Section 14

And you’d better not forget it if you live in one of several American states that are implementing “veggie libel” or agricultural disparagement laws.

Under California’s proposed Assembly Bill 698 it will become illegal to say bad things about perishable agricultural products unless you hcan prove scientifically that your claims are true. Bills of this type introduce the same sort of rules for vegetables that currently exist for people as defamation laws.

There’s a huge amount of rubbish talked about food safety by various consumer and environmental groups and food producers claim that this can affect their incomes. The veggie libel laws got their start with the 1989 Alar scare, which suggested (once you trawled through the actual data) that people who consumed 20,000 litres or more of apple juice per day were liable to contract cancer. Apple growers claimed the affair cost them $100 million in lost sales but they lost a libel suit against CBS, who first aired the story.

Critics claim that the laws will be used to chill criticism of the food industry. In one case dairies were sued for advertising that their milk was growth hormone-free and thus implying that growth hormones are bad. The chilling effect occurs when the threat of a lawsuit prevents someone from expressing an opinion - even if they believe it to be true and have evidence to back it up - because they can’t afford to defend a lawsuit. These lawsuits (known in America as SLAPPs - “Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation”) have also caused publishers to back away from books because a book’s sales wouldn’t justify the legal costs, even if the case was won.

People behind food scares (and environmental scares more generally) can often be reckless with regard to the truth but it would be wrong to place a blanket ban on their utterings. The reputation of a vegetable should not have the same standing in law as the reputation of a person. This attempt can only be an act of professional courtesy on the part of California legislators.

The answer as usual is to have the debate in public, infuriating and tiring as that may be; to examine the evidence and then to point out in public, as P.J. O’Rourke did, that the Alar scare was not a problem with apples but with Meryl Streep’s head.

Hat tip: National Coalition Against Censorship.

America’s Child Online Protection Act was struck down as unconstitutional by Senior U.S. District Judge Lowell Reed Jr. yesterday.

The law put the onus on web site operators rather than parents to keep minors from viewing “harmful” material.
What’s really noteworthy is this part of Judge Reed’s summation:

Perhaps we do the minors of this country harm if (free speech) protections, which they will with age inherit fully, are chipped away in the name of their protection.

Absolutely right. Too many people are willing to throw away free speech to chase some less important, but seemingly more pressing, short-term goal.

If those who would discard free speech to pursue some triviality don’t realise the harm they’re causing then they’re not fit to hold power. If they do realise the harm they’re doing, they’re doubly unfit to hold power and should be disposed of double-quick.

Hat tip: Boing Boing.

Martin Durkin, director of The Great Global Warming Swindle (video, 211 MB), is interviewed at Spiked and talks about the intolerance of environmentalists for any dissent and their attempts to attack the messenger and force this and similar programmes off the air.

On Wednesday, before the film even aired, a left-leaning website provided readers with a link to Ofcom’s website and the instruction: ‘Please do complain [about The Great Global Warming Swindle], and please do publicise this link and ask others to complain.’ It gave a link to the Channel 4 complaints website, too, saying that if Channel 4 ‘get a number of complaints then they will find it harder to commission future programmes from Durkin’. This represents a new low in the discussion of environmentalism. Instead of having an upfront, open debate about the science, and the social and political courses of action that might be required to alleviate pollution while still meeting people’s needs and desires, some try to have a film written off by the suited and booted powers-that-be at Ofcom and a director excommunicated from the world of TV.

‘It is soft censorship’, Durkin insists. ‘If there is a huge response to a programme, then the ITC and now Ofcom feel the need to do something. So they end up censuring seriously controversial work. I mean, Channel 4 shows a lot of rubbish, like “wank week”. But because hardly anyone complains about that, Ofcom doesn’t say anything. And then people complain about my work, which is serious, and these bodies take action. It might not be formal censorship, but it is a kind of invisible censorship. The end result is phoney controversialism on TV but not much real controversialism. Ofcom is supposed to uphold standards but it does the opposite.’

