I made a brief stopover on PlayRadio UK yesterday during Tommy’s show, where the familiar matters of freedom of speech were being hashed out in Boyd’s own inimitable way. I came on for a couple of minutes to discuss Beenie Man, a topic prompted by William Crawley’s article last week. (Incidentally, William links to my discussion in the comments section of his blog in a post today.)
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UPDATE: 12/13/2007
After chatting with Will about this, it appears he would agree with most of what I say above. Where he wishes to draw the line (and where I think I’d agree) is at direct incitement to violence. I’ve argued that I don’t believe Beenie Man lyrics constitute incitement, and Will thinks there’s a chance a court of law may have the opportunity to rule on such a question in the near future.
5 responses so far ↓
1 Brendan O’Neill: murder music and free speech // Dec 8, 2007 at 8:51 am
[…] it, and what I see as a blatant disregard for freedom of speech (the brief segment is podcasted here).In today’s Guardian, Brendan O’Neill comes through in a compelling piece - far moreso […]
2 zagga zow // Dec 10, 2007 at 1:22 pm
battyman fi dead the bible say that beenie man his a artist that believe in the bible so thats it
3 John // Dec 10, 2007 at 4:59 pm
Zagga Zow, you prove the point well.
4 garethlee // Dec 11, 2007 at 4:11 pm
This is bullshit. That interview was embarrassing. John you are soooooo uninformed about all of this, you even say that the courts have not been involved in murder music cases.Wrong. They have. You also say that this is about incitement to hatred. Its NOT. It’s about incitement to VIOLENCE. I am a staunch defender of free speech and I oppose censorship almost completely. The one category of speech were censorship is justified is when someone is calling for violence to be done to others. Rethink your position John, you are so missing the point.
5 John // Dec 11, 2007 at 4:22 pm
What I said about the courts relates to the victims: to my knowledge, no victim of an assault has ever pressed charges against Beenie-Man for inciting the perp of his attack to violence. See the article I link to here for more detail on why I disagree with you.
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