Photo: Press
In its early days, the internet was often compared to the Wild West. It was a place where misinformation, bigotry and invitations to take part in illegal activity spread entirely unchallenged.
Since then, those who see themselves as the guardians of decency have been obsessed with taking control, so that anyone can use the internet without suffering abuse of any kind. This (despite being entirely futile) is a noble pursuit in many ways - no one should have to suffer abuse of any kind in any part of their life. But is everyone offered the same level of protection?
Following the death of David Bowie, every fan was keen to pay tribute to the great man in any way they could. One of these fans is Kanye West, who has apparently suggested he might even be the musical heir to Bowie. Perhaps off the back of that, maybe purely out of mischief, the Daily Star fabricated a story that West was planning a musical tribute by recording a number of Bowie’s songs.
The reaction was depressingly predictable. Howls of derision arose from those claiming to be not only Bowie fans but somehow also protectors of his legacy. How they figured that is anyone’s guess, but it’s certainly nothing new.
West famously faced a similar reception when it was announced he was to headline Glastonbury. Somehow this feted cultural behemoth was not for West. He and those like him would muddy the cultural purity of the event, according to a group of fans in their twenties. Whatever could they mean?
The inevitable petition came out this time too, created by someone called Peter Piranha.
At first I reacted in a typically modern way. I moaned about it on social media, I got into arguments about the motives of the petitioner.Then I did nothing. But after sleeping on it I became increasingly uneasy that this kind of thing constantly goes unchallenged. Loring Wirbel, former co-chair of the American Civil Liberties Union, has called the campaign ‘a direct slap at freedom of speech, whether you like Kanye or not’.
So I wrote to 38 Degrees, who are hosting the campaign. I explained that I thought this went against their community rules as it was encouraging discrimination and hatred. For clarification these are the community rules for campaigns on the site:
In my view the petition itself can be seen to be offensive to Kanye West, fans of Kanye West and fans of rap in general. I have still not received a reply to my email but someone I know has. This is what it said:
So 38 Degrees make no attempt to defend the petition. It is, they say, hosted on a separate part of the site over which they have no control – the final bastions of the old Wild West. This is a common defence. If you put a disclaimer up on a certain part of your site people can in theory post things that are offensive and it’s nothing to do with you, with the proviso that it can’t be illegal or incite violence.
In the interest of fairness I got it touch with Peter and asked him about his motives when starting the petition. He is a fairly affable man who has been a Bowie fan since the sixties. He seemed surprised by the attention the campaign had received – having started it "unsupervised while my wife was out with friends, and I was half way through a bottle of fine Bordeaux."
"I am not furious, incensed, angry, or enraged," he continued. "Neither am I a music snob or an uptight bore. And, this really got to me, I didn’t call Kanye an untalented arsewipe. I'm just a guy having a little fun. I am also free for I'm a Celebrity or Big Brother."
He also said he’d be happy for other hip hop artists to cover Bowie, "especially Run DMC or LL Cool J." So whatever motives others have for signing and supporting a petition like this, I didn’t want to badmouth Peter without letting him get his side of the story out.
I decided to test how far I could get by starting my own petition. I started a campaign to urge people to stop going on about David Bowie. This was clearly a fairly unpleasant petition to start. People have a right to talk about their hero without suffering this kind of nonsense.
But, just like Peter, I started my petition on the Campaigns By You part of the site. I flagged it on Facebook and suggested it might not be in the best taste. Someone I know complained about it; perhaps reasonably. But what could 38 Degrees do? The reply they’d sent to the Kanye petition suggested there really wasn’t a whole lot they could say about it. Surely the complainant would just be encouraged to email me and express their displeasure.
Well, no as it turns out. Within two hours of it being put up my petition was hauled off the site after being flagged as inappropriate. The complaint was apparently upheld and half an hour later I received the following email from 38Degrees:
So now the rules appear to have changed. It turns out the administrators at 38 Degrees are more than happy to intervene in community petitions if they feel they are inappropriate. I asked them about this, and their stock reply said that I should email the person who started the petition.Well I did that, and now I’m asking you why my petition was so much worse you felt you needed to change your own rules to take it down. Or were they never your rules and you were just using them to hide behind when you had a petition you thought was going places? Either way, it is clear there is hypocrisy at play here.
There is one mitigating circumstance of course. David Bowie has recently died and many of his fans are grieving. But is this enough to change a whole site’s community rules? I don’t believe it is. Secondly, the Kanye petition is a breeding ground of racism and incitement to violence. One comment read ‘I don’t know who this black fella is so he can’t be very good’. Many wished that Kanye had died instead of Bowie, and others suggested West might go the same way as their hero if the record saw the light of day. If the petition itself isn’t removed could the administrators at least moderate the comments? Again, the answer came back that this was nothing to do with them. And when I asked to speak with someone from 38 Degrees for this article I wasn’t even given the courtesy of a reply – radio silence.
So you have to wonder why the double standard has been so clearly exposed. If these sites are champions of free speech, with whole sections unmoderated, I should have the right to hurt the feelings of Bowie fans. If the opposite is true Kanye and his army of fans deserve to have their feelings protected.
What is the difference? Race is the obvious answer. It’s there in the background of this and many petitions against black artists.Having heard back from Peter, I don’t believe he is a racist. I (maybe naively) believe him when he says he was just bored and a little drunk one night. But there is, as explained by Neil Kulkarni in his blog, a White Rock Defence League that reacts against anyone they don’t see as part of the rock canon claiming or getting involved in what they see as their business.
A lot of people don’t want Kanye to record a tribute because, mistakenly, they believe it would go against Bowie’s wishes. But in amongst all of this that White Rock Defence League is there. It exists within petitions like this, with some who start the campaigns oblivious themselves. So why are 38 Degrees defending them, keeping them safe under the guise of free speech and transient community rules?
This goes back to the early days of the internet – the Wild West. The early pioneers wanted it to be a place where anyone could express anything. There is a libertarian movement that wants everything to go back to those early days. They believe this makes things fair and even. But of course they are wrong as long as there are those who choose who is to be protected and who is to be left to fend for themselves.
So this is not the Wild West. This is a facsimile, a theme park. And in this theme park you get to stay if you buy enough ice cream, if you adhere to the rules of the owners. And worse than that, the games are rigged. The guns on the shooting range don’t shoot straight, the hoops don’t fit over the bottles. If you accept this and keep playing anyway, you can stay as long as you like. But if you have the gall to point that out to the sheriff, or you come dressed as an Indian instead of a cowboy, you may find yourself out in the cold.