He believes that such official chastisement – which was widely celebrated by some greens in relation to Against Nature and which is being demanded again for The Great Global Warming Swindle – has a ‘chilling effect’ on TV output. The big broadcasters, desperate to avoid being ticked off by Ofcom, will avoid showing anything liable to invite large numbers of complaints. So they stick with the wankers of ‘wank week’ instead. A far safer bet.

Spiked describes itself as “an independent online phenomenon dedicated to raising the horizons of humanity by waging a culture war of words against misanthropy, priggishness, prejudice, luddism, illiberalism and irrationalism in all their ancient and modern forms.”

Spiked has a couple of interesting articles at the moment. Tyranny of the individual examines today’s thin-skinned culture, in which any individial can complain and cause a product or advertisement to be pulled.

Today’s culture of inoffensiveness, the idea that ‘You can’t say that!’ if it hurts someone’s feelings, has given rise to censure based on tiny numbers of people claiming to have felt offended. Once society accepts that it is legitimate to protect individuals or groups from the subjective category of ‘offensive’ speech or expression, then that gives carte blanche to individuals everywhere to demand the removal of things they don’t like. At least the old censors claimed to be democratic, to represent a ‘silent majority’ or ‘public decency’; of course this was nonsense, because in fact they tended merely to dress up their own values as the nation’s values. Today, by contrast, groups like Ofcom and the Advertising Standards Authority openly respond to tiny handfuls of complaints, using the bogeyword of ‘offensive!’ to remove certain words and images from the public realm.

In Denial, Frank Furedi looks at the emergence of ‘denial’ as the new blasphemy, the calls for those heretics who don’t correctly follow ecological doctrine to be punished, and the effect of all this on free speech.

Many influential figures have a cavalier attitude to free speech, believing that ‘dangerous’ ideas should be repressed. Disbelief in today’s received wisdom is described as ‘Denial’, which is branded by some as a crime that must be punished. It began with Holocaust denial, before moving on to the denial of other genocides. Then came the condemnation of ‘AIDS denial’, followed by accusations of ‘climate change denial’. This targeting of denial has little to do with the specifics of the highly-charged emotional issues involved in discussions of the Holocaust or AIDS or pollution. Rather, it is driven by a wider mood of intolerance towards free thinking.

Another story for the ‘pathetically-thin-skinned’ file came out of Oxford University this week. Spiked has the story of Merton College at Oxford, where all the students got a good lecturing about refraining from “unacceptable and extremely offensive” behaviour.

The vile crime that provoked this stern crackdown? During a pool game, someone used the word “gay” in a derogatory way, as in “that shot was so gay”. Says Spiked:

The idea that students should behave according to some predetermined college ethos stands in stark contrast to the old idea of universities as places where young people should be free to experiment, to think, to argue, to learn, to say what they please in a student common room…. Enforcing an official dogma about words, phrases and actions betrays an elitist view of what sort of behaviour is appropriate, and what is not.

Worse, it treats students as children who either must be reprimanded for saying naughty words or who must be protected from the jokey words of big ‘bully boys’ by student officials posing as social workers. This infantilises students – which is hardly conducive to creating an atmosphere where students can grow, both educationally and personally.

Merton College, founded in 1264, boasts the oldest surviving working library in the United Kingdom but sadly their copy of John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty seems to have gone missing.

That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.

This “harm principle” defines the boundary of what should be permitted speech. The “harm” caused by speech should be palpable if that speech is to be banned. Being a bit miffed at a throwaway comment does not constitute palpable harm.

The New Zealand Herald reported today that Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims were upset with the use of the word “tolerance” in the Human Rights Commission’s Draft National Statement on Religious Diversity, wanting something more - respect and understanding.

Leave aside the question of why we need a National Statement on Religious Diversity - I guess it gives the clipboard-wielders something to fill their days. If we’re going to have such a thing, what should it offer?

The document (Word .doc, 25 kB) begins with some fluff but the meat is in the guidelines. They start off well by assuring us that New Zealand has no state religion and that freedom of religion is to be upheld. Of more concern is

4. The Right of Freedom of Expression

The right to freedom of expression and freedom of the press are vital for democracy, but shall be exercised with responsibility and in an informed manner.

