Topic: Who has the right to Free speech on the Internet?
Saltah'na
Chinese Canadian, or 75% Commie Bastard.
Member # 33
posted
I found this on the FutureQuest forums. This revolves around the Bhopal disaster in 1984 which killed 20,000 people in India. Basically what happened is that there was an accident at a Union Carbide plant near Bhopal that produced pesticide. Because the pesticide they were making was exothermic, one of their holding tanks exploded when water seeped into it. The resulting noxious fumes were responsible for the high amount of deaths.
Blow by Blow: Dow Chemical has since purchased Union Carbide, and many activists say that Dow Chemical should shoulder more responsibility for the Bhopal Disaster. However, Dow's response was, well, see the following article for yourself: http://la.indymedia.org/news/2003/01/25246.php
Next- http://www.theyesmen.org/dow/ Here, a few activists happened to procure the domain "Dow-Chemical.com". They then proceeded to make a very convincing copy of the http://www.dow.com site. The main kicker was the press release (in the Yes Men site) which stated that the Executives care nothing about the Bhopal disaster except for their own monetary bottom line. Because many people thought that "Dow-Chemical.com" was a part of Dow.com, the response was quite overwhelming. http://www.dowethics.com/r/about/corp/email.htm
Of course, Dow Chemical (the company itself) is not amused. The Yes Men site, along with many others is part of an umbrella network of sites that are a part of thing.net, which caters to activists and independant artists. Using the Digial Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), Dow forced Verio to shut down Dow-Chemical.com, or at the very least, turn over the DNS information for that site over to Dow (which they did)- http://www.theyesmen.org/dow/Dow-Chemical_DMCAnotice.pdf (you need Acrobat to read this) http://adbusters.org/breaking_news/dow2002_12_20.html (notice G.W. Bush's remarks regarding freedoms)
Verio however, went one step further. I am at a loss on whether this was solely Verio's doing or if Dow had any part of this: simply put, the entire thing.net activist group was given an eviction notice. That's right. What is claimed to be the largest artist and activist resource network was told to pack its bags and get outta there. This was done even though the people who run thing.net had nothing to do with the actions of the Yes Men site. Nonetheless, supporters of thing.net were outraged at what they call the limitation of freedom of speech. https://secure.thing.net/backbone/http://rtmark.com/thingpr.html
Finally, Dow Chemical applauded this act saying that thing.net is a site with no purpose except to cause nothing but trouble towards the good corporate citizens. It upholds this move as a great day for "Corporate Free Speech". http://www.dowethics.com/r/environment/freedom.html
So, after reading all of this mess, there are some questions: 1) Is the Yes Men's internet example of exposing "corruption" part of, or a violation of Free Speech? 2) Was Verio right to evict thing.net even though the actions of the Yes Men had nothing to do with the people who run thing.net? 3) Should thing.net be shut down given that it is such a large thorn to Corporate America?
[ January 07, 2003, 17:34: Message edited by: Tahna Los ]
-------------------- "And slowly, you come to realize, it's all as it should be, you can only do so much. If you're game enough, you could place your trust in me. For the love of life, there's a tradeoff, we could lose it all but we'll go down fighting...." - David Sylvian FreeSpace 2, the greatest space sim of all time, now remastered!
Registered: Mar 1999
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Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
Member # 256
posted
The DMCA curtails a LOT more freedoms than Speech alone, and the rate at which it's being pushed through legislative bodies EVERYWHERE is frightening. The juridical powers it grants to corporations in particular are way, WAY too large.
So, in response: 1) Part of. 2) NO. Don't you see what's happening here? Civil rights are being stripped away left and right and any outspoken opposition gets beaten down at the same time! And it's STATUTORY! 3) No. Any and all thorns should be left firmly inserted, thank you very much.
*edited by request*
Registered: Nov 1999
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Saltah'na
Chinese Canadian, or 75% Commie Bastard.
Member # 33
posted
Cartman, I edited my post. I suggest you do the same.
Now this is funny. The press release that was parodied by the Yes Men also appeared on Dow Chemical Ethics site. Curious.
-------------------- "And slowly, you come to realize, it's all as it should be, you can only do so much. If you're game enough, you could place your trust in me. For the love of life, there's a tradeoff, we could lose it all but we'll go down fighting...." - David Sylvian FreeSpace 2, the greatest space sim of all time, now remastered!
Registered: Mar 1999
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Saltah'na
Chinese Canadian, or 75% Commie Bastard.
Member # 33
posted
Interesting.
It looks like dowethics.com is not part of Dow Chemicals as I originally thought. In fact, dowethics.com is a reincarnation of the original "Dow-Chemical.com" site created by the Yes Men. I guess the Yes men wanted to spread word about Dow's actions by making this site portable, you could simply run an install file, and the entire site is there.
So, simply put, the press releases coming from dowethics.com, including the part about Dow Chemical applauding the termination of Thing.net are fake.
Honestly, I was actually fooled by this until I came across a mirror with the exact same site.
Thus, I do not know whether Dow actually applauded the termination of thing.net. This saga does get interesting with each passing minute.
But the subject matter still stands... hopefully.
-------------------- "And slowly, you come to realize, it's all as it should be, you can only do so much. If you're game enough, you could place your trust in me. For the love of life, there's a tradeoff, we could lose it all but we'll go down fighting...." - David Sylvian FreeSpace 2, the greatest space sim of all time, now remastered!
Registered: Mar 1999
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The activists are certainly justified in trying to gain attention for their problems. However, I don't think it was a good idea to "impersonate" a corporate website, regardless of the issue. Although I suppose they might have anticipated the reaction, and mainly wanted to get attention that way.
Regardless, it's unbelievable just how those people are being treated by corporations. Absolutely appalling.
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
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Saltah'na
Chinese Canadian, or 75% Commie Bastard.
Member # 33
And a few statements which I think should deserve some attention:
That is why, despite the fact that we clearly have no legal obligations in relation to the tragedy, we have, for some time, been exploring various philanthropic initiatives which might address some of those needs – just as we do in other parts of the world where we have business interests.
...
But what we cannot and will not do – no matter where Greenpeace takes their protests and how much they seek to undermine Dow’s reputation with the general public – is accept responsibility for the Bhopal accident.
posted
Well, what do they mean by responsibility? Do they mean "it's not our fault"? If so, then it's not their responsibility. Or do they mean "we don't have to do anything about it if we don't want to"? If so, they're wrong. It's UC's responsibility, and, since they've assimilated UC, they take on all the responsibilities of UC.
Registered: Mar 1999
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