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Information InFiltration. Mediaculturistic artistic dissent-o-mania.

blogs and google, tails wag dogs? | 7 comments

[new] What is freedom? (Avg. Score: none / Raters: 0) (#2)
by Aileen on Mon Jul 7th, 2003 at 01:17:26 PM EURODISCORDIA TIME
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When I followed the link referring to governments interested in censoring information in Google, I was expecting to read something about China, maybe even the US, but I was quite startled by the references to the French and German governments "censoring" websites promoting nazi propaganda and mostly infuriated by the breathtakingly arrogant criticisms of these laws (we have the same in Austria) apparently by Americans all voicing concern about "freedom of speech" and the slippery slope of censorship.
Since the word "freedom" seems to be used so frequently in such contradictory situations as a justification for surveillance, corporate monopolies, hate speech, and as a buzz word in advertising, I more and more frequently wonder what people think they are talking about.
Discussing google or other mass media in terms of transparency, vested interests, biases, etc. makes sense to me, but "freedom of speech" hardly seems to be a useful category.
Amy, I realize that I am not really reacting to your post as much as to the zdnet article, but the issue of government censorship is such a sensitive one, that I think it might blur the question of google's accountability and interests - it obviously did for me, in any case.

blogs and google, tails wag dogs? | 7 comments

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