Why is Fox News banned in Canada?

White Cat · Post by **White Cat** » 2004-05-13 02:38am

Darth Wong wrote:For stealing illegal satellite signals, not for watching Fox News, dumb-ass. Didn't you even read the article before posting it?

...

People caught illegally BUYING foreign satellite television service could face stiffer penalties if proposed legislation is passed.

Critics of the legislation say the bill makes no distinction between people who take Canadian satellite signals without paying and those who pay U.S. providers for channels the Canadian industry isn't willing to offer.

The only way to get Fox News in Canada is by illegally buying a subscription to an American satellite network. Therefore, the penalties apply to watching Fox News.

In conclusion, did you even read the article?

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-05-13 02:46am

White Cat wrote:The only way to get Fox News in Canada is by illegally buying a subscription to an American satellite network. Therefore, the penalties apply to watching Fox News.

The penalties are for ILLEGAL SATELLITE RECEIVERS, not specifically for watching FOXNews, moron. It's trade protectionism, not political censorship, you idiot. They want people in Canada to buy satellite signals only from Canadian providers. Not that trade protectionism is a good thing, but you're just bullshitting. What is your agenda? To imply that this law was concocted to target FOX News, which would be the only way for this to be relevant to this thread? Or just to be a jackass?

In conclusion, did you even read the article?

Yes, and perhaps I should have worded my rebuttal more carefully in order to avoid letting you squeeze through a loophole in order to continue pretending that FOXNews is being specifically targeted by this legislation.

LordShaithis · Post by **LordShaithis** » 2004-05-13 03:18am

When someone claimed that the denial of a broadcast license amounted to censorship of Fox News, you rebutted by claiming Canadian citizens could still purchase sattelite service on their own. Apparently this is not the case. So, Lord Wong, I'm afraid the ball is back in your court.

I believe I've heard that Al Gore wants to start his own cable channel. Can you imagine the stink that would ensue if the US government played the same game with him?

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-05-13 10:12am

GrandAdmiralPrawn wrote:When someone claimed that the denial of a broadcast license amounted to censorship of Fox News, you rebutted by claiming Canadian citizens could still purchase sattelite service on their own.

No, I rebutted by pointing out that watching FOXNews itself is not a crime, moron. Trade protectionism on satellite service is another issue entirely, and one that Canada is hardly an exclusive committer of, unless you think that the US does not engage in trade protectionism of any kind.

Apparently this is not the case. So, Lord Wong, I'm afraid the ball is back in your court.

Why? Because some idiot figures that since trade protectionism against satellite services indirectly prevents the broadcast of FOX News, that the government is persecuting people who watch FOX News?

I believe I've heard that Al Gore wants to start his own cable channel. Can you imagine the stink that would ensue if the US government played the same game with him?

What game? Trade protectionism against a US citizen? Or do you suffer from some reading disorder?

LordShaithis · Post by **LordShaithis** » 2004-05-13 02:42pm

No, I rebutted by pointing out that watching FOXNews itself is not a crime, moron.

And yet there is no legal way for a Canadian to receive it.

Trade protectionism on satellite service is another issue entirely, and one that Canada is hardly an exclusive committer of, unless you think that the US does not engage in trade protectionism of any kind.

Whether intentional or not, this particular bit of "trade protectionism" is extraordinarily useful from the perspective of one handing out broadcast licenses, as it effectively gives them censorship power.

Why? Because some idiot figures that since trade protectionism against satellite services indirectly prevents the broadcast of FOX News, that the government is persecuting people who watch FOX News?

What people? Nobody in Canada can watch it. The government can selectively deny domestic broadcast licenses to whoever it wants, knowing that existing law prevents citizens from circumventing them and purchasing foreign sattelite service.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-05-13 02:46pm

GrandAdmiralPrawn wrote:
No, I rebutted by pointing out that watching FOXNews itself is not a crime, moron.
And yet there is no legal way for a Canadian to receive it.

If you tape it and send it to me, or streamcast it on the Internet, it's perfectly legal. You are confusing the legality of the MEANS OF TRANSMISSION with the legality of the CONTENT, moron.

Whether intentional or not, this particular bit of "trade protectionism" is extraordinarily useful from the perspective of one handing out broadcast licenses, as it effectively gives them censorship power.

Hardly, since it only gives them power over one particular means of transmission. Freedom of speech has never been about unrestricted access to all possible forms of dissemination; only about the ability to get the message out.

PS. Can you get Al-Jazeera down there? If not, then you are throwing stones from a very fragile glass house.

