Feb 17, 2015

Censorship that is only relevant 15 years ago


head of the Central Electoral Committee made a decision yesterday that was relevant perhaps 15 years ago, maybe more.

Justice Salim Jubril decided that Netanyahu's speech before the House of Representatives would be allowed to be broadcast in Israel, but only with a 5-minute delay. The 5-minute delay would allow them to view it and edit out any election propaganda, if Netanyahu should try to take advantage of the opportunity.

Today, with the internet, and live feeds of streaming video, this decision is supremely irrelevant. If I cannot watch it unedited on IBA or Channel 10 or whatever other channel there is in Israel I will go to the Fox News website or MSNBC or CNN or any of a hundred other websites and pull up the live feed. The only people who will be affected by this decision are the handful of people who do not have Internet access and are interested enough to try to watch the broadcast live on television.

The days of censorship are long over in a free and democratic country/ In a place like China or Dubai perhaps they can block the streams and prevent any given speech from being broadcast before they edit it out. In a developed country like Israel, they'd be better putting their efforts to better use no other issues and not waste their time any longer on this type of pointless narishkeit.

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1 comment:

  1. I'm sure he knows that but his initiative says a lot about his frame of mind.

    ReplyDelete