Update on Vimeo’s Censorship of UNJABBED Episode 1
A Big Tech platform took down a work of fiction for public health reasons. I explain why it should alarm defenders of free speech.
I am a cartoonist and filmmaker living and working in Indianapolis. I make illustrated video stories on various themes, mostly environmental. I have a paid “Plus” account on Vimeo. The “Trust & Safety” officer at Vimeo took down the first episode of my SciFi series “UNJABBED”. Gabe Kaminsky at the Federalist wrote a good article about it. There’s a link to the video in the article.
I’m concerned that “health” will be a new rationale censors will use to silence authors, cartoonists and filmmakers like myself .
Many Sci-Fi books and films imagine a worse case scenario for scientific and medical research. Vimeo is choosing to focus solely on the science in my video, they are dismissing the fiction.. Jurassic Park for instance, imagines a scenario where recombinant DNA research (what many people consider a beneficial technology) could create a nightmare for filmmakers and other creators. Organ transplants are a good thing, goodbye Frankenstein. A very slippery slope when the “Fi” part of SciFi is overlooked.
As an artist the First Amendment protection of free expression is of paramount importance to me. "Health" should not become a new loophole to censor fiction.
Nearly anything can be labeled a health issue. In October, 2021 the CDC labeled gun violence a health issue. Combine that with the line crossed with fiction and it’s goodbye John Wick, Breaking Bad and Dirty Harry. Goodbye video games, rap music and comic books.
It’s only a matter of time before the traditional foes of the 1st Amendment, the “Anti-Porn” prudes who have long crusaded against creative erotic expression learn to use this far more versatile device to take us back to the Comstock era. For example, a great deal of bondage-themed art, films and literature could be banned on the basis they promote an “unhealthy lifestyle”. Even the most tame, soft-core pornography dealing with sex outside of strict monogamy could be banned because it could result in unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.
The pendulum swings back and forth in this country regarding art and entertainment. The argument that films, comics, video games, rock & roll, etc. incite violence and moral decay have been proven false time and again. The Puritans cannot be allowed to take away our most important right, the right all free people have fought for millennia - the right to freely express themselves. Without the right to free expression, all other rights are lost and we will descend into a new Dark Age… perhaps we are already there.
Some people argue that Vimeo and other Big Tech platforms are private companies, not the Federal Government and are therefore not covered by the First Amendment. That assertion ignores the fact that Big Tech Internet platforms are how many people communicate now. Big Tech companies sell themselves these days as “common carriers”, conduits of information in much the same way the telephones are a conduit of information. But telephone companies do not censor private conversations.
Many creators like myself are finding a dwindling number of independent newspapers, publishers, bookstores and movie theaters where we can show our work. Big Tech devastated the marketplace in which we used to sell our creative wares, we now have to pay rather than be paid by a company like Vimeo to show our work.
In the last year and a half, Big Tech platforms were pressured by politicians to punish their political adversaries with censorship. Big Tech is acting as the proxy for Government.
There is an obvious motive for companies like Vimeo to comply with the demands of politicians to censor artists, writers and filmmakers; lawmakers and regulators have the power to regulate and break up Big Tech monopolies.
Censorship is always a terrible thing. Americans have been propagandized in recent years to regard the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution as an unnecessary impediment to public order and public health. That is a dangerous notion. The government should never interfere or order a proxy to interfere in the free flow of ideas and opinions in peacetime. Neither should the government meddle in the realm of the imagination for ANY reason, at ANY time.
I am hoping traditional defenders of the First Amendment will speak out against Vimeo’s censorship of UNJABBED Episode 1. In the meantime, I am finishing Episode 2. I will post a link to the video here. Stay tuned.