Consider all you read about the concept of the Free Marketplace of Ideas, including the quotes by Thomas Jefferson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and John Milton. Imagine a current situation – it can be political, global, personal, etc. – that involves some version of the conflict between free speech and censorship, and put the Free Marketplace of Ideas to the test. Without some outside intervention or regulation, do the best ideas rise to the surface? Are the weakest ideas eliminated by those participating in the discussion? Does external interference somehow diminish the exchange of ideas? Why or why not? Write one page of reflection and post to the class blog.
You can also use the following questions from class as guidelines:
1. What would a free marketplace of ideas look like in this case?
2. What would be the end result with or without a freemarketplace of ideas.
3. Is the free marketplace of ideas a practical or realistic model for success in this case? ("Success" may mean a safe and open sharing of ideas and information.)
*Do not feel the need to answer ALL of the above questions; just use them as a guide.
A current topic that involves freedom of speech and censorship are the photos taken of Kate Middleton while she was on holiday in France. They photos show her topless, and the newspapers in various countries have published them.
ReplyDeleteFree marketplace of ideas is used here because, of course, this is a big story and many people reading magazines would want to see/read about the pictures.
However, a French court banned French magazines and newspapers from publishing the photos, and forced the Fremch magazine, Closer, to hand over the originals.
In this case, I believe that the free marketplace of ideas is not practical. Even though many people, would want to read about this, the photos shouldn't be published. I believe this should be the case with any person in Kate Middleton's situation, but especially when the photos are of the wife of the future king. No British newspapers have published the photos, I think this is because they know that the public would not be happy with them and most likely be forced to take them down a short while afterwards.
Without court intervention, these photos could be published in many more magazines in France, and maybe even British newspapers would have published the, if they saw no consequences. This is why it is important to have some level of censorship in the media, as to not offend anyone.
Does the British public help to "regulate" this at all? Has there been criticism of the publication of these photos, or are people just eager to buy the papers and see the pictures?
DeleteI agree, I believe it would be hard for a media to break something so revealing as a naked picture of such an important person. My question is: Why didnt the French allow for this to be released? I. It an important person in their country so why does the French not reveal them?
DeleteI agree but, in my opinion, I don't think it is necessary for the press to release the photos and this news. I know that if for some reason I was in this situation, I would never want the photos to be revealed. And I believe that the release of this actually has a negative impact on the country. Even though the photos are amusing and people will want to see them, I think it makes England look bad.
DeleteThe Free Market of Ideas is a very important role in our media and press. This enables anyone to have the freedom to argue an opinion and support an opinion without harsh criticism. For example the political debates. These politicians can argue and call each other out in a civilized manner without being stopped or interrupted. Without this system, politicians wouldn't be able toback themselves or defend themselves if someone verbally attacked them. This also involves comments on websites. This allows people the right to post and comment whatever they want both for or against whatever the article is about. Thomas Jefferson quoted that if a mans opinion is wrong but he is willinging for people to dispute him, then he won't be criticized. I do not nessecarily believe that this system 100% works. There are still situations where someone can be talked down upon without being able to defend himself. This is the negative effects of such a system.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the free marketplace of ideas is crucial in arguing an opinion because opinions can never be proven as facts, otherwise it would be a statement.
DeleteHowever, there are limits to what is appropriate and inappropriate in respect to what your opinions are. For example, Hannah's post speaks of a group offending homosexuals. Even though, it is legal to express your opinions, you should show responsibility and not offend people in such a way.
The three quotes of Thomas Jefferson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and John Milton were all about how the Free Marketplace works. It supports the freedom of speech, like what John Milton said, “Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter”. Free marketplace of ideas looks like everyone can say anything toward a certain event, no matter true or false. Therefore, at the end of free marketplace, people may feel tired seeking truths. As there is too much information, people would have to judge everything before believing in it. Free marketplace is not practical, as it still has some problems.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I don’t believe in the idea of Free Marketplace. It can be compared to market economy system, which can be divided to three groups: pure market economy, pure command economy and mixed economy. Pure market economy is an economic system that is regulated by supplies and needs of producers and customers; pure command economy means that the economy of one country is totally controlled by the government. Both of these two systems cannot work ideally as they have a lot of problems.
Therefore, government should play a leading role to regulate one’s economic system. Similarly, Free Marketplace is not practical either, as it still has some invisible problems.
Therefore, government also has its rights to censor some sort of information in order to ensure the peace and development of a country. For example, a couple of week before, Chinese government censored the news of the absence of the vice president, and told to the public that he was fine. Although none knew the truth completely, I believe Chinese government did great in protecting the privacy of the country. Otherwise, many terrorists may have some action that will make the country chaotic.
Practical application of free marketplace of ideas
ReplyDeleteThere is a particular case happened before the summer of 2005. The blind lawyer Chen guangcheng was putted into house arrest by the local government of Shandong province because he exposed the rascality of forced abortion in the local area. Any informations about the excessive enforcement of one child policy was censored by the local official at that time. Chen guangchen and his family was constantly beaten by the local officials, and would have been threatened to death if any information got released to the public or the central government.The general public did not get the news until the late may of 2012 when Chen guangcheng escaped from house arrest and fled to US embassy.