LordShaithis · Post by **LordShaithis** » 2004-05-13 02:47pm

Postscript: While I normally enjoy your logic-and-insults style of debate, Lord Wong, you should really try for something better in this case than just tacking "you idiot/moron" onto the end of every sentence. Kthxbye.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-05-13 02:47pm

GrandAdmiralPrawn wrote:Postscript: While I normally enjoy your logic-and-insults style of debate, Lord Wong, you should really try for something better in this case than just tacking "you idiot/moron" onto the end of every sentence. Kthxbye.

Very clever rebuttal. Oh wait a minute, you didn't refute anything at all, did you?

Col. Crackpot · Post by **Col. Crackpot** » 2004-05-13 03:06pm

Darth Wong wrote: PS. Can you get Al-Jazeera down there? If not, then you are throwing stones from a very fragile glass house.

Cox digital cable features several "international channels". One show al-jazzera and al-arabya news reports daily along with some Arab intertainment. (including music videos in Arabic

) My parents have Cox Digital, it was kinda freaky, although i don't speak or understand Arabic, Farsi or whatever the hell language they were using.

LordShaithis · Post by **LordShaithis** » 2004-05-13 03:12pm

If you tape it and send it to me, or streamcast it on the Internet, it's perfectly legal.

So you think everyone in the US being harrassed by the FCC needs to just STFU then, right? After all, Howard Stern can go do sattelite radio, and everyone else can do whatever they want on the Internet.

News flash: It's still censorship, even if there are means of expression the government doesn't control so tightly.

You are confusing the legality of the MEANS OF TRANSMISSION with the legality of the CONTENT, moron.

The government makes content-based decisions in the process of handing out broadcast licenses in the first place, and the bottom line is that Canadians can't legally receive non-licensed broadcasts. Yes, they can still read whatever they want on the Internet, but that doesn't change the fact that the Canadian television industry is subject to content-based censorship.

LordShaithis · Post by **LordShaithis** » 2004-05-13 03:16pm

Col. Crackpot wrote:Cox digital cable features several "international channels". One show al-jazzera and al-arabya news reports daily along with some Arab intertainment. (including music videos in Arabic ) My parents have Cox Digital, it was kinda freaky, although i don't speak or understand Arabic, Farsi or whatever the hell language they were using.

All I know is that the Arabic guy I buy smokes from is watching Arabic-language cable news everytime I go into his shop. Never bothered to ask what network, but it's a pretty short list.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-05-13 03:33pm

GrandAdmiralPrawn wrote:So you think everyone in the US being harrassed by the FCC needs to just STFU then, right?

No, I think that the FCC needs to have regulations that don't come from the stone age. Their criteria are a joke; this does not mean they should have no criteria at all.

News flash: It's still censorship, even if there are means of expression the government doesn't control so tightly.

News flash: there's no such thing as totally free speech.

The government makes content-based decisions in the process of handing out broadcast licenses in the first place, and the bottom line is that Canadians can't legally receive non-licensed broadcasts. Yes, they can still read whatever they want on the Internet, but that doesn't change the fact that the Canadian television industry is subject to content-based censorship.

You can't receive Al-Jazeera in the US on airwave, but you can on cable. Is this "censorship"? Your whole argument is that regulation of the means of dissemination is effectively censorship. Canadian satellite rules are strict because the government is trying to protect its local satellite providers (not that I agree with this, but that's another issue); it is ridiculous to call this "content-based censorship". These rules existed before FOXNews was created; they have nothing to do with FOXNews.

Col. Crackpot · Post by **Col. Crackpot** » 2004-05-13 03:43pm

Darth Wong wrote: You can't receive Al-Jazeera in the US on airwave, but you can on cable. Is this "censorship"? Your whole argument is that regulation of the means of dissemination is effectively censorship. Canadian satellite rules are strict because the government is trying to protect its local satellite providers (not that I agree with this, but that's another issue); it is ridiculous to call this "content-based censorship". These rules existed before FOXNews was created; they have nothing to do with FOXNews.

how does that have anything to do with protecting the satelite providers? if anything it would serve to enrich the providers by adding to the content just like the contract my cable provider has with the CBC and the BBC serves to enrich them. The law restricting FOXNews is there for the same reason the 'Canadian Content laws' governing Canadian radio stations are there: to control the fucking content of media broadcast over the airwves.

The Kernel · Post by **The Kernel** » 2004-05-13 03:52pm

Col. Crackpot wrote: how does that have anything to do with protecting the satelite providers? if anything it would serve to enrich the providers by adding to the content just like the contract my cable provider has with the CBC and the BBC serves to enrich them. The law restricting FOXNews is there for the same reason the 'Canadian Content laws' governing Canadian radio stations are there: to control the fucking content of media broadcast over the airwves.

You're right, you can't just seperate the two. The fact that the Canadian (or US) government can control certain mediums of communication means that they also control the content on those distribution lines. Of course, people still have freedom of speech, but there is no way to get a message to so large a crowd of people as through television or other forms of media which are restricted.

