"Islam Will Dominate:" A Dialog for the Information Age- Shelly Palmer Report

This article is about the flow of dangerous information in the information age how will we determine what is dangerous and what might we do with it I donamp8217t believe that all people of faith are dangerous I donamp8217t think that all Muslims everywhere are plotting to kill me I am not a bigot racist or hater of anyone This article is not about me or my personal views regarding Islam You can find my daily video show Mediabytes on about 26 websites including magnifynet amp8211 a site founded and run by my very good friend Steve Rosenbaum We found each other on the phone the other day comparing notes on our CES experiences Not surprisingly Steve was eager to share statistics about how successful magnifynet has become with more than 500000 views daily During our conversation he told me that the third most popular channel on magnify was called quotIslam Will Dominatequot This caught me off guard so I immediately visited magnifynet to see for myself On this particular day Steve was wrong it was the second most popular video channel on the site quotReallyquot I said quotHumm amp8230 how do you feel about thatquotSteveamp8217s position is that magnifynet is a platform His company is not responsible for the content anymore than Google or YouTube would be responsible He told me that magnifynet has a policy that prohibits quothate speechquot as defined on their site but content that does not meet that standard is not censored in any wayAt this point in the conversation I had not watched any of the videos on the channel I had just looked at the thumbnails and their metadata I was disturbed by the title of the channel quotIslam Will Dominatequot but I did not have enough personal knowledge of the content to approve or disapprove of any particular piece of contentI asked Steve if he thought that offering an enabling technology to a group of individuals who were proselytizing a doctrine that incited people to kill people who did not believe in their particular worldview was a good idea Steve correctly admonished that I had not seen all of the content admitted that he hadnamp8217t either and we watched a few while on the phone togetherWe got into a very balanced discussion about religious dogma extremism moderates the true message of Islam and the like This is not a conversation I wish to have with you Steve is my friend and we have enough mutual respect to passionately argue ideology without any residual animus In fact we talk about religion and politics all the timeSteve and I both live in New York close enough to Ground Zero to remember the taste of the charnel smell in our throats I donamp8217t have to hypothesize about whether or not this particular group and their religious beliefs are dangerous to me my family my friends and neighbors amp8211 I simply have to look out the southern facing windows of my apartment and consider the change in the New York City skylineMy position is relatively simple People who are willing to kill you if you do not adopt their worldview are dangerous Thinking adults should do everything in their power to prevent the proliferation of any dogma that lauds makes martyrs of or otherwise deifies people who think it is acceptable to kill other people because they donamp8217t wish to pray to a particular god follow particular traditions or adopt a particular way of life This is my worldview You donamp8217t have to agree with it I am not advocating it nor am I willing to attack or otherwise harm anyone who happens do disagree with meRegister Your Comments to This Story at JackMyerscomI truly believe that anyone is entitled to any worldview to which they wish to ascribe However if they are publishing the idea that they are ready willing and able to kill me if I donamp8217t agree with them I simply donamp8217t think I need to sit idly by and allow them to do so Steve argued the other side His feeling was that magnifynet was a platform and that providing a venue for conversation could only help After all conversation fosters understandingAlthough I totally agree with this point I think it has to come with a caveat amp8211 conversation with the purpose of fostering understanding is a great idea you just have to leave your AK47amp8217s car bombs and suicide bombers at home and agree not to use them I asked the question quotSteve what happens when magnifynet enables this particular group to change minds close to home and a car bomb or suicide bomber kills one of your children with their new understanding of this dogmaquotAnd so we come to the most important question of our time How can we protect ourselves in and from the Information AgeIf you search quotIslam will dominatequot on Google you will find hundreds of pages of results Type it into YouTube same thing The Internet is ubiquitous amp8211 what if anything should be doneOur constitution prohibits our government from preventing anyone from saying almost anything other than crying out quotfirequot in a crowded theater in public spaces But this idea of freedom of expression does not apply to private spaces homes workplaces or the purview of private enterprise Should magnifynet give a voice to Islam Will it dominate What does that mean How about evangelical Christians Donamp8217t they have to be stopped as well What about Mormons or Jews Should we limit the flow of their messages To me the answer is very simple amp8211 as long as you donamp8217t advocate killing me you can say anything you like But when you are actively recruiting people who will be brainwashed to end my life you donamp8217t get to use my tools to do itIamp8217m not advocating the burning of books or the slippery slope of censorship amp8211 Iamp8217m advocating filtering out and disrupting the most powerful tool that our enemies have amp8211 information Is this censorship Steve says yes I say no I think filtering is a pretty good survival tactic for the information age Steve does not What will Chad Hurley or Eric Schmidt say We should ask them in fact we should all discuss this at lengthAfter our call I watched a bunch of videos on magnifynetamp8217s quotIslam Will Dominatequot channel and couldnamp8217t find anything particularly offensive or dangerous sounding I donamp8217t agree with any of it but I respect their right to believe whatever they wish to believe Perhaps if the channel was entitled quotAla is Greatquot I would not have been inspired to consider the issue However I do not wish to be quotdominatedquot by anyone or any thing and their choice of words begged the question Does a private company in NYC have an obligation to help promulgate a belief system that is antithetical to the existence of NYCAs the world gets wired we are going to be faced with the enormity of this ethical question over and over again We as a society living in the Information Age must get a handle on it now My personal views donamp8217t matter But our collective view does The constitution does not contemplate a world where information is available everywhere in an instant But it is the world we live in today What shall we do about it What questions should we ask What do you thinkShelly Palmer is Managing Director of Advanced Media Ventures Group LLC and the author of Television Disrupted The Transition from Network to Networked TV 2006 Focal Press Shelly is also President of the National Academy of Television Arts ampamp Sciences NY the organization that bestows the coveted Emmyamp174 Awards He is the ViceChairman of the National Academy of Media Arts ampamp Sciences an organization dedicated to education and leadership in the areas of technology media and entertainment Palmer also oversees the Advanced Media Technology Emmyamp174 Awards which honors outstanding achievements in the science and technology of advanced media You can read Shelly39s blog here Shelly can be reached at shellypalmernetCheck out the Shelly Palmer Report archiveamp160

Click to Make Your 2025 Contribution to Support the MediaVillage Education Foundation

"Islam Will Dominate:" A Dialog for the Information Age- Shelly Palmer Report

Author

Publish date

Channel

Shelly Palmer

Empowering Women in Media: Insights from Industry Leaders (Video) - By E.B. Moss

More Videos:

Click to Make Your 2025 Contribution to Support the MediaVillage Education Foundation

"Islam Will Dominate:" A Dialog for the Information Age- Shelly Palmer Report

Enjoying This Commentary? There's More to Love

Shelly Palmer

Empowering Women in Media: Insights from Industry Leaders (Video) - By E.B. Moss

The payment was successful

Cookies