Is it ok to publish highly offensive illustrations and captions against a group?

I don’t think it is helpful at all. I recently read an article on that… The author pointed out a double standard when dealing with those cartoons: Many papers will print pictures offensive to Muslims without batting an eye. If they printed a similar cartoon mocking Jews, they’d get a very different reaction from the general public.

To be clear, I don’t get why a picture in some magazine has the power to be this upsetting. Not the point, though – I don’t need to understand it, but there is no reason for baiting others, either. If anything, that kind of thing deepens the rift between religions. We don’t need that.

It’s not nice and it’s not helpful (therefore, probably in the “not ok” category) but there’s a fine line between saying it’s not ok and laws that oppress freedom of speech.

The pointedly anti-Islamic cartoons were equivalent to the ant-Semitism and racism you can find elsewhere.

The fact that Islamists will react violently isn’t an excuse or justification for bigotry.

As I’ve said many times, we don’t have a war between east and west. We have a war between normal people and conservatives. Fundamentalists of all religions are trying to drag us back into the Dark Ages.

The problem with “limiting” what can be printed is that it opens up a very very ugly pathway to censorship that cannot be stopped.

This week’s example is pictures of Mohammad.

Suppose some politician in Alabama says that newspaper stories about gay marriage are disturbing to the public order. (not an impossible idea). Should newspapers stop writing about same sex marriage, so as not to rock the boat?

Suppose that in Colorado, the governor says that marijuana sales are hurting the state, and therefore provoking a reaction among citizens. Should newspapers there be stopped from writing about what is an important statewide issue?

Or what about that idiot governor in Oregon who just resigned. Suppose he had said “newspapers in Oregon can’t write about me because it will destabilize state government”.

The road to censorship and control starts with tiny steps.

Yes, people should print what they want. Anything else starts an ugly process that culminates in a fascist state.

What @elbanditoroso said.

We have a huge problem. Cartoonists are threatened or killed, and people ask, “well, what did the cartoons say?”. Really? That’s the response? It doesn’t matter at all. When a woman is raped and people ask what she was wearing, most of us here can see that we have a problem. But when it comes to speech, the “what was she wearing?” question is still ok.

It’s not illegal to post racist or antisemitic cartoons. It’s just that you’ll get such a backlash from the community that you’ll eventually be compelled to retract it and offer an apology. The same can be done with religious work. Don’t legislate the stuff and make it illegal. Encourage people to speak out and say they don’t want it in their papers and they demand those things be retracted and an apology issued.

The “free market” can censor the press much better than the law.

Yup.

It’s called freedom of speech.
As long as they’re not calling for actions against a particular group or individual.

I don’t have a problem with illustrations of so-called gods and prophets. I do have a problem with the kinds of exaggerated caricatures of minorities that Charlie Hebdo runs – whether they are of Muslims or Jews or any other minority. I also don’t share the (very American) awe for free speech that many others on Fluther feel. Hate speech is not worth protecting.

Americans are going to be really adamant on “Freedom of Speech” being as free as possible.

Everyone knows how American conservatives are all about “Right to Bear Arms” means guns everywhere all the time and be damned if you attempt a little bit of gun control law. Not so many people seem to know that “Freedom of Speech” is the liberal American’s sacred cow. Excluding porn, everything is fair game. And for SOME people, excluding porn goes too far.

As a liberal American, I never really thought about how “FoS” looks to outsiders. I mean, we support neo-Nazis’ right to march and spread their hate speech. We support Westboro Baptist Church and their hateful, ignorant crap.

I just assumed for my whole life that’s part of being in a free society. I’m not ready to change my mind about it and I assume most Americans feel the same way.

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HOWEVER, I’m not positive, but I believe that newspapers DO have the right to refuse to print material from their own papers by writing a content policy. This means they come up with a list of things that a news article must have or must not have on their own and stick to their policy. They can just choose not to print it.

Yes, it is OK.

The problem is who gets to determine what is highly offensive.

@rojo ‘s answer is really the second half of mine – I wish I had written it.

Who gets to decide? That’s the scary part. Would you want Judge Roy Moore determining what can be written?

Things can be taken too far and while I think free speech is sacrosanct I think we should have some respect for minority groups and not make them feel they are being ganged up on. Charlie Hebdo had the right to publish cartoons of Mohammed but if the mainstream media started regularly publishing cartoons mocking a minority group that would be a problem. It is a form of bullying that will inevitably lead to a downward spiral in community relations.

It might be “OK”, but it isn’t always wise.

It’s childish.

“Is it ok to purposely make a group feel like outsiders and unaccepted?”

Not sure that was ever the real purpose. Each of the cartoons are like saying: “This is a cartoon drawing. It won’t hurt you.” And the reactions were: “This cartoon won’t hurt me but I will murder the author.”

