as the approach that people are using to argue for and against it. Although if I were to run a website with commercial ads that I'd be able to be selective about what advertisers and content I accept (and this pie thing is one I'd take a pass on). But we do have to pay for our bandwidth, right?
What I find interesting in reading the diaries and comments about this topic is how close the discussion comes to that of money in political campaigns. What the discussion flirts with is the question of money as a protected form of speech. It isn't always part of the dialogue, but it comes in at a number of points.
Now, commercial advertisements are certainly different than protected political speech. But, I think that the difficulty in discerning the difference between speech, money as protected speech, and a commercial placement.
Then there was the c-word being thrown around. Censorship. I once censored someone: I was running a show of artists back when I was an undergraduate, and someone's work sucked. So I threw them out. Now that was a stink. So how do these lines get drawn in the internet? Who draws them? Will we like the picture we are getting?
What I find interesting in reading the diaries and comments about this topic is how close the discussion comes to that of money in political campaigns. What the discussion flirts with is the question of money as a protected form of speech. It isn't always part of the dialogue, but it comes in at a number of points.
Now, commercial advertisements are certainly different than protected political speech. But, I think that the difficulty in discerning the difference between speech, money as protected speech, and a commercial placement.
Then there was the c-word being thrown around. Censorship. I once censored someone: I was running a show of artists back when I was an undergraduate, and someone's work sucked. So I threw them out. Now that was a stink. So how do these lines get drawn in the internet? Who draws them? Will we like the picture we are getting?
1 Comments:
The problem Kos has is that he does filter out advertisements based on content. It's clear that he would not have accepted the Swift Boat Vets ad, nor would he take a "very special message" from Jerry Falwell. Granted, I have not seen the ad in question, but I'm making a larger point that Kos:
(a) is right to turn down some advertisers
(b) should be held accountable when the content of advertising offends his readership.
The "c-word" never enters into it, as Kos is running a privately owned site.
You raise an interesting point when you tie this to political fundraising and the 1st Amendment value of campaign contributions. The question remains that if campaign contributions are free speech, shouldn't commercial advertising fall in that category, too?
I guess not.
Drawing this line on the Internet, as you say, is the next step. What on the Internet is public domain? Is all of it? Is none of it? Jeez, it's so blurry!
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