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Does this Free Speech Thing Work?
What if someone posted something that is genuinely funny, but that some people think is worthy of a beheading?
Would it stay on the site? If upvoted, would it go Main Feed?
Asking for a friend.
Published in General
Ir might rely too much on a cultural awareness that the woke no longer possess.
Mostly it would reflect the inability to laugh at oneself.
Correct. Who today remembers “the mountain came to Mohammed“? But it’s not anti-Muslim. I would promote it.
Never mind. (original comment deleted)
Ah, but it is a cartoon depiction, and certain people tend to froth at the mouth even if their “allies” don’t see it.
Shouldn’t it be “wives”?
Now that’s just… (I’m at a loss.)
It is Muhammad.
Wasn’t it Larry, Curly, and Mo (hammad) ?
Hard position to put anybody else’s business (and neck) in. Hilarious (it is) but would I be willing to make myself or my family a target because of it? Would you, iWe?
It’s Haram. It shows a teeny tiny depiction of Mohammed in the window.
Off with his head !
/7th century off
I think that is exactly what this post is.
They can pick on Salman Rushdie, but I think the Ayatollahs realize that a fatwa against Gary Larsen would be an act of war.
It wouldn’t get promoted. But not because we’re afraid of Islamic backlash but because it’s a copyrighted work reproduced in its totality with an insufficient amount of original commentary to justify a fair use defense.
Um, what if
it’sit were to become accompanied by a chain of crowd sourced original commentary? If that were to somehow happen, that a highly contextual and humorous commentary were to accrue about the original post, would that justify a fair use defense?You can’t rely on the comments.
But in this case the real problem is totality. In the 1970s there was a gentleman who traveled the county fair circuit with an act that consisted of nothing more than him being shot out of cannon. On a stop in the Cleveland market one of the local stations (WEWS) taped his act and used it on their evening newscast. He successfully sued the station because by airing his act in its totality, a whole 2-3 seconds, they effectively diminished its worth.
Case in point: Oprah and CBS own the interview with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. By playing :20 of that at the head of London Calling and providing substantial commentary about the event in the body of the work, that is the classic definition of fair use. Even if the hosts tell you it’s crap and to avoid it, it doesn’t diminish its marketable status for the copyright owners.
I get it. So, the post could be placed on the Main Feed, but only if the cartoon that features the unrepresentable historical figure were to be hidden.
Actually, the point is far more central and direct than the cartoon: free speech is certainly much more “original” commentary than the original joke. But I accept that YMMV.
Or redrawn in effect, from a different perspective, and a different catch-line. That is, a completely different cartoon.
If we’re anonymous, no.
When I was a much younger man, I used to smoke a little weed with friends and weed smoking strangers. At a party one night, the weed smoking host was in the kitchen preparing to take a plate of fresh baked cookies out to his guests. He paused, he sniffed the cookies and leaned back against the counter and exclaimed as he took a bite out of a cookie: “To hell with it, Let the Mountain come to Mohammed!”
In those days, he was not worried about being beheaded.
Like comment 13?
Great post, and on a topic that’s always timely and appropriate. We are one month from Draw Muhammad Day, May 20th, and I hope lots of people participate.
One shouldn’t be gratuitously offensive… unless someone threatens to cut your head off for causing offense. That kind of makes otherwise rude behavior compulsory, in my opinion.
I’d still rather not be gratuitously offensive.
I taught philosophy in Pakistan, occasionally preaching the Gospel outside of class, until this happened. Yeah, it was a slim chance; but the Taliban might have killed me.
But if the Bible, philosophy, American citizenship, and/or the existence of Forman Christian College were offending the Taliban, I saw no need to add offense to the nice Pakistani Muslims I knew.
But it should be a free choice, and right now it often really isn’t.
Indeed.
So I am curious, the cartoon can be reproduced in whole, as long as there is sufficient original commentary? How much is considered sufficient? A paragraph? Five paragraphs? Please don’t say the picture is worth a thousand words… ;-)
While “fair use” is somewhat ambiguous, I think a case can easily be made that reposting any cartoon featuring Muhammad in a deliberate attempt to test the waters of Islamic intolerance will qualify.
And, as my younger brother John once said: “A pitcher is worth a thousand sherds.”