The cartoons seem to be suggesting that change is needed. No one in any other religion really cares when they see their images in a cartoon like that. Only one religion (for the most part) reacts violently. And it probably has a lot to do with the fact they they just aren’t used to free speech. They really don’t get it.

What would life be like for the murderers if they had more access to such cartoons all their lives. Would they be killing every day? Is that a way to live?

^ I don’t wanna sound too ignorant here.. obviously not everyone in the religion feels the same way or has as much difficulty with the concept of freedom of speech. Many in that religion understand why freedom of speech is important and of course would condemn any violent retaliations against the use of free speech.

Only those few who don’t appreciate the value of free speech are the ones condoning or doing the murdering.

I wouldn’t want to curtail freedom of speech, or change any laws, but I do think we can be considerate of each other.

I really don’t like when people degrade another person’s religious symbol or when sacred places are destroyed or defiled.

I don’t think it’s matter if always having the right to do something, we also can consider what will be best for society, and I don’t think antagonizing and offending people is necessarily the best way.

Freedom of speech I always considered to be primarily the right to speak out against the government. Speaking out about a group is different. Especially if those people feel marginalized by society already. When something satirical is done about a politician; well, he has power, probably some money, and he can handle it. It’s not the same for someone who already feels disrespected, weak, and probably depressed.

I think we can take some responsibility for antagonizing others, can’t we? If a teenager made fun of a schoolmate, drawing a picture that made them embarrassed or ashamed wouldn’t we reprimand them? What about among coworkers?

Well, Miyazaki seems to agree with you, @JLeslie: http://kotaku.com/hayao-miyazaki-calls-charlie-hebdo-cartoons-a-mistake-1686242173?utm_campaign=Socialflow_Kotaku_Facebook&utm_source=Kotaku_Facebook&utm_medium=Socialflow

@JLeslie: “I really don’t like when people degrade another person’s religious symbol or when sacred places are destroyed or defiled.”

Do you think that drawing cartoons ridiculing religion is in any way comparable to destroying sacred places?

@JLeslie: “I don’t think it’s matter if always having the right to do something, we also can consider what will be best for society, and I don’t think antagonizing and offending people is necessarily the best way.”

This right here is legitimate. You’re questioning the tactics used in affecting change, and stating that there might be a better way. This is quite possible, and worth discussing.

@JLeslie: “Freedom of speech I always considered to be primarily the right to speak out against the government. Speaking out about a group is different. Especially if those people feel marginalized by society already.”

Really? So, when we speak out against the Tea Party, the KKK, or Westboro Baptist, we probably shouldn’t because they already feel marginalized by society?

@JLeslie: “I think we can take some responsibility for antagonizing others, can’t we?”

I’m not sure what this question means other than in the context I mentioned above regarding what a woman was wearing when she was raped.

@JLeslie: “If a teenager made fun of a schoolmate, drawing a picture that made them embarrassed or ashamed wouldn’t we reprimand them?”

I’m not sure who the “we” is here, but you’re likely talking about school administrators. And this is a different scenario regarding school policies and is very tough to separate from the debate about zero-tolerance bullying policies. It’s a worthy discussion, but hardly seems relevant to what we’re discussing here.

@JLeslie: “What about among coworkers?”

Again, not remotely relevant. A company is not a democracy, it is not modeled after one, and in no way has any interest in promoting free expression. It is in the best interest of the company to promote harmony among coworkers, who are not people but workers.

@JLeslie, I get the feeling that having a discussion about satirical cartoons would be quite different if we hadn’t already had to deal with the threats and violence that have already happened. But the fact that some segment of the world population has decided that drawing certain cartoons are worthy of death, I think the conversation has to be much different now. When that woman was wearing that extremely-revealing outfit, we might have been able to have a conversation about how she looked and what message it was sending. But if she is then assaulted, all of that must stop. The conversation turns to the crime.

As unrealistic as it seems, the ethically responsible thing to do would be for the mass media to stand together and show unity and all print these “offending” cartoons. It’s not up to smaller publishers to decide whether or not their content is going to offend someone and get them killed. We must all decide that it’s completely ok to offend people and to not die for it. I know this freedom of speech thing seems to be described as uniquely American (shit, did they finally get something right?), but it’s really the thing that everything else we hold to be important is built on. And being supportive of free speech doesn’t mean supporting the speech we like – it means supporting the rights of those who say things that we oppose.

I have to echo many of the other responses here. Yes, it should be legal. That does not mean that is always the wisest thing to do. If a newspaper decides that it doesn’t want to publish something because it does not want the backlash, that is their decision to make. But that is not the same thing as making it illegal. The fact is, in many Muslim countries, they have some degree of freedom of speech, but the freedom to mock Muhammad is not covered. And that’s fine—those countries can make it illegal to depict Muhammad if they want to. But that does not give them to right to dictate what we can and can’t do here in the West.