Maszman Speaks!

Despite recently deny­ing they were destroy­ing net neu­tral­ity, Google and Ver­i­zon have announced a new tiered Inter­net which divides the net into paid and free channels. Paid chan­nels offer higher speeds and higher pri­or­ity over nor­mal traffic.

Essen­tially, the scheme pre­serves “net neu­tral­ity” by rel­e­gat­ing it to the “free” segment.

After read­ing about the racist brouhaha over a mural on the wall of an Ari­zona ele­men­tary school, Roger Ebert penned How do they get to be that way?

What I can­not imag­ine is what it would be like to be one of those peo­ple dri­ving past in their cars day after day and scream­ing hate­ful things out of the win­dow. How do you get to that place in your life? Were you raised as a racist, or become one on your own?

As Frank Rich notes, much of the rhetoric behind the TPers and the Repub­li­can gov­er­nor of Vir­ginia Robert McDonnell’s dec­la­ra­tion of “Con­fed­er­ate His­tory Month” is racism in the guise of a neo-Confederate upris­ing in sup­port of “states’ rights.” If you believe that the furor is all about states fight­ing against unfair fed­eral hege­mony, you prob­a­bly also believe “states’ rights” was the sole rea­son for the Civil War.

There are those who don’t believe the Holo­caust ever hap­pened. But there are also those who not just believe but know because they saw with their own eyes.

They’re all in their 80s now and it won’t belong before they’re gone. What will hap­pen then?

Ques­tions worth ask­ing. Not that they’ll get answered, of course.

It’s my per­sonal pol­icy to get my news from mul­ti­ple sources. For local Rochester news that means the Demo­c­rat & Chron­i­cle and Chan­nel 13 (the best of the local tele­vi­sion sta­tions on the web). One thing I’ve noticed about both sites is the awful racism and intol­er­ance that plague their reader com­ments. There’s just some­thing about the sup­posed anonymity of the net that brings out the worst (in) peo­ple. If you won­der where the hate­ful extrem­ism of the right comes from, just check the com­ments in any story men­tion­ing non-white peo­ple or for that mat­ter any Rochester city resident.

Each site has taken a dif­fer­ent approach to the mat­ter. Chan­nel 13 has decided to elim­i­nate com­ments alto­gether. This move brought them a lot of hate mail from the usual sources, but at least site vis­i­tors don’t have to read it. Although they say they hope to bring them back some day, I seri­ously doubt that will hap­pen. The vio­lence, racism and hate are just start­ing, we’re nowhere near the end of it.

The Demo­c­rat & Chron­i­cle has taken a far more stealthy, and per­haps dis­hon­est, approach. For instance, in this arti­cle about minor­ity recruit­ing for the Rochester Police Depart­ment, com­ment­ing has been dis­abled entirely. All you can do is “Rec­om­mend”. As of this moment 51 peo­ple have “rec­om­mended” this arti­cle. But it’s unlikely that’s true, and that’s where the dis­hon­esty comes in. If it’s unlikely that 51 peo­ple are rec­om­mend­ing you read this arti­cle, why make it look like that’s the case? If you don’t want to pub­lish hate­ful, racist com­ments that’s one thing, but don’t make them look like some­thing they’re not. Chan­nel 13’s approach may not be ideal, but at least it’s hon­est, why can’t the Demo­c­rat & Chron­i­cle do the same?