U.S. to host World Press Freedom Day | Hacker News Reader

U.S. to host World Press Freedom Day

state.gov

48 pointsZeroMinx34 comments

This paragraph is hilarious: "The theme for next year’s commemoration will be 21st Century Media: New Frontiers, New Barriers. The United States places technology and innovation at the forefront of its diplomatic and development efforts. New media has empowered citizens around the world to report on their circumstances, express opinions on world events, and exchange information in environments sometimes hostile to such exercises of individuals’ right to freedom of expression. At the same time, we are concerned about the determination of some governments to censor and silence individuals, and to restrict the free flow of information. We mark events such as World Press Freedom Day in the context of our enduring commitment to support and expand press freedom and the free flow of information in this digital age."

While hunting down Wikileaks and Julian Assange?

dont get me wrong, i live in iran and what you have as freedom of press is a thousand years ahead of us, but really, 'world press freedom day' and calling wikileaks 'a terrorist organization' AT THE SAME TIME?

s/haunting/hunting

I love how the lede makes it sound like UNESCO is the only real press-freedom organization in the world. Never mind folks like Reporter without Borders http://www.rsf.org who have condemned US actions. Or, http://www.cpj.org, or http://freedomhouse.org, or http://amnesty.org, or http://www.hrw.org/

I guess the event will be sponsored by the Ministry of Truth.

The accommodations will, of course, be provided by the Ministry of Love.

How hypocritical!

It's not press freedom if you only allow it when it suits your agenda.

This year's special guest speaker will be held in a CIA rendition cell in a secret location. Get your tickets now!

Say what you will, but the U.S. puts up with a lot more than most countries. Be thankful for the freedoms you have and celebrate the freedom of others.

Edit: Not sure why some went on the defensive. I never said you shouldn't fight to protect your own freedoms. Nor did I condemn anyone or anything. Is this really what we've been reduced to? In our search for freedom of speech we're squelching the voice of those who don't agree with us? Isn't that what you are aiming to fight?

The fact that it's better than some others is no reason to avoid condemning it when it fails to live up to its own standards.

By this argument, we shouldn't complain about any abuses of government in the western, because a lot of countries do even worse to their citizens. That's a nice idea, but if it was really applied, the result would be that the western governments would soon be no better than others.

I don't think I said we should avoid condemning it. Did I?

You said we should be thankful for what you have. That implied disagreement with the criticism of the US govt for this hypocritical stance. I suggest starting the post with something along the lines of "I agree that this stance is hypocritical, but ..." if you want to avoid conveying disagreement. It's less concise, but it gets the message across correctly!

Yes, are worse countries, but the U.S claim to be pro free speech, land of the free and all that. The reactions from cablegate speak a very different language.

The irony that this announcement happens right now is beyond belief!

EDIT: Fix some stupid typos

What reactions? I don't follow. What has the U.S. unilaterally done? The U.S. doesn't run Interpol, nor the companies which have been blacklisted by members of the community. Politicians have opinions, and due to free speech they are able to speak them.

Either you are feigning ignorance or you haven't been reading the news for a while.

Politicians aren't just exercising free speech. They're exercising political influence to impose censorship, a blatant run-around of first amendment rights. They're also introducing obviously unconstitutional legislation and calling for assassination from their office.

> Be thankful for the freedoms you have

I think this should be "Be thankful for and watchful of the freedoms you have..."

No, fight for your freedoms. Be thankful for them as an afterthought.

Can we be thankful for them while we fight to defend them? What's wrong with that?

> Be thankful for the freedoms you have and

fight for more. (Or at least donate money to others who will do some fighting for you.)

Donating money is fighting. Financing the warriors helps the cause, sometimes more than one more weak warrior (read: a person that's not been fully informed of the nuances and "gotchas" of parts of the debate) could.

Semantics of "fighting" vs. "supporting" aside, we agree that it's good to give money to organizations that advance freedom of the press.

Yes, very much so!

this is the first time i can remember when such a headline would appear ironic.

When WikiLeaks published the docs, I thought it would be great as it would expose Westerners to how most of the world lives & operates. Clearly it didn't. Which nation would the commenters here recommend as host of WPFD, in place of the US? (Not counting nations too remote/small to have any security concerns at all)

37 votes 2 hours ago. And it isn't in the frontpage.

Isn't something broken in the ranking?

How ironic given our actions of wikileaks, crazy.

Come on guys, the United States didn't do jack to Julian Assange. It's the Swedish who are pursuing the case against him, and quite possibly the matter is one of internal politics. You might say that the US put pressure on Sweden to have this happen, but here in the civilized world we say innocent until proven guilty right?

On the other hand many many Americans celebrate Wikileaks and what it represents, the government has done extremely little / nothing against wikileaks, and all the antagonists wield only rhetoric. The relative inaction so far is reason for celebration! Obviously there are always going to be people who say sensational stuff, but they don't represent the entire country.

And thankfully our laws and the freedom of speech allow them to say all that sensational stuff. As someone once said of Voltaire's attitude: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

Are you aware that the US Government wants to accuse him Assange of treason and espionage. I think the reason they haven't formally done it yet is because they are waiting for him to be extradited to Sweden first.

also, not that the likes of palin will let little things like the law stop her, but you can't commit treason against the US without being a US citizen...

> "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Actually, what he was really trying to say was "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to YOUR death your right to say it."

does not compute.

Oh come on...

haha... the title is an oxymoron

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