The one-child policy in China has always been controversial issue internationally. The constantly growing population in China forced the government to take the action of birth control, but does it make "forced abortion" legally in order to meet the standard of family planning? The case of Chen guangcheng certainly revealed the dark side of the story. If we put the free market of idea to test in China, then every aspects of one-child policy would have been surfaced even sooner. Consequently, the general public will be frenzied because it involves with the basic human rights. Ultimately, Would the government compromise to the general public and the mass media and abandon the policy? If they do, then the population in China will keep growing until one day china becomes the most poor and crowed country in the world. Is it the best ideas that result from the free market of ideas? After truth,falsehood and different ideas collide with each other,the general public will only come up with a idea that is temporarily suitable for them because every human-being,even the most civilized and educated, has a selfish nature.
However, without the the free markets of ideas, the government will dominate all the media and sources. In this case, only the good side of one-child policy will be revealed. The civil right activist Chen guangcheng would be imprisoned forever and the excessive push for abortion would not be abolished until the central government somehow is aware of the abuse of authorities in Shandong province.
All in all, the free market of ideas is a idealistic model that can only be achieved in the real life when all the people are self-disciplined and reach a high moral standard. The real success can be achieved neither when absolute freedom of speech are granted nor when government are taking control of everything. The best situation is when mainstream media gradually guide the pubic toward a positive and objective direction.
My story is fictional
ReplyDeleteOne situation that I can think of is political. It involves the President and Vice President, but this could go with all of the other members as well.
What if a news reporter, through a line of people, finds out that the President of the United States is having an affair with the Vice President or another staff member. And the reporter wants to share this news with the world. And he has that ability, being a news reporter.
He writes an unbelievable article about this. But there just so happends to be a censorship law that says the government must pass all forms of articles before they are sent to the press. And his is rejected because the government doesn't want this being exposed.
The news reporter has the freedom of speech. But the government has the freedom to decide what is passed to the press.
Who is right.
It is an interesting question. Just as Lindsay talked about there could not be either pure free marketplace of speech or censorship. However, who could decide what things need to be censored while others did not need to. If the government had the power to do that, they will probably censor the thing that has negative effect on them or do it on purpose.
DeleteBoth of the news reporter and the government have the freedom of speech, and it seems that neither of them are wrong. Since it's difficult to identify right and wrong because of the freedom of speech, do you think it is a good idea to have the freedom of speech?
DeleteAlice Hayes
ReplyDelete9-23-12
The free marketplace of ideas is a wonderful theory, unfortunately it doesn’t really work in the real world because many people either don’t have access to all the facts or ignore the facts that don’t fit in with their ideas. Through the course of American history there have traditionally been two political parties that disagreed on many issues, but could work together for the better of the country. This is not the case anymore, the country is so polarized that the moderates with bipartisan ideas are immediately shot down for not supporting their party tonight. The United States is an international powerhouse, many would say it is the most powerful country in the world, however until we let the free marketplace of ideas actually work we will be stuck in park forever.
The ideal end for the free marketplace of ideas is like evolution: only the strong survive. Or in this case only the logical and well thought out. For example when my friends and I want to go out sometimes people come up with great ideas like ‘go to the movies or ‘go mini golfing’ and sometimes they come up with horrible ideas like ‘lets go skydiving!’ or ‘build a log cabin made of pencils!’. Luckily the majority of the horrible ideas are weeded out through lack of funds or teachers saying no, sometimes they are not. Those nights are interesting. Occasionally we’ll have a super cool idea and we can get the A.O.D. to sign off on it, but there are the odd nights when we have a wicked cool, well thought out plan that the administration shots down through censorship of cool ideas that are ‘too far away’ or ‘unsafe’. I feel that if we all talked out why or why not we wanted to do an activity our school would have way more fun options. We have great ideas.
In this article, it talked about the violence in Foxconn in China. As Apple’s new products went to sale last week, there were still some discusses about Foxconn factory’s bad working condition, labor abuse and work safety violations.
ReplyDeleteAll the phares
“Unconfirmed photographs and video circulated on social networking sites, purporting to be from the factory, showed smashed windows, riot police and large groups of workers milling about.” Even though there is a phrase “unconfirmed photographs” and there was no photographs showed on the website, but it gives me a strong sense that it was exactly what was happening in Foxconn, since there was little evidence about what happened. “One Foxconn employee said” “Foxconn said no property was destroyed or damaged.” If the incident was not so serious why they could not just give the public a clear statement? Moreover, “A spokesman for the company said some people were injured and detained by the police after the disturbance escalated into a riot late Sunday.” there was no specific numbers.
I could still remember there was a big discussion about the workers’ condition in Foxconn at the beginning of this year, which was leaded by a journalist who posts a “play” on a journalism. Apple increased the wages and working conditions a little bit, because the author claimed to find a worker in Foxconn. However, the truth was there was censorship about Foxconn, and people could get little knowledge about it even though thousands of workers were there and produced the most popular products in the world.