LordShaithis · Post by **LordShaithis** » 2004-05-13 04:28pm

Darth Wong wrote:No, I think that the FCC needs to have regulations that don't come from the stone age. Their criteria are a joke; this does not mean they should have no criteria at all.

Actually, the FCC needs to be disembowled and the remnant left to writing technical regulations. All matters of content should be decided by the market, aka the audience. If CBS wants to say "fuck" during primetime, they can in my book, but shouldn't be surprised when they're met with a slew of nasty letters and plummeting ratings.

(Note that I support something like a V-chip being mandatory in all new televisions, just because it removes the "What if CHILDREN are watching?" argument and leaves absolutely no reason for government regulation of television content to exist.)

I don't know why broadcast media don't seem to enjoy full First Amendment protection in the US, but the FCC can kiss my ass, and so can the Canadian regulators responsible for what this thread is about. And I fucking hate Fox News.

News flash: there's no such thing as totally free speech.

But there's such a thing as speech that isn't free enough, and I don't like it. Neither should you.

You can't receive Al-Jazeera in the US on airwave, but you can on cable. Is this "censorship"?

It's a matter of objectionable laws mostly written in the pre-cable era being circumvented by advancing technology. So yeah, it's basically censorship, it's just really ineffective since cable is taking over anyway.

Your whole argument is that regulation of the means of dissemination is effectively censorship.

It is, when content plays a part in deciding what can be legally disseminated!

Canadian satellite rules are strict because the government is trying to protect its local satellite providers (not that I agree with this, but that's another issue); it is ridiculous to call this "content-based censorship". These rules existed before FOXNews was created; they have nothing to do with FOXNews.

But those rules were ready and waiting when someone in charge of handing out Canadian broadcast licenses decided "Fuck FOXNews!" That's my point. The sattelite rules aren't censorship, but they DO facilitate censorship on the part of those deciding what gets on the local services and what doesn't.

Bob the Gunslinger · Post by **Bob the Gunslinger** » 2004-05-13 06:06pm

Actually, in LA and the bay area, there are some broadcast channels that feature news from around the world, including segments in Vietnamese, Korean, Chinese, Spanish, German (this one I used to watch) and Arabic. These are almost all rebroadcasts of news from various foreign countries, and I believe that the arabic broadcast is an al-Jazeera "highlights" clip segment for each day's news. Of course, I can't read much arabic (besides "Allahu Akbar"), so I could be wrong.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-05-13 07:21pm

Col. Crackpot wrote:how does that have anything to do with protecting the satelite providers? if anything it would serve to enrich the providers by adding to the content just like the contract my cable provider has with the CBC and the BBC serves to enrich them. The law restricting FOXNews is there for the same reason the 'Canadian Content laws' governing Canadian radio stations are there: to control the fucking content of media broadcast over the airwves.

No, they're there to protect Canadian producers of similar content. What do you think content-based censorship is? It is censorship based on what someone is saying. A Canadian producer could say precisely the same thing that FOXNews said, and nothing would happen to him. Therefore, they're obviously not discriminating based on content; they're discriminating based on trade protectionism.

The Kernel wrote:You're right, you can't just seperate the two. The fact that the Canadian (or US) government can control certain mediums of communication means that they also control the content on those distribution lines. Of course, people still have freedom of speech, but there is no way to get a message to so large a crowd of people as through television or other forms of media which are restricted.

So they don't have newspapers in the US? Up here, nobody takes TV news too seriously as a source of actual news, and quite frankly, nobody should do that down there either. TV news is shit; if you want decent reporting, read the newspaper. And by the way, newspapers are not subject to any of these restrictions, despite your best efforts to paint the situation as suppression of the press.

GrandAdmiralPrawn wrote:But there's such a thing as speech that isn't free enough, and I don't like it. Neither should you.

Did I say that I approve of the CBC and the trade protectionism associated with it? Nope. In fact, if it were up to me the CBC would be shut down tomorrow. However, the fact remains that you and several others are engaging in a blatant distortion of facts by pretending that FOX News is being discriminated against based on political content rather than just the fact that they want to protect their stupid little government bureaucrat-run local news network.

LordShaithis · Post by **LordShaithis** » 2004-05-13 07:31pm

However, the fact remains that you and several others are engaging in a blatant distortion of facts by pretending that FOX News is being discriminated against based on political content rather than just the fact that they want to protect their stupid little government bureaucrat-run local news network.

But in your first post to this thread, you said...

FOX News is banned in Canada because Al-Jazeera is banned in Canada. Both of them are propaganda rather than news. Having said that, I would support the broadcast of FOX News in Canada ... and Al-Jazeera.

