Daniel Pearl
Two days ago I posted on MeFi a story about how the FBI has used threats of prosecution against ISP's in order to get the infamous Daniel Pearl murder video [WARNING NOT WORK SAFE - NOT FOR CHILDREN OR THOSE WITH WEAK ANYTHING] removed from the internet. The fact that this video was on the internet, in my eyes, shows both the positive aspects of the internet and the most horrible and despicable. This gives me hope that information is becoming more and more difficult to suppress and distort.
On the other hand, a movie of someone being tortured and forced to lie about his "crimes", a movie that runs a shiver down my spine every time I think about it, a movie that some sites have as content and are presumably making money off of sickens me. With any medium, from books, to photographs, to the internet, someone will use to exploit and use for personal gain - no matter what the cost or pain that it might cause. Either way, there was much controversy and discussion on MeFi about whether a link to the video should appear on MeFi. These are my points:
I Posted the link out of the sheer news value of it. The situation is very unfortunate, but I think thinking and then discussing why this atrocity happened, who did it, and the aftermath is an important tool in making sure this doesn't happen again. The reason I posted this thread is the fact that the FBI - the national law enforcement agency - wants to ban this information. I have seen the video, and it made me physically ill, but the thought that a national police agency is banning choice is abhorrent to me as much as the content of the video. I believe that everyone has a choice to watch or to not. That is what America is about, the freedom to choose what defines your life, what passes before your eyes and what you think.
Like rcade said, the video link is topical and central to the discussion. in fact I hope it will spawn many sub themes such as the connection between pornography-death-commercial culture, instant celebrity, geopolitical influence and the role of the media to name a few. To yank this link would not necessarily limit these comments, but is essential to the discussion at hand. Either way, I think I was pretty clear about the contents and many have heard of the video, so it is not like you weren't warned. (1)
I stand by what I posted because whenever I post to the front page, I strive to add as much information to the post. I try not to editorialize the post as much as possible, because I believe that the real discussion should be inside the thread, not in the post itself. I see real problems with people telling me what I can/can't look at, read, eat, etc. My body, my life. As adults we have the maturity to decide for ourselves the comfort level we exist in. I would just like to thank willnot, WolfDaddy, raaka, and dogmatic - for creating debate, and rushmc. The level of discourse on MeFi is excellent because of you and everone else who participates.
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This is the permanent home of Daniel Pearl. I wrote this post at 23:37 on May 25, 2002. This post is part of grubbykid.com, a weblog. If you liked this entry, why don't you read some other posts such as Manual or And now time for public humiliation? Or you could go to the site archives or return home. All are good choices.
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Some descriptive tags for this entry are: web tragedy video MeFi war terrorism Iraq Pearl journalist murder.
Mommy... what's a tag?
Some descriptive tags for this entry are: Iraq, journalist, MeFi, murder, Pearl, terrorism, tragedy, video, war, web.
Mommy... what's a tag?
