"Speakers Corner (Marble Arch corner of Hyde Park) - A remaining
vestige
of the British
tradition of free speech is this institution of impromptu
discourses by unknown orators,
often on religion or politics, usually on Sundays..."
(http://www.camelotintl.com/hotels/hydepark.html)
www.speakerscorner.net/main.html
The old discussion list was taken offline due to legal treats concerning
allegations made by certain individuals. I will reestablish the discussion
list soon and run it through another server, then whatever is published
will be the responsibility of that server. (British law is ridiculous on
these issues, as you can see on the video.. A Soap Box in Cyber Space in
the Video Audio section of this site.)
www.capital-calling.com/london-areas/london/hyde-park.htm
Hyde is a London Royal Park which Henry VIII acquired in 1536 (it had been
owned by the monks of Westminster Abbey before that). A large area of open
space in the city centre of 630 acres and a perimeter of 4 miles. It has
the memorials at Marble Arch at the east side and Kensington palace at the
west. Also within its environs is the Albert Memorial, Queen Victoria's
monument to her husband.
www.channel4.com/news/sr/sr.pages/sr17.now/sr17.scr4.htm
Lords, ladies and gentlemen - may I have your attention, because there's
something I want to tell you. Or maybe there's something you want to tell
me? Well I at least have a forum because I'm on the telly....
Revisiting Free Speech Paradigm:
- From Hyde Park Corner to the Internet
[Junichi Hamada, Director of ISICS, The University of Tokyo]
"Then what implications today's network communication represented by
Internet speech will have for the traditional idea of free
speech? The premise of traditional theory of free speech is that the both
the power and harm of expression are relatively
limited, like the speech at the corner of Hyde Park."
Ch.29,
Seattle
"Therefore, it is time for the city to admit openly that Channel 29 is
mostly a
wasteland. The city government extracted a valuable cable channel in
return for
granting the cable company a franchise, yet it has not seen to it that
that asset is put to
optimal use. The model of a Hyde Park Corner soap box, where any
crackpot or
misunderstood genius could speak, had merit in theory, but the
station's practical
insistence that potential producers take a technical course seems to
have screened out
some of the genius/crackpots, and even people with interesting views.
And it left too
many somewhat technically competent bores. In Seattle, public access
TV too often is
not a free marketplace of ideas; it's the dumpster behind the market."
Sulzberger, Transscript, June 1997 [News in the Digital Age
A series of forums on the changing media
landscape. Columbia University]
".... There's so many
subjects we've hit on, just in the few minutes we've been
doing this, and
each one of them could be a two-hour debate, and we're
sort of dancing
along the surface of issues. But one of the biggest issues
we face is this
going to be the soap box? Is the Internet nothing more,
fundamentally, than
every individual having a box on-what was that corner in
London-Hyde
Park Corner? Right? We could all stand on our box, scream
to the
audience, and hope that maybe one drunk had wandered by
long enough
to catch a word. That may well be it..."
Jeremy Kleinman's Page
"Despite the fact that, at present, access to the internet is somewhat
restricted, granting access only to those who can
afford the equipment, the internet is truly a revolutionary method of
communication and political discourse. Although freedom
of speech has always been well protected, a person wishing to express and
publicize views that differ from the mainstream no
longer must go to the lengths of writing letters of opinion to local
newspapers, or even publishing their own newspaper. A
person no longer needs to resort to the weekly soap-box demagoguery that
still takes place at Hyde Park Corner in London
to get their voice heard. Rather it can be done from the comfort and
privacy of their home or office and in a manner that can
be very effective."