In this case, free market of idea did not working. For Foxconn has been a secret for too long, and since no one could give clear clear evidence about the real things happened in there, the public could still have their bias towards Foxconn. Even if they had made things clear in the future, people would still think, “if it was the thing happened there, why you guys need to hide it for so long?”
As far as I am concerned, the free marketplace of idea is too idealistic to be true. First of all, it need the public to have too many knowledge about a certain event; Secondly, the public need to be responsible enough, which is high risky; Moreover, they need to give up their previous bias toward one thing, since everyone would already have ideas.
Free marketplace of ideas is really in an optimistic form, it could not be accomplished either now, or in the future.
"http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/25/technology/foxconn-plant-in-china-closed-after-worker-riot.html" Link for the article.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteConflicts between Freedom of Speech and Censorship
ReplyDeleteIt’s always difficult to make clear what is rightful use of one’s Freedom of Speech and where it is crossed. To show this, we can use a current example.
My example will be the french hip hop groupe Sexion d’aussaut. I already talked about during class. Sexion d’Aussaut, in France very famous, is a group of french rapper which produces Songs with often provocative and very offensive attacks against Homosexuals. In an interview they said frankly that they believe homosexuality is unnatural and can’t be tolerated.
“On ne peut donc pas se permettre de dire ouvertement que pour nous, le fait d’etre homosexuel est une déviance qui n’est pas tolérable.” can be translated briefly as “We cannot say openly (in our Songs) that for us, the fact of being homosexual is an intolerant deviance.” "C'est un phénomène de mode qui nous dépasse et on ne comprend absolument pas que le mariage gay et l'adoption pour les gays soient acceptés dans certains pays !” - “It is a temporary fashion and we can absolutely not understand that gay marriage and adoption for gays is accepted in certain countries.” (http://www.gala.fr/l_actu/news_de_stars/sexion_d_assaut_rappeurs_homophobes_210335)
With these statements, Sexion d’aussaut provoked a lot of discussions. A lot of people said that this was an inexcusable scandal and that the groupe should not be allowed to produce anymore music or give concert. The groups lyrics offended homosexuals and their right to be however they wanted to. The groups fans argumented, that it was art and mustn’t be censored. Who ever didn’t like their lyrics and opinions shall not listen. Besides, Sexion d’assaut was protected by their freedom of speech. In the end they won. The group was allowed to go on producing.
How can we make a connection to the concept of free marketplace of ideas? Well, we could consider the hip hops group as an idea, thrown in the middle of everybody so that anyone can see and comment it. Of course they should be allowed to do so. But especially in this case, where they are insulting homosexuals, is more than just opinion. I think it hurts the right of homosexuals of being how they wanted to, more than it would hurt to take Sexion d’assaut the freedom to say these mean things and censor their lyrics. And also, this group is quite famous in France, it could have a really bad impact on a lot of people who listen to it, because they might see the group as an Ideal.
I think that this very interesting and I wonder if this happened in another country like the U.S. what would happen.
DeleteI agree with your idea that we can view the hip hops group as an idea that's been thrown to the public. In this case, different people can have different opinions about the music. So let the public to choose whether listen to the songs or not.
ReplyDeleteI chose the blog therealnews.com/t2
ReplyDeleteI found this blog very neat and organised. There are categories to choose from at the top, and there are pictures attached to every main story to draw in the reader's eye.
The site looks very professional and credible due to the layout. I believe the audience would include people who are really interested and passionate about politics. There are stories about the upcoming presidential election, so probably people would read it to find out more about each party's policies.
I think the most recent global crisis demonstrating tension between free speech and censorship would be the Anti-Islam video posted on Youtube that caused violence in the Middle East a few weeks ago. No matter how discriminating this video was, the creator has the freedom of speech to create it. But, it is questionable as to whether the free marketplace of ideas can be used to find truth in this situation. Posting a video on the internet allows for other peoples' opinions to be expressed in the marketplace via comments either directly on Youtube or through debate in the public. It is evident that there was a huge response to this video by both the physical violence that broke out in the Middle East and the numerous articles written with expressions of opinion. These examples of public response demonstrate the existence of free marketplace of ideas. This ability to voice opinions allows for the truth to be sorted out and eventually revealed.
ReplyDeleteHowever, due to access of the internet and the freedom of speech, there would be an enormous amount of ideas to be sifted through. Taking the time to determine what is true and what is false is impractical. Although I believe free marketplace of ideas is an excellent concept, it is unrealistic to our modern, fast paced, technological world. The power of technology, which happens to be the medium in which this video was produced, leads to the demand for fast answers which unfortunately the free marketplace of ideas cannot easily do.
In addition, this video ended up to be influenced by the government censorship. The government did not force the removal of the video, but did asked for it to be reviewed. This interference is not part of the definition of feee marketplace of ideas. With such a powerful government, a free marketplace of ideas is almost not possible. Any government would be adamant about making sure certain negative ideas do surface in their country. For example, the United States government made sure to have immediate action on the anti-Islam video because they do not want other countries to take offense and think that the United States have religious intolerance.