Censorship and political correctness
I can only speak on my own opinions but I do feel that the world has gone too far in terms of what we can and cannot say anymore. Nowadays a bad joke has as much chance of losing you your job as it does to getting a laugh. At no stage would I advocate hate speech, racism, sexism but at some point there has to be a level intent taken into account. I like black humour, I laugh at dark jokes but it’s not because I believe in the intent behind them, it’s because of how taboo the subjects are. So where do we draw the line?
I think that context has to be a huge factor. A joke made between friends in the pub would have a hugely different context to the CEO of a company making the same joke in a boardroom. Some of my favorite shows from growing up as a teenager wouldn’t be allowed on TV these days as they contain so much that’s unacceptable just ten years later. So my question is, has it gone too far. The PC brigade, the censorship of certain subjects and content. How do you feel about the whole situation?
There were two interesting articles from my country just this week that brought up the censorship issue and I would like to get your opinion on the matter. I won’t give my own opinions on the matter as I want to hear what you have to say. Whatever your opinion is on the articles it’s valid as it is the way that you feel. What I think is unacceptable will not necessarily be the same as what you believe.
Just to make it more interesting, there will be 2-5 Steem Basic Income shares to play for. I will give a minimum of two shares up to five shares depending on the quality and the amount of responses that I get to the articles. Feel free to rant, rave and go too far if you feel it’s warranted.
Donegal nightclub removes 'offensive' billboard of female golfer
[ An Irish nightclub has taken down an offensive billboard of a woman, a senator said.
The advert featured the back of a woman golfer's body with the message "Libertys: Your 19th hole for the summer".
Liberty's is a club in Buncrana in Co Donegal. Golf's Dubai Duty Free Irish Open is due to be held nearby in July.
Sinn Fein senator Padraig Mac Lochlainn said: "This large billboard sign on the approach to my home town of Buncrana is just plain offensive to women.
"And it is offensive to men who respect the women in their lives.
"If it was shock value publicity they were seeking, then mission accomplished."
The advert faced a backlash on social media.
The club did not immediately return requests for comment.
Mr Mac Lochlainn added: "Thank you to the management of Libertys for listening to your local community and respectfully taking down the billboard sign in Buncrana.
"This is not a bit of a laugh any more. Society has changed.
"All of us men need to step up and see that all women deserve respect, not just our mothers, daughters, sisters, wives or partners." ]
This is the article and photo from one of the leading national newspapers in my country.
Ryanair criticised over depiction of Leaving Cert student
[ Ryanair has been rapped by the advertising watchdog for promoting “immoderate or irresponsible drinking” in an advert aimed at Leaving Cert students.
The advert, which appeared on Ryanair’s official Facebook and Twitter accounts. The text in both posts read: “To all #Leaving Cert and #ALevel students: plan your dream summer holiday now so you have something to look forward to. Book on ryanair.com in between ‘studying’ tonight. This could be you.”
The text accompanied an image of a male lying on a beach on his side, as if asleep, with his head supported on his elbow. An empty unidentified bottle, resembling a clear glass wine bottle, was beside him.
Ryanair said it regretted the complainants’ interpretation of the post as promoting the misuse of alcohol and that this was not its intention. The airline removed the post immediately upon being contacted by the authority, which upheld the complaint but said no further action was necessary as the advert had been withdrawn. ]
This was the second incident that I saw just this week. A billion euro company getting written up in the national papers. For context, Leaving cert students would typically be 17 - 19 years of age as it is your final exams before college.
So what do you think of all this?
Now these are just two cases that have caught media attention this week. That’s the only reason that I’ve gone with them. Obviously if I wanted to dig further into the subject we could look at YouTube and Facebook banning accounts, preventing certain ads or pushing their own agenda’s through censorship. There are so many different aspects to the political correctness and censorship that are in play that we could look at hundreds of interesting cases but for now I would love to hear your opinions on these two.
I'm genuinely curious as to how people feel about these two ads and just the state of play in general. So let it rip and tell me what you think.
I laughed when I saw each of those ads. As far as advertising goes, the first one was probably more effective, but only because it implied something desirable. I'm sure some people will think that it is objectifying women, but I think that just shows their own mindset - it's called projecting. There are dozens of commercials and ads objectifying men every single day, yet you rarely hear a complaint about it. That's because the people who are complaining about the female golfer are likely the same ones who privately think of women as objects, as less than, as somehow inferior or less useful than men. I'm not at all offended by this ad - but I also don't see women as only sexual objects. Women are powerful creatures in their own right and sex appeal is just one aspect of that power.
The second one seemed to say, "You too can be hungover and miserable all by yourself on a dirty beach." Whoever came up with that one needs a new line of work. I'm offended, but not because they are glorifying drinking to (in my country at least) someone who is underage. The ad is a mess. It doesn't give a promise of something alluring, and actually, now I'm worried that if I fly on ryanair I'll end up crash landed on a beach someplace, the only survivor of a horrific accident because the pilot was too drunk to pay attention to the flight.
