Free speech/expression and CVS.

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CVS, Walgreens, and some other outlets are refusing to sell the Rolling Stone magazine that features Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on the cover.

Since I hate the cover, I'm happy with this decision.

I support the businesses and people who boycott the issue.

Some people take offense to this.

Among claims,1. if I support the boycott, my support of free speech is hypocritical. 2. CVS has a moral obligation to carry the issue.

I read an article in Alias's facebook page, and agreed with it until the last paragraph. The article seemed to jump from a defense for RS to an weird accusation against those who don't agree.

This final paragraph is off the mark. They seemed to have coined a new phrase that sounds "green" and "organic," and "sustainable," so it's cool and patriotic to spend some money on a Rolling Stone. Really, you must support Rolling Stone - and those people who won't - well, they're just unpatriotic and against Freedom of Speech.

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Yet the vitriol and closed-mindedness of the Web response to the Rolling Stone cover, before anyone had the chance to read the article itself, is an example of two of the ugly public outcomes of terrorism: hostility toward free expression, and to the collection and examination of factual evidence; and a kind of culture-wide self-censorship encouraged by tragedy, in which certain responses are deemed correct and anything else is dismissed as tasteless or out of bounds. The victims of the Boston Marathon bombing deserve our attention, and will continue to teach us about perseverance and the best parts of our common nature. But the dark stories of the bombing need to be told, too. And we need to hear them.

Link: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/07/dzhokhar-tsarnaev-rolling-stone-cover-controversy.html

I don't expect many to have my opinion - but I would like honest opinions.
Can you be a proponent of freedom of speech and expression - and support a boycott?

Does CVS or any other retail outlet have a moral obligation to Rolling Stone in this instance?

Thanks.

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Type: Question • Score: 15 • Views: 6,517 • Replies: 198

View best answer, chosen by Lash

I can't see what the fuss is about. They aren't saying he's a great guy or anything like that - in fact it says quite clearly right there on the cover that he is a "monster". Is his picture banned? Rolling Stone has had other infamous people on its cover:

http://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/0c9109c71ea0524d9fe840f91fabd67bb94a26a9/r=537&c=0-0-534-712/local/-/media/USATODAY/test/2013/07/17/1374076265000-XXX-manson-1970-rolling-stone-1307171152_3_4.jpg

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@Lash,

I see it this way. I never bought a rolling stone in my life. I read it when I go to the library..but have not read it all since around 1986. I'm not their targeted audience and I suspect the 'greying hippy generation' of which I sort of am part of would be less likely to buy the magazine now - especially since their cover choice is so distasteful.

They stand to profit by the potential sensationalism of having his face on the cover. The added dollars of people who decide to buy this RS issue ... based on that sensationalism alone ... are still profit for RS. Who says they have to have ethics and taste?

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@Lash,

My only reply is "huh?".

I'm fine with them not selling it.

Of course this will make him more of an iconIdol, and make the remaining issues collectors' items, but that is the way of it.

Who is Alias?

Personally, I have some trouble looking at that photo for myriad reasons. I don't often screen photos from myself with my hand.
Cutie who made choices I don't understand.

Other (alleged) killers have occasionally been not bad looking.
People fall for cute.

Whether Rollling Stone was using a previously used photo by others in some kind of irony, I've no idea, but if so, weird.

edit - maybe/probably they meant it as weird. I've no idea.

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@ossobuco,

Wasn't it Time magazine who on Jan 7, 1980 - TIME Magazine Cover: Ayatollah Khomeini, as Man of the Year.

No matter what or whom it was, it is not meant as an award for excellence. They're a cultural media discussion forum or outlet, correct? I see it as a potential glorification, but that is just my peculiar POV.

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@Ragman,

The arguments that I read (swiftly) had to with the choice of that particular photo.

I'm not against that even though I am uncomfortable with it, and there may have been some irony involved... just as I'm not against people