This is not technology related at all, but I did think back to the Google China episode a few weeks back when I read this op-ed in the Post today. What irritated me then was watching Google resist subpeonas from the DOJ for non-private information (keywords and URL's) on pornography one week, and not even a full week later saying that censoring speech in order to do business in China was okay by them.
As I have witnessed the Cartoon Jihad unfold across the globe I am reminded of the same level of hypocrisy in the major media outlets. In the same week the Mohammed cartoons blows up, Rolling Stone is running a cover with some rap star dressed up like Jesus at the Cruxification. How is it that the media holds itself to a high standard of sensitivity to Islam but not to Christianity?
Of course it's really not about Christianity vs. Islam at all, but something more profound and it's rooted in a pandering to one part of the world while expecting something more from another... not at all unlike Google acting as an agent of the Chinese government while at the same time being indifferent to the U.S. government.
While we may disagree among ourselves about whether and when the public
interest justifies the disclosure of classified wartime information,
our general agreement and understanding of the First Amendment and a
free press is informed by the fact -- not opinion but fact -- that
without broad freedom, without responsibility for the right to know
carried out by courageous writers, editors, political cartoonists and
publishers, our democracy would be weaker, if not nonexistent. There
should be no group or mob veto of a story that is in the public
interest.
Comments