That why there were so many objections to the first one. They said it was just reducing women to objects to be had, rather than people. It was in a small enough own so a lot of local objectors but as you said it is their mindset rather than anything else as their are a lot of ads out their that could be called offensive to different demographics.
I'll have to disagree with you on the second point since we grew up on the coast and often spent great nights drinking down at the beach as well as going on holidays to the party islands which were some of the best times we ever had when i was younger. It was messy, it was fun and if i was a teenager again i would go again it in a second.
I guess the creators of the second ad know their target demographic pretty well if it triggered a specific memory for you. My drunken parties always took place in the woods... and while I love the beach I prefer to think if it as pristine and clean.. the same premise but with a clean vibe would change the whole thing for me.
Interesting how advertisers are so good at their jobs sometimes.
It's an Irish company so targeting drunken drunken irish teenagers is an easy pick since its pretty much all of them. That's probably one of the advertisers holiday snaps from a few years back. Woods can be nice too but beach was so near that we could camp and have bonfires, stay the weekend and party. They were good times.
Posted using Partiko Android
It’s a very interesting development and given it some thought and living in South Africa under apartheid I think I can say I know the bad side of racism and all that! So previous generations had to endure these crazy judgements based on race, sexual interest etc and were heavily marginalized and then civil rights movements (people of all backgrounds) came together and said this is wrong and we agreed and moved on some just haven’t let it go and have taken what was once a nobel cause and turned it into a classic witch hunt!
It’s as if they have become intoxicated with this victory and now we’re living in a hypersensitive society to compensate for the previous atrocities! I hope it eventually does even out over time because like you I do like dark and dirty humour! I have friends of all backgrounds and we make fun of each other’s traits all the time and have a good laugh about it! I feel making light of these things is the only way to remove its power as a deciding factor! These concepts are outdated and we need to move on now, these SJW’s are holding on to something that should be let go and we should move on and focus our energies on helping us move together as a people and achieve things like economic independence and free markets of thought and enterprises! This is a new movement that could really do with more momentum
Posted using Partiko iOS
That's a good way to think about it the whole situation. In my country it was religion rather than race. Thousands have been killed here over the past 30 years based on their beliefs even though it has stopped for the most part now.
Even amongst that background there was always room for humor and to be honest i think it can often help the situation. If you can't laugh at a subject and get penalized for mentioning it then are you not making it more harmful? Are you not giving it more power and influence on people actions?
I totally agree with the point that you made here,
There have been huge improvements over the years but if you keep pushing it too far and become unnecessarily strict it will only drive people the opposite way. There are far more important things to be focused on and i hate when i read the papers and see time and resources being taken up with pointless cases and tiny slights instead of focusing on the real problems within our society. Major problems that are only getting worse while all of this takes place.
Only time will tell which way it is going to go but i feel that people are getting sick of this nanny state where we cannot have an opinion. Some good thoughts in there.
This is a sign of the times where the human imbalanced ego is offended by just about everything. There are people who are pushing the norms, and this is creating new norms that crush old ideologies. The people of the elderly generation are dying slowly and so will their beliefs. All due respect to them, and old ideas that are not embraced by next of kin are dying off.
A belief is nothing more than a single idea. Government is an idea. Religion is a set of ideas and rules. A good litmus test is to ask your self if an idea is empowering or disempowering. Every ten years or so the human ego becomes more and more fragile.
Hyper angry, and hyper sensitive is coming in... The levels of anxiety and depression are rising in all parts of the world. People need to remove "the need" to be offended. Taking things personal all the time ;because, everything we do is based off of our highest value, and if it is not in line with pushing their "own agenda" it becomes threatening. It is all really quite simple. Anytime something does not match our own values we will get upset with it.
We look for similarities and differences with people and their relations, in that no two people will have the exact same values, but there will always be certain similarities and differences that can potentially act as unifying force or POLAR OPPOSITE. So, offended birds of a feather will fight and complain together... These values are perceived values, and often what we perceive as missing in our life. If people feel they are missing "decency" in their life according to their own values or ideas/rules they will complain and fight. This is clearly obvious, yet not talked about often. If they feel the world lacks decency they will push and shove for it to fill that personal rule based void. They will push because it matches their values.
As Aristotle said, your perceived emptiness drives your fulfillment. Your void drives your value. Yet a lot of social idealisms cloud the clarity of what is truly driving people. Food for thought. The overall view of PC is that is based on what we value the most. Hedonistic ideas are more "flashy" and "rule breaking" and it is what fuels our society now and is valued more unfortunately. Can we remain objective and still respect the values of others even if is not in alignment with our own? A good question... I believe we can.
I know that i can respect others opinions even when they run contrary to my own but i have seen how many others struggle with the concept. People have never liked what is different. How many wars have been fought over the simple fact that they were different to the opposite side. What i cant respect is people expecting me to have the exact opinion as them and getting annoyed if i don't.
What i have seen lately in big debates is if you are not on the popular side of the vote then your opinion is wrong and you should be ashamed of it. We have had some conversational referendums in the country lately and there has been a fair amount of this behavior. Abortion and gay marriage were two of the big ones.