So which is it?

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-05-13 07:34pm

GrandAdmiralPrawn wrote:
However, the fact remains that you and several others are engaging in a blatant distortion of facts by pretending that FOX News is being discriminated against based on political content rather than just the fact that they want to protect their stupid little government bureaucrat-run local news network.
But in your first post to this thread, you said...
FOX News is banned in Canada because Al-Jazeera is banned in Canada. Both of them are propaganda rather than news. Having said that, I would support the broadcast of FOX News in Canada ... and Al-Jazeera.
So which is it?

Both. What part of this do you find so difficult to understand? They were not given a broadcast license because the CRTC is quite strict about broadcast licenses. Then we started talking about satellite dishes, which is another subject entirely, and in which there is a huge trade protectionism issue here in Canada. I personally signed a petition against the satellite dish laws when they came out, but it didn't make any difference.

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2004-05-13 07:36pm

Darth Wong wrote: You can't receive Al-Jazeera in the US on airwave, but you can on cable.

There's only a few broadcast slots for television in most cities, while on
cable, you can have hundreds of channels on cable with no need to worry
about interference across bandwidth...

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-05-13 07:39pm

MKSheppard wrote:
Darth Wong wrote:You can't receive Al-Jazeera in the US on airwave, but you can on cable.
There's only a few broadcast slots for television in most cities, while on cable, you can have hundreds of channels on cable with no need to worry about interference across bandwidth...

Yes, as i said, the problem on cable and satellite is Canadian trade protectionism. The CRTC is fairly draconian on content because that's, well, what they are (much like the FCC in the US), although their values aren't as medieval as the FCC's.

However, when it comes to cable and satellilte, we have an entirely different problem which is caused by paranoia that our domestic producers of content will be squashed by the Big American Machine.

The Kernel · Post by **The Kernel** » 2004-05-13 07:40pm

Darth Wong wrote:So they don't have newspapers in the US? Up here, nobody takes TV news too seriously as a source of actual news, and quite frankly, nobody should do that down there either. TV news is shit; if you want decent reporting, read the newspaper. And by the way, newspapers are not subject to any of these restrictions, despite your best efforts to paint the situation as suppression of the press.

Of course we have newspapers--but they have the same problems that television news does. They can still be strong-armed by the government (have you seen the situation with the White House press core? They are a bunch of trained seals...). About the only way someone is freely allowed to distributed information is through the Internet, which I have to admit is a wonderful potential source for free press.

My only point with what I said was that GAPrawn had a point when he said that if a government regulation is used to supress free speech but wasn't designed specifically for that purpose, that does not change the fact that it is a supression of free speech.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-05-13 07:43pm

The Kernel wrote:My only point with what I said was that GAPrawn had a point when he said that if a government regulation is used to supress free speech but wasn't designed specifically for that purpose, that does not change the fact that it is a supression of free speech.

Freedom of the press is the only critical element of free speech in a democracy (relevant to the purpose of free speech rights). I know it's common practice to say that freedom of political speech should mean "artistic freedom" and "freedom of TV" and a lot of other things, but it actually does not follow.

LordShaithis · Post by **LordShaithis** » 2004-05-13 07:46pm

Both. What part of this do you find so difficult to understand? They were not given a broadcast license because the CRTC is quite strict about broadcast licenses. Then we started talking about satellite dishes, which is another subject entirely, and in which there is a huge trade protectionism issue here in Canada. I personally signed a petition against the satellite dish laws when they came out, but it didn't make any difference.

But they're not separate subjects, in the bigger picture. The CRTC deeming something propaganda and denying it a license is censorship based on content. The trade protectionism law regarding sattelite service just makes it more effective censorship, even if only inadvertently.

(Granted the propaganda label sticks pretty well in the cases of FoxNews and Al-Jazeera, but so what? Why shouldn't you have the right to examine propaganda? Who's making this distinction and to whom are they answerable?)

The Kernel · Post by **The Kernel** » 2004-05-13 07:47pm

Darth Wong wrote:
The Kernel wrote:My only point with what I said was that GAPrawn had a point when he said that if a government regulation is used to supress free speech but wasn't designed specifically for that purpose, that does not change the fact that it is a supression of free speech.
Freedom of the press is the only critical element of free speech in a democracy (relevant to the purpose of free speech rights). I know it's common practice to say that freedom of political speech should mean "artistic freedom" and "freedom of TV" and a lot of other things, but it actually does not follow.

I know that, but when GWB has the press in his back pocket, it becomes a major concern for people like me that a free and impartial press exists. Hell, we may never have seen the Iraq abuse pictures if they hadn't been leaked and 60 Minutes II hadn't been forced into running the story or lose the scoop.