Chavez-like hate groups using FCC to advance censorship on internet and other media

• With Castro and Chavez-like sense of entitlement, hate groups in essence ask FCC to criminalize some talk radio and other outlets, saying they lead to violence, and to oversee internet. "FCC asked to monitor "hate speech" and "misinformation" online." (Hate groups can only count on advertiser boycotts for so much).

5/31/10, Ars Technica: "Over thirty organizations want the Federal Communications Commission to open up a probe on "hate speech" and "misinformation" in media....

• As for the Internet, it "gives the illusion that news sources have increased, but in fact there are fewer journalists employed now than before," they charge. "Moreover, on the Internet, speakers can hide in the cloak of anonymity, emboldened to say things that they may not say in the public eye."

The groups who want this new proceeding include Free Press, the Media Access Project, Common Cause, the Prometheus Radio Project, and the League of United Latin American Citizens. Their statement, filed in the Commission's Future of Media proceeding, comes in support of a petition to the agency submitted over a year ago by the National Hispanic Media Coalition.

• "Hate speech against vulnerable groups is pervasive in our media—it is not limited to a few isolated instances or any one media platform," NHMC warned the FCC in 2009.... Cumulatively, hate speech creates an environment of hate and prejudice that

• legitimizes violence against its targets."

The coalition has asked the agency to request public comments on hate speech in the media, inquire into its extent, explore

• "the relationship between hate speech in the media and hate crimes," and look into options "for counteracting or reducing the negative effects of such speech."

In addition, the groups wants the FCC to examine

• "the prevalence of misinformation" in the media,

• since misinformation "creates a climate of prejudice."...

(Hate group Media Matters already does this monitoring job with a large tax exempt budget from Soros and other thought police interests via Democracy Alliance. No mention of the permanent harm done by false statements made on page one of the NY Times or Washington Post, corrections for which, if they ever occur, no one sees or cares about).

• continuing, Ars Technica: "Before jumping into this project, the FCC should assess the benefits and costs of launching such a probe. The payoff will obviously be some kind of government summation on hate speech in the media....

Beyond that, the document will probably accomplish little more than those earlier surveys—unless you regard the current media environment as progress. Now for the costs.

First, none of the media targets of these petitions will believe that NHMC doesn't want some kind of direct or indirect regulation, especially if they fear that the materials served up by this inquiry

• could be used as fodder for advertiser boycotts similar to the one that drove Lou Dobbs from CNN.

And why shouldn't they come to that conclusion after they've read this footnote to the Free Press et al commentary about making the media more accountable:

"This sort of awareness-raising has worked in the past. On November 11, 2009, under mounting pressure from organizations and individuals across the nation, Lou Dobbs resigned from CNN. Presente.org was one of the key coordinators of the far-reaching BastaDobbs.com effort, collecting over 100,000 signatures from concerned individuals."...

Second, this inquiry will leave the FCC with the daunting task of cataloguing every conceivable kind of hate speech, including those directed at Republicans and right wing talk show hosts, in order to avoid the appearance of having run a political proceeding.

• Third, the Commission will have to sort out which of the plethora of examples it receives are hate speech. On which data pile will complaints about harsh criticisms of Israel or Muslims land?
• How about misogynist hip-hop tunes?
• What about Internet pornography, especially the rough kind? All we can say is, good luck with that.

Fourth, despite claims to the contrary, such a proceeding will further burden the media reform movement with the perception that its campaigns for more localism and against broadcast media consolidation are really calls for back-door Fairness Doctrine-style content regulation.

• Again, why shouldn't critics draw this inference, when the
• supporters of this inquiry link the hate speech problem to those very themes?

Finally, why would the FCC want to run an inquiry on Internet content at a time when, in pursuit of revised net neutrality rules, its chair is

• trying to convince the public that the agency
• doesn't want to regulate Internet content?...

And watching the probe would be a polarized Congress up for mid-term elections, its members itching to run with any tirade that will get them on cable TV.

In sum, this is a well-meaning idea whose time, we hope, has not come."

• by Matthew Lasar, Ars Technica, via RedState.com

The so-called "Free Press" (a hate group) says media oversight is a civil rights issue. Whatever works.

• Free Press background, Washington Post, 3/27/08

Determined to eliminate competition, similar to what Castro and Chavez have done, interests are working an angle at the FTC, a shorthand version of which may be termed the Drudge Tax (6/4, Washington Times). And why not? Who's stopping them?

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