According to the Human Rights Commission, I do not have the right to express myself unless I express myself “with responsibility and in an informed manner”.

This is incredibly dangerous. Who gets to decide whether or not I’m being responsible? Am I responsible if I criticise a “faith community” and members of that “faith community” violently overreact? We cannot allow ourselves to get into the situation that exists in some countries where a deliberately thin-skinned group can hold us to ransom, can force us to censor ourselves under the threat of violence.

Freedom of expression is far too important to be thrown away trying to legislate politeness. Tolerance is all that a free society can offer. To demand respect, or more, for one person’s beliefs is to limit their right of others to express their beliefs.

Hat tip: Kiwiblog.

The Charities Commission today opened the Charities Register.

Chief Executive of the Charities Commission Trevor Garrett said that while registration is voluntary, organisations wishing to remain tax exempt on the grounds of charitable purpose should register before 1 July 2008.

Normally, a trivial piece of bureaucratic news like this wouldn’t register but cast your minds back to mid-October last year. In the heat of the debate over the Labour Party’s theft of public funds to pay for their pledge cards, when Labour was repeatedly coming up with new ways to limit campaining against them, not-too-subtle hints were dropped that organisations that spent too much time on political activity were at risk of losing their tax-free charitable status.

Organisations set up specifically to lobby the government - from the Sensible Sentencing Trust to the Child Poverty Action Group - were understandably outraged.

As I pointed out in an article last year on Labour’s recent attacks on free speech (Goskomizdat comes to Helengrad), there could be a significant chilling effect when the government threatens to strike charities off for unapproved political activity.

All charities will have to be registered from mid-2008 and then the ministerially-appointed board of the Charities Commission will decide who gets to keep their status. The temptation for charities to censor themselves to avoid being financially punished will be strong.

Charities Commission chief executive Trevor Garrett is glib: “We have got a lot of power when it comes to investigations. The trick is not to abuse that power.”

Freedom of expression should not have to rely on ministerial puppets performing tricks.

UPDATE 13/2/07: Germany is going through a similar exercise at the moment and the most high-profile victim could be Greenpeace. Greenpeace is currently tax-exempt because of its environmental activities but the problem is that Greenpeace’s environmental activites focus more on swaying opinion and lobbying politicians than actually doing anything that really helps the environment, hence the unwanted attention from the German Ministry of Finance.

Mozart’s Idomeneo was performed at Deutsche Oper Berlin last night after being cancelled in September due to fears of violent reprisals from Muslims upset by the opera’s depiction of a decapitated Mohammed.

Deutsche-Welle reported in September:

The Deutsche Oper in Berlin announced Monday “with great regret” that it had scratched Hans Neuenfels’ version of the Mozart opera “Idomeneo” from the program this season because certain scenes presented an “incalculable security risk” for the theater.

“To avoid endangering the public and its employees, the Deutsche Oper in Berlin has decided to refrain from showing “Idomeneo” in November,” the opera house said.

Last night the opera opened to heavy security and there was only a minor disturbance during the scene in question.

After a great deal of sturm and drang about artistic freedom, opera fans and politicians attended the controversial Hans Neuenfels production of Mozart’s Idomeneo opera. The holy heads rolled, but the night was otherwise peaceful.

Let’s hope others take strength from this decision and choose not to be cowed by hyperbolically violent, thin-skinned Islamic protesters.

Not PC has an article well worth reading on censorship by privilege.

The government has two main ways it can direct expression. The first is by breaching our rights - by direct censorship; the second is by controlling our privileges - withholding its largesse unless we toe the party line. This second form of influence is most often felt where the government funds intellectual (or anti-intellectual) activity, in the arts, education, and science.

Go and read it: “The establishing of an establishment” - a different kind of censorship.

Two US Senators, one Republican, one Democrat, have written to Exxon Mobil telling them to toe the line, or else.

The letter is of a piece with what has become a campaign of intimidation against any global warming dissent. Not only is everyone supposed to concede that the planet has been warming - as it has - but we are all supposed to salute and agree that human beings are the definitive cause, that the magnitude of the warming will be disastrous and its effects catastrophic, that such problems as AIDS and poverty are less urgent, and that economic planners must therefore impose vast new regulatory burdens on everyone around the world. Exxon is being targeted in this letter and other ways because it is one of the few companies that still thinks some debate on these questions is valuable.

