Category: Free Speech

Google just had to spin the Sony hack.

Can you hear the bells?  They’re not Christmas bells, I’m afraid.  They’re Pavlovian bells, the ones that Google loves to ring whenever the company sees an opportunity to rally the faithful to the cause of “internet freedom.”  They sound like this:  SOPA…SOPA…SOPA.

The Sony hack is a bloody mess, the effects of which have yet to be fully realized.  So far, we have leaks of sensitive, personal information about individuals; meaningless but click-worthy Hollywood gossip; an international crisis with a psychotic, enemy state; threats of terrorism that squashed the release of a motion picture and halted the production of another; an internal dispute between the president of the country and the president of Sony over not releasing that film; and now a threat to attack the White House allegedly issued by North Korea.  But Google thinks this is all about their interests.  Here’s why:

As reported by The Verge and The New York Times, leaked information from the hack reveals that Sony, along with the five other major studios, as well as Microsoft, Expedia, and Oracle  had been in discussion with their own legal teams along with lawyers at the MPAA regarding a strategy to deal with “Goliath,” a code word understood to mean Google. The problem being addressed by the studios in these communications is Google’s well-known recalcitrance in helping to mitigate systemic piracy of filmed entertainment. Moreover, reports about the documents in these links indicate that the motion picture industry has been working with Mississippi State Attorney General Jim Hood, who has been seeking information for more than year regarding Google’s possible role in profiting from child pornography, illegal drug trafficking, and mass copyright infringement.  This association has been criticized by some, and Google has since filed suit against the AG, but nothing thus far indicates any inappropriate activity between the studios and Hood.

It’s no secret that motion picture producers and Google have an ongoing dispute with regard to piracy of filmed entertainment, and I think it’s a safe bet both parties regularly consult with counsel regarding their own interests.  As such, I personally think one of the more serious results of this leak is the rather dramatic breach of attorney/client privilege. I don’t think we want a society in which hackers can arbitrarily violate this fundamental right in our legal system.  Apparently, though, Google’s Sr VP and General Counsel, Kent Walker, was unfazed by this implication — perhaps Google is hacker proof — when he was quoted in Variety saying, “We are deeply concerned about recent reports that the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) led a secret, coordinated campaign to revive the failed SOPA legislation through other means.”  And as of this week, Google has launched a campaign it calls Zombie SOPA.  Ding-a-ling!

Walker is not speaking as an attorney, but rather as a PR guy, when he plays the word secret like that in order to imply a conspiracy, knowing full well that communications between clients and attorneys are almost always secret.  But near the end of the article, he is also quoted plaintively wondering why champions of the First Amendment like the MPAA would “want to censor the Internet.”  Hear them ring!  Of course any discussion about legal remedies to mitigate piracy are tantamount to censorship, right? It is the playbook that the Internet industry has been using for years now — that any regulatory or legislative action affecting them is by its very nature an attack on the Internet itself, and therefore an attack on our freedoms.  Really, I plan to remain free and to exercise my right of free expression even if half of Silicon Valley one day does a perp walk.

Google can repeat this play all it wants, but real censorship is what happens when a bully, by one means or another, frightens someone into not speaking.  The Sony hack story is serious business that reveals several very real dangers associated with this global, networked world in which we now live, including real-world censorship.  As one of the lead architects of that networked society, Google should perhaps show some leadership and stop claiming that its disputes with the motion picture industry are about us and our freedoms.  They should stop ringing the damn SOPA bell in hopes that nobody will be able to hear himself think.

The Nation of Reddit

From Redditor yishan:

“…we consider ourselves not just a company running a website where one can post links and discuss them, but the government of a new type of community. The role and responsibility of a government differs from that of a private corporation, in that it exercises restraint in the usage of its powers.”

Shh.  I won’t say anything right away. Just let those words tromp around in your mind for a few moments.  Let the hubris of them get mud all over the carpet and sticky Cheetos fingerprints on the door frames…

 Okay.  Here goes…

In a blog post entitled Every Man is Responsible for His Own Soul, paraphrasing a line from Shakespeare’s Henry V, Redditor yishan explains why Reddit removed a subreddit called TheFappening, making sure to point out that the decision was not based on the content of the thread, which unambiguously refers to masturbating while viewing stolen nude photos of the female celebrities, who were victims of the recent hacking.

In case anyone is confused as to exactly how self-aggrandized social media site owners can be, the managers at Reddit, it seems, perceive their enterprise to be a new form of government.  The Nation of Reddit, if you will, founded not so much on ideas or achieved by blood or steel, not by men (or women) who signed their names to a declaration and risked their lives, but by avatars who speak with the courage of anonymity and wring their virtual hands over the moral implications of profiting from exploitative jerking off.  What exactly will the flag of this new sovereign society look like?  Crossed swords, I suppose.

Though Reddit is a young nation, Ambassador yishan, exhibits the diplomatic nuance of a veteran stuffed suit when he proclaims, “Virtuous behavior is only virtuous if it is not arrived at by compulsion.  This is a central idea of the community we are trying to create.”  Once again, perhaps we should pause and just let the big idea resonate for a moment…

Right.  Moving on…

It’s true, of course.  Virtuous behavior can only be called virtuous when it is altruistic.  But failing that, sometimes we have to tell the assholes to knock it the hell off.  You know the ones — the guys who stand up and go for the luggage compartment while the plane is still taxiing.  Yeah, even in the freest of countries, that clown has to be told to sit back the fuck down in case the pilot has to step on the breaks and thus turns him into a 180-pound idiot projectile.  In a similar way, The Nation of Reddit could certainly choose to support free expression, even of the most puerile gibberish, while drawing a fairly clear line that it will make every effort to avoid benefiting from someone else’s misery.  Professional news organizations draw lines between coverage and exploitation all the time, and free speech manages to survive, but I guess that’s elitist.

