[eDebate] 2006 Debater's Choice Awards Results

[Shawn Powers]

Well, technically, you are wrong. Censorship happens at many levels,  
one of which is self-censorship by the media. For instance, when the  
American and British media decided to not publish the cartoons of the  
Islamic prophet Mohammed (etc) that (may have) sparked the "Danish  
cartoon protests," that was a case of the media, minus a handful of  
papers, self censoring. Good, bad, smart, dumb, that was a self- 
identified case of censorship by many non-governmental organizations.

Also, technically speaking, my argument was not that "public posting  
of materials..." etc. My argument was, and I was careful about this,  
that the decision to censor future DCA bios indicates that the rest  
of the biographies were worse than the previous. No, I am not saying  
let's make some racist (or any other unseemly) comments, but when  
there is a contest which openly advertises the concept of getting  
others to write 'bios' about the top ten debaters, deciding at number  
six (or whatever) to not electronically publish people's submitted  
comments is not a smart, productive, or appropriate way of proceeding.

The conversation that followed the last bio was obviously  
embarrassing for those that tried to defend. But the conversation was  
also very helpful in expressing opinions that probably would have not  
been otherwise expressed. This point is not to defend either side,  
but rather defend the idea that nothing that was said warrants a  
policy of no more DCA bios.

Call me crazy, I think smart arguments win debates.





Shawn Powers
PhD fellow, Annenberg School for Communication
Research Associate, Center on Public Diplomacy
University of Southern California
e: spowers at usc.edu
p: 847.722.3346



On May 14, 2006, at 7:39 PM, Josh Hoe wrote:


> Censorship is technically done by governments...businesses and  

> independent entities are under no obligation to post things that  

> they collect?  Any author who wants to post the bio can.

>

> Beyond that, is your argument that you want more public posting of  

> materials that fabricated stories about peoples made up sexual  

> habits and outed peoples medical condition caused issues?

>

> Josh

>

>

> On 5/14/06, Shawn Powers <spowers at usc.edu> wrote:

> no, that's a smart way to deal with the issue. If there is

> controversy, just censor it. Is this Russia, or can I....

>

> (a) previous discussions have been productive; (b) censoring hints

> that it only gets worse, which........Bueller........is a link?

>

> sp

>

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