Bill O’Reilly, the Fox Network’s resident blowhard, went off on the Internet yesterday in a comical tirade. O’Reilly’s comments mostly speak for themselves. But I think anyone who has watched him bludgeon the guests on his show will be able to read what’s really on his mind, between the lines. Something like the following:
Sex, lies and videotape on the Internet, that’s the subject of this evening’s Talking Points Memo. Nearly everyday, there’s something written on the Internet about me that’s flat out untrue. (I know, because I ego-surf every night, to see just what lies people are posting about me.) And I’m not alone. Nearly every famous person in the country’s under siege. (As for the rest of you non-famous people, who cares?) Today’s example comes from Web sites that picked up a false report from The San Francisco Chronicle that said a San Francisco radio station dropped The Radio Factor. If anyone had bothered to make even one phone call, they would have learned that Westwood One made a deal with another San Francisco radio station, weeks ago to move The Radio Factor. (And will someone please shut up that program director who had the nerve to say I don’t have “lightning in a bottle like Rush”?) Thus the word “dropped” is obviously inaccurate and dishonest. (True, you can no longer hear me on that radio station — but it pisses me off no end that anyone would actually report this using a good, plain word like “dropped” to describe what happened.) We’ll see if The Chronicle runs a correction, but you can bet you won’t be seeing many corrections on the net. (Thank God I’m on TV, which nobody expects to run corrections.) The reason these net people get away with all kinds of stuff is that they work for no one. (They’re ignorant slobs without jobs. How dare they think they have a right to speak out?) They put stuff up with no restraints. (Unlike the guests on my show, who I can drown out or tell to shut up if they cross me.) This, of course, is dangerous, but it symbolizes what the Internet is becoming. (Freedom of speech — how un-American can you get?) …The Internet has become a sewer of slander and libel, an unpatrolled polluted waterway, where just about anything goes. For example, the guy who raped and murdered a 10-year old in Massachusetts says he got the idea from the NAMBLA Web site that he accessed from the Boston public library. The ACLU’s defending NAMBLA in that civil lawsuit. (If we could just stop evildoers from reading about or talking about Bad Things, the Bad Things would go away!) Talking Points noted with interest the hue and cry that went up from some quarters about the FCC changing the rules and allowing big corporations to own even more media properties. But big corporations are big targets. (Big corporations pay my salary, too.) If they misbehave, they can be sued for big bucks. (And they can afford big-bucks lawyers to defend themselves. And they can pay lobbyists to write the laws to suit them.) These small time hit and run operators on the net, however, can traffic in perversity and falsehoods all day long with impunity. It’s almost impossible to rein them in. (In China, on the other hand, they really know how to keep those Internet crazies in line.) So which is the bigger threat to America? The big companies or the criminals at the computer? Interesting question. (Especially the way I just stacked it! Now, where did I put that “no-spin zone” sign?) |
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