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Political Correctness, Sensitivity, and Censorship in the Information Age

Posted by mikeg on

 

So anyone who knows me knows that I hate censorship in any form.  I'm the guy that wears the "I Read Banned Books" shirt, and considers it to be a required reading list (yeah I'm still working my way through it myself).

So you can imagine I was just a little bit miffed when I found out that @violetblue's talk at BSides SF was apparently cancelled because it offended someone's delicate sensibilities (particularly since they can't have possibly known the content of said talk as it HADN'T BEEN GIVEN YET). I was even a little miffed at @BSidesSF for basically caving to PC-Pressure (unjustly as it turns out, so I'm glad I didn't lay into them), but I just quietly commented on the WTFery of such censorship and moved on...
...until tonight when I read @violetblue's blog post on what went down.

I beg of you, please go read that blog post before you read mine. Violet Blue took the time to compose a sound, well-reasoned retort to the folks that quashed her talk. What I'm presenting here is a seething ball of anti-censorship politically-incorrect fuck-the-world unmitigated rage.
Update: Please also read The Ada Initiative's side of the story as well (thanks to Rob for pointing it out, I didn't find it in my 30 seconds of Googling). The Ada Initiative has done some very good things, and they do raise many valid points. I don't think censorship was (or is) their intent, it's just an unfortunate side effect of cultural hypersensitivity surrounding certain issues...

 

I fully expect this blog entry will piss some people off.  Frankly I don't care. Try not to get any wharrgarbl on me if you feel the need to respond. 

 

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