Read the entire story at the Wall Street Journal (Global Warming Gag Order).

Imagine if this letter had been sent by someone in the Bush Administration trying to enforce the opposite conclusion? The left would be howling about “censorship.” That’s exactly what did happen earlier this year after James Hansen, the NASA scientist and global warming evangelist, complained that a lowly 24-year-old press aide had tried to limit his media access. The entire episode was preposterous because Mr. Hansen is one of the most publicized scientists in the world, but the press aide was nonetheless sacked.

Hat tip: Samizdata.

In the previous post I talked about today’s Dominion Post editorial Chipping away at freedom of speech, which explored the contrast between Nicky Hager’s book, whose publication was prevented by legal injunction, and O.J. Simpson’s book If I Did It, whose publication was prevented because the publisher belatedly and after public badgering grew a sense of good taste.

A third example that should be added to this comparison is Scholastic Australia’s decision not to publish Army of the Pure, a children’s thriller about Afghan terrorists plotting to blow up Sydney’s Lucas Heights nuclear reactor. (Hat Tip: Pacific Empire)

Scholastic’s general manager, publishing, Andrew Berkhut, said the company had canvassed “a broad range of booksellers and library suppliers”, who expressed concern that the book featured a Muslim terrorist.

“They all said they would not stock it,” he said, “and the reality is if the gatekeepers won’t support it, it can’t be published.”

In the cases of both If I Did It and Army of the Pure the publishers voluntarily halted publication. In both cases the decision was a commercial decision. In neither case (as far as I know) were threats of violence made against anyone. I think the decision not to publish If I Did It was sound, although I don’t feel strongly either way, but the decision not to publish Army of the Pure is spineless, and bodes ill for the future. So what’s the difference?

If I Did It is simply in poor taste. It looks like an attempt by O.J. Simpson to make money out of murders that many people still believe that he committed and got away with. People are rightly revulsed and have said they won’t buy it.

Army of the Pure is a victim of the chilling effect - the self-censorship that occurs when people fear harm from others’ reactions to what they say. While no violence has specifically been threated against shops or libraries that stock this book, clearly that fear is there. Muslims have, in the very recent past, reacted with violent self-righteous fervour whenever anyone has dared criticise or mock Islam or Mohammed. Witness the extreme reaction to the Danish Mohammed cartoons, in which embassies were burnt down and perhaps 150 people were killed in riots.

The pulling of Army of the Pure is not because of concerns about poor taste, or the quality of the story-telling. It is because booksellers and librarians feel intimidated by previous acts of violence from volatile Muslim protesters and would rather voluntarily silence themselves than have rioters attempt to silence them by force. The appeasers are doing the oppressors’ work for them.

We must not be cowed by these protestors’ hyperbolic reactions and their exaggeratedly thin skins. Jihadists demand that everyone submit to Allah or face the sword. We must defend our freedom to think for ourselves and to voice our thoughts. We must not willingly surrender our freedoms in the hope of avoiding a fight.

Wellington Airport has refused to put up a National Party billboard because it is “too politically sensitive”.

The Dominion Post suggests that the reason for the refusal may be that the Airport is concerned about the Government’s pending decision on the Qantas/Air New Zealand codeshare agreement, which could cut flights to the capital and hence cut airport profits.

A chilling effect is the self-censorship that occurs when someone fears the actions of another. A newspaper declining to print a cartoon not because it isn’t news but because it fears reprisals from medieval thugs would be one example.

In this case the Government has the power to make decisions that could negatively affect the running of the Airport. The Clark Government has a history of being vindictive and so the Airport might rightly fear them and censor themselves in the hopes of getting the “right” decision from Pete Hodgson. An air of fear can sometimes be more effective than explicit censorship laws and it’s certainly more stealthy.

UPDATE: I’ve just seen on Not PC that Bill English was talking about the chilling effect on National Radio’s Morning Report this morning.