If you were against the marriage due to religious reasons then you were wrong and shouldn't be allowed a say. If you were a man against abortion it wasn't your body so why should you be allowed a vote. There was so much of this that it was hard to take a lot of the time. It was hard for people to have an opinion on anything without being shouted down. This is the same vein as political correctness as you can't say this or that anymore as it's wrong and it offends people. They don't realize that it doesn't matter if they are offended as i don't care.
If people were less worried about being offended about everything and just enjoyed life a bit more then we would see a lot less stress and depression. People get so worried over little things that it's no wonder that everybody is getting so anxious. My policy is it it doesn't directly effect me i'm not going to get worried about it. I have no interest in the opinions of people that i don't care about or respect. I will only listen to those of people who have extensive knowledge or whose input i already value. My friends and family, people who are important to me. I can respect others opinions they just hold little interest to me.
One factor of the flood of oversensitivity sweeping the globe seems to be the neverending quest for fame, and medias insatiable thirst for more of it, the more outlandish, the better.
There seem to be very little that is not objectionable and ripe for the plucking by individuals wanting their face in tabloids and social media for pointing it out.
There is nothing that can't be turned around to mean something objectionable by someone actively looking, absolutely nothing, including this comment :)
Your comment offends me. How dare you drag down the good name of a full generation of influencers and role models to the millennials. Think of all those brilliant minds and celebrities that my generation has to look up to. Exceptional people like the kardashians, Trump, all of celebrity big brother. (Don't actually know who any of them are). People who have risen to the top of the social ladder for whatever it is they do.
You might have a point on this one. Between these individuals and the media that glorifies them it really is hard to find decent people to look up to. Smart people with common sense and balanced views. People not just shouting the loudest to be noticed.
Great topic and post. I am very conservative but even I feel people are into other peoples business way too much!!! I also believe it is the same thing online or in politics. I also think political correctness is part of the establishments attempts to insert group think into our culture. (Just don't ask me who I think the establishment is...lol)
Good post
Thanks @moonknight1977, It's just a topic that has been getting me annoyed more and more. Not so much these two examples but so many little things in the papers and in my daily life. People getting offended by such pointless things and expecting everybody to follow them on a crusade to make everything in life bland and safe.
The problem is that most people don't want a bland life. We want excitement and fun. We are all individuals and have different opinions on life but we don't all need to follow the same plan. It depends on who you are as a person and what environment you grow up in. If you want to start a rant on the establishment i'll need to do a whole new post to cover all those issues.
thank you for highlighting this!! its one thing that really getsa on my t*ts! I think we all know the real reason behind this whole culture of being offended by ANYTHING- it's been cultivated to keep us from questioning what's actually going on in the world. It all starts with not being able to express your free thought without fear of reprisal... God help us!
Well if the world keeps evolving in this direction for much longer then you won't be able to express what you actually think. You will have to be so careful with what you say or what you post in case you end up in court or losing your job. It's already happening in isolated cases but can only get worse going forward.
Growing up in a small backward kind of town, we never had to worry about what was said. There was no social media to record your words for ever and be used against you. We used to insult our friends far worse than our enemies and it was taken with a laugh and some abuse straight back. Now if we were recorded on a video it would be viral in a week and making national headlines. I don't like it myself. There are lines that you can cross but some of the stuff that is being pulled up as offensive these day's is just laughable.
I would do the 19th hole but would def not fly with Ryanair from this Ad.
I don't know, i've flown to magaluf with ryanair when i was younger and i think it's a fairly accurate photo. That's how we finished up most nights or mornings. Good holiday though.
Thats true I flew to Ibiza quit a few times When I was young ( GOD I SOUND OLD 🤔) snd had similar holidays so I revise My opinion ... if I was younger I would fly Ryanair any time !
Have a great Sunday ! Its Almost over
Greetsz Britt
Ibiza is a young persons game. I wouldn't head there now.
Vegas however, was brilliant last year. It's just the more mature version for when you get to old for the student holidays.
Another week down anyway. The days don't bother me too much since I work shifts, so unfortunately weekends mean nothing right now. 😔
Posted using Partiko Android
Shifts sounds as hard work. Here its just the normal mo-fr routine so Almost that dreaded monday again.
That's the dream. Monday to Friday work and weekends to myself. Someday I will get there. Unfortunatly this is a better job than most regular ones it just has crap hours. Plus no Monday blues.
I do actually like having days off mid week sometimes. It can be nice to be out enjoying a Wednesday when your friends are snapchatting from behind a desk. 😂
Posted using Partiko Android
Can't really argue too much with that one.
Hi @niallon11!
Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation! Your UA account score is currently 2.439 which ranks you at #16605 across all Steem accounts.
Your rank has risen 229 places in the last three days (Your UA has improved by 0.000).
In our last Algorithmic Curation Round, consisting of 204 contributions, your post is ranked at #111.
Evaluation of your UA score:
Feel free to join our @steem-ua Discord server