As pointed out in this excellent piece by Ellen Seidler, The Nation of Reddit is actually a satellite state of the empire CondeNast Publications, and its wealth, like most web nations, comes from tourism (i.e. advertising).  As such, stolen celebrity nude pictures unquestionably bring the visitors in profitable numbers, but apparently, the government of Reddit feels it would be morally objectionable to refuse this windfall, which is nothing more than a byproduct of its absolute defense of free expression.  But as Seidler also points out, non-celebrities, usually women, who don’t have the resources of movie stars are frequent, un-reported victims of misappropriation of their images that are then exploited by stateless nations like Reddit and the rogue 4Chan.

The actual quote from Henry V comes in the scene when Harry walks cloaked in disguise among his men on the night before the battle at Agincourt.  A soldier, Williams, opines that the virtue of the war and the inherent sinfulness of death in battle is the sole moral responsibility of the king.  But within in the ensuing monologue, Harry replies, “Every subject’s duty is the king’s; but each man’s soul’s his own.”  It is poetry, but it is also a poor reference for a modern, free, and democratic society far removed from ancient monarchy.  Because our more enlightened view is that we do blame the leadership and not the soldier for entering into a bad war.  And we do hold business owners, the ones who make the real money, responsible for the manner in which they earn their revenues.

But here’s the main message we might send The Nation of Reddit:  If you’re apologizing for shutting down a thread called TheFappening, at least spare the world your ideological bullshit as if we’re supposed to think you’re doing something important.

So wait, Google is pro censorship?

Sometimes one is confronted with an absurdity so self-evident that it defies an introductory sentence.  So, I wrote that sentence instead.  But what’s got me gobsmacked today is a story by Adam Sherwin writing for The Independent explaining that Google insisted the popular music site Drowned in Sound censor images of certain album covers on the grounds that they are “sexually explicit” and, therefore, violate existing policy that Google will not serve ads to sites with “adult or mature content.” Really?  Last I checked, half of Google’s arguments for failing to address matters like contributing to piracy were based on a stance against censorship.

First of all, I can login to YouTube right now, search the word sex, and get scads of results with sexually explicit thumbnails.  In fact, many of these thumbnails link to videos that are not so explicit as the pictures imply. So, I guess it’s okay for Google to use pornographic thumbnails in a bait-and-switch ploy to get users to click on videos that are ad supported, but if an artist depicts the naked human form (newsflash, artists do this sometimes) in a painting or other medium, then Google can arbitrarily label it “adult mature content” and out of bounds? I know one man’s art is another’s pornography, and this subjectivity is an important standard for the protection of free speech; but somehow mainstream advertisers seem to know pornography when they see it because you won’t find their brands on actual pornographic sites (I asked a friend).  But consider this…

One of the covers targeted by Google for censorship was for the album OH (Ohio) by the band Lambchop.  The irony in this case is pretty thick considering the painting depicting two lovers in bed in the foreground with a scene of police brutality through the window in the background evokes of one of the most famous visual themes in the history of Western art — that of Olympia.  Probably the most well-known and most overly-adapted Olympia is Manet’s painting of the nude courtesan, which debuted in 1865.  It was scandalous in its time, not so much for the nudity but for the blatant depiction of a prostitute looking right at the viewer. The Lambchop cover is a painting by artist Michael Peed, a friend and former professor of frontman Kurt Wagner, and Peed references the familiar Manet composition to create a scene that is provocative in our times.  The counterpoint between the intimacy of the lovers and the abuse by the police is a wry statement that one can interpret as one may choose, but that it should be censored by Google of all entities has got to at least make you wonder what all their pro-culture, pro-speech horse shit is all about.  Take this for what it’s worth, but the censored version with pixel blurs over the “naughty bits” inadvertently makes an even more disturbing statement about America — that sex remains offensive while police brutality is not.  Well played, Company That Shall Not Be Evil.

We should not lose sight of the significance of an entity like Google exerting its influence, even in this small case.  An individual advertiser may, and should, choose what kind of media associations best suit its brand.  You probably won’t see Betty Crocker commercials during Adult Swim, for instance.  But should an ad service business — and in this case the only ad service business —  be entitled to arbitrarily label creative works “sexually explicit” and requiring censorship? If Peed’s painting meets that definition, then so does nearly every nude in every museum and gallery in the world. I thought the Internet was the proverbial garden of free expression.  I also thought Google was just a neutral highway that has neither interest in nor responsibility for the manner in which users drive.

Admittedly, even for Google-scale hypocrisy, it is an enigmatic choice to commit such a blatant act of censorship where there isn’t even a hint of gray area regarding the works in question.  Is this the result of killjoy bots?  Or is it a sign that Google will soon be throwing even more prudish sops to its new conservative friends among DC influence-peddlers?  No matter what the thinking (and I use that word generously) may be in this case, the disturbing implications of the precedent cannot be overstated.  To be outside the Google universe is to be effectively off the web, at least as far as monetization goes. This is an absurd amount of power for any single company to wield. And seeing as we are no longer able to distinguish between corporations and people in the United States, I’m not at all ready to let the whims of centaurs in Silicon Valley or anywhere else define what it means to be indecent.