Although the article addresses a number of specific issues relating to access of information and censorship during the recent protests, it attempts to justify censorship using the argument that "the right to live trumps the right to free information".
This argument is made in reference to the likely government-imposed censorship of Zello and Pastebin. The problem with this argument is that it is not Zello or Pastebin or any other communications medium that is responsible for the right-wing violence that has been occurring. Those groups that commit the violence, right-wing or not, state-sponsored or not, are responsible for their actions. Those groups, and the political ideologies that drive and justify the violence, are what should be condemned. It is not justifiable to censor entire communication mediums that are used by violent groups, since those mediums are used by the public for legitimate reasons. Zello and Pastebin are both popular services used by lots of people. It is not justifiable to block all of Zello because some groups use it to plan violent actions, just as it is not justifiable for the NSA to compromise and surveil all Skype communications for purportedly similar reasons. There is no justice in forbidding use of the printing press just because some have used it to print calls to arms, to use an analogy. There is certainly a disproportionate amount of uncritical and inaccurate reporting on the situation in Venezuela, no doubt, and much of it is used to misrepresent elite-backed right-wing extremists as deserving victims of a tyrannical regime. But this type of justification for censorship is without merit. I'd really love to hear more people's thoughts on this, especially those with experience in the country. -Dan On 03/03/2014 07:11 PM, Damian Fossi wrote: > Original text in spanish: http://www.aporrea.org/tecno/n246101.html > > Text in english: http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/10437 > > Best Regards, > -- http://disman.tl OpenPGP key: http://disman.tl/pgp.asc Fingerprint: 2480 095D 4B16 436F 35AB 7305 F670 74ED BD86 43A9 -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
