Ricardo Miranda Zúñiga

Structural Patterns

Reflections on Art, Technology and Society

Censored Billboards, Censored Speech

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Bill de Blasio believes that the government can decide what is viable free speech and what is not. de Blasio feels that he knows what messages may be censored and which may be allowed to remain in the public space. A couple years ago de Blasio demanded the removal of anti-abortion billboard and stated the following “There should never be a law prohibiting this sort of sign, Mr. de Blasio said, ‘but to have a serious debate, to have people express their outrage, and then to have a private owner of the advertising space decide that it was ultimately not appropriate, that to me is a functioning democracy.'” Read the NYTimes article.

Today the UN Assembly gathers in NYC and I comfortably sit in my office at 68th and Lexington after dodging through stand still traffic while police vehicles weaved through… all for a series of limos with international flags. If you’ve got a limo, get a flag… traffic will part for you. In preparation for the UN members’ visit Two Peoples One Future paid for posters throughout the subway system presenting Israelis and Palestinians beneath these words: “Be on our side — we are on the side of peace and justice.” Local politicians protested and now the posters are down. Just as who paid for the advertisements is public knowledge, the names of the people who demanded that freedom of speech be censored should be public knowledge. Read NYTimes article.

Now off to Wall Street to visit the protestors at Zuccotti Park, I mean Liberty Plaza.

Written by ricardo

September 19th, 2011 at 5:01 pm