Many critics fear the 2010 Games will smother free speech. But a rapid proliferation of cell-phone cameras and open-source websites could make potential restrictions hard to enforce, a UBC journalism professor said Thursday evening.
“We’ve had this weird thing happen where the eyes of big brother are sort of turned around,” Daniel W. Burnett told a forum on the 2010 Games and civil liberties.
As the Tyee reported earlier this year, Vancouver’s Olympics could mark a new era for social media.
Many proponents believe crowd-sourced reporting will undermine efforts by organizers to control the look and feel of the Games for TV audiences around the world.
It’s a potent possibility in Vancouver, where critics have decried recent city bylaws they say restrict free speech. The so-called signage bylaws were the subject of much debate at the UBC forum.
Vancouver officials argue the legislation aims to prohibit ambush marketing. But anti-Games critics Chris Shaw and Alissa Westergard-Thorpe have sued the city over what they see as flagrant free speech violations.
An amendment to the bylaws is coming soon, city officials say. But if people aren’t happy with results, they still have recourse to a powerful tool, Burnett said.
“You might be able to put up a sign law and control what signs can be put up,” he said. “But you sure can’t control what’s on the hundreds of thousands of computer modules all over town or all over the world.”
Judging by new poll results, February 2010 could see crowd-sourced coverage critical of the Olympics.
Twenty-eight per-cent of B.C. residents think the 2010 Games will produce negative impacts on their province, an Angus Reid survey suggests. Only nine per-cent of Canadian respondents feel the same.
“British Columbians are more likely than other Canadians to question the benefits of the games, and to side with the demonstrators who have taken to the streets to oppose the Olympics,” the survey analysis reads.
Geoff Dembicki reports for the Tyee.
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dgiVista.org
2 years ago
I Am A Free Speech Zone
I'll be wearing my "I Am A Free Speech Zone" t-shirt, carrying my camera, laptop, phone and cel modem to be a live broadcaster of it all.
It's so easy for all of us to do that.
http://PoliticsReSpun.org
Dr Alexander
2 years ago
If every single person who is unhappy about
the Games
Then, I suggest wearing a surgical mask when you are in public during the Games.
It will really get a lot of people wondering.
Otis Krayola
2 years ago
What's that Doc?
I make it two comments, not ten.
Well, three now.
zalm
2 years ago
Hmmmm...
What if I wear a hockey mask and carry a chainsaw?
The Blackbird
2 years ago
zalm ...
according to Assistant Commissioner Mercer, wearing a mask in the commission of a crime will add ten years to your sentence, so to figure out the balance we first need to know what you plan on doing with the chainsaw.
The Blackbird
2 years ago
Oops ...
I forgot to not use Safari. Sorry, gang.
Dan the socialist
2 years ago
So I wonder when the
So I wonder when the majority of the world comes together in South Africa in 2010 for the World Cup, does FIFA have the same gestapo techniques as Vanoc and the IOC?
DPL
2 years ago
The words free speech and
The words free speech and controlling shouldn't be in the same sentence. Big brother is alive and well in BC right now except for people who can and do access the web. I'm still having trouble with the extra cost around the very long torch walk around the country. The little town of Victoria spent 200,000 of our dollars as all the cops were on overtime at least part of the time it was wandering through the streets. Victoria is so law abiding that if a red light gets stuck, most drivers will sit there figuring that sometime later it will change to green. Now that Vanoc was getting more funds from the province, we still can't be allowed to know just how much. Pathetic government
Jeffrey J.
2 years ago
$2 billion, 17 day party.
$2 billion, 17 day party, all paid for by BC taxpayers says it all.
But for those who haven't yet read the book, I can't recommend too much the factual, well written account by UBC Prof. Chris Shaw, Five Ring Circus. A must read.
http://www.newsociety.com/bookid/3995
morechatter
2 years ago
Its all propaganda
As Hitler cooks up the Olympics in all purity we are told. Do you think Hitler used the same purity to cook up innocent citizens or leave them to starve to death as forced out of their homes into camps?
And somethings never change as BC citizens are forced to do the same. Only thing different is people are dying plump all thanks to the garbage that is dished out to them as children and adults in BC are malnutritioned and some are suffering from scurvy. I lite my own candle in hopes this evil event that promotes greed and corruption and death and dispear has its lights put out for good.