Gravity Collapse » censorship http://www.gravitycollapse.com from Marc's brain to yours Sun, 30 Oct 2011 06:35:34 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 facebook’s not-so-great firewall http://www.gravitycollapse.com/2010/01/facebooks-not-so-great-firewall http://www.gravitycollapse.com/2010/01/facebooks-not-so-great-firewall#comments Mon, 25 Jan 2010 02:06:32 +0000 gravitycollapse http://www.gravitycollapse.com/?p=176 I am a twitter user and a facebook user. On facebook, I have it set so that the status message is automatically pulled from my twitter stream. Recently, I’ve noticed that many of my tweets don’t make it onto facebook.

One reason I like the twitter messages going to facebook is that facebook has a superior comments system, and often my friends say interesting things about my status messages; otherwise, I have friends on facebook that are not following me on twitter, and they might like to hear what’s roaming around in my brain every now and then.

(...)
Read the rest of facebook’s not-so-great firewall (334 words)

© gravitycollapse for Gravity Collapse, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: , , ,

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

]]> http://www.gravitycollapse.com/2010/01/facebooks-not-so-great-firewall/feed 0 A suggestion to get Apple out of the censorship business http://www.gravitycollapse.com/2009/05/a-suggestion-to-get-apple-out-of-the-censorship-business http://www.gravitycollapse.com/2009/05/a-suggestion-to-get-apple-out-of-the-censorship-business#comments Tue, 05 May 2009 18:57:53 +0000 gravitycollapse http://www.gravitycollapse.com/?p=126 After reading Trent Reznor’s expletive-filled mini-rant about Apple’s App Store approval process, which I basically agreed with, it got me to thinking: why does Apple want to be the decency police in the first place?

Apparently, when you submit your app to the App Store, they have people using it and looking for naughty words interspersed in the language, or looking for bare breasts (oh no…the horror), or they are judging the overall functionality of the App based some loose and unknown standards. You can probably guess that my personal opinion is that any and all apps should be allowed, unless they are violating specific laws, but I am not conceited enough to think that my standards should be applied to everyone else, so I agree that there needs to be a solution.

Personally, I think what Apple does well is write great software and build great products. I also think they suck at determining what is offensive and what isn’t, and quite frankly, I think everyone sucks at that. More to the point: putting themselves in this position only brings them bad publicity. Either they will piss off conservatives who think they are allowing too much horrible stuff that scars the children, or else they will piss off free speech advocates who believe that responsibility for judging decency falls on the individual and are paranoid about a 1984-esque future. In short, from the corporate perspective, there’s no way to win.

Rumors are that version 3.0 of the iPhone software addresses this issue to some degree. But, in the meantime, here’s how I think this problem should be solved.
(...)
Read the rest of A suggestion to get Apple out of the censorship business (1,196 words)

© gravitycollapse for Gravity Collapse, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: , , ,

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

]]> http://www.gravitycollapse.com/2009/05/a-suggestion-to-get-apple-out-of-the-censorship-business/feed 0 Learn to keep your mouth shut http://www.gravitycollapse.com/2005/07/learn-to-keep-your-mouth-shut http://www.gravitycollapse.com/2005/07/learn-to-keep-your-mouth-shut#comments Mon, 25 Jul 2005 22:07:25 +0000 gravitycollapse http://www.gravitycollapse.com/mesolimbic_reward_center/?p=31 The linked story discusses Manlin Chee, a Chinese-American immigration attorney. In a nutshell, she was put in jail for a year because the FBI set her up and she filed some papers for them that she shouldn’t have. The more interesting bit of the timeline is that the FBI’s “sting” came after she had participated in a PATRIOT Act forum, in which she (rightly) decried the legislation as a violation of Americans’ constitutional rights.

This brings up an interesting point, as America inches closer to a kind of ‘corporatized Stalinism’. We Americans are going to have to learn how to keep our mouths shut.

(...)
Read the rest of Learn to keep your mouth shut (148 words)

© gravitycollapse for Gravity Collapse, 2005. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: ,

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

]]> http://www.gravitycollapse.com/2005/07/learn-to-keep-your-mouth-shut/feed 0 You can’t say anything bad about the Jews http://www.gravitycollapse.com/2001/09/you-cant-say-anything-bad-about-the-jews http://www.gravitycollapse.com/2001/09/you-cant-say-anything-bad-about-the-jews#comments Tue, 04 Sep 2001 10:04:17 +0000 gravitycollapse http://www.gravitycollapse.com/mesolimbic_reward_center/?p=62 OK, the title might be a little harsh, but ever since the Holocaust happened, it’s been pretty much true. (See, I feel I even have to say that in order to cover my ass.)

They’ve become an untouchable ethnic group – considered above reproach – simply because there was a highly public, disgusting perpetration of evil against them.

Read this:

Unfortunately, the UN’s conference on race in South Africa has been undermined by…well…racism. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.

(...)
Read the rest of You can’t say anything bad about the Jews (384 words)

© gravitycollapse for Gravity Collapse, 2001. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: , ,

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

]]> http://www.gravitycollapse.com/2001/09/you-cant-say-anything-bad-about-the-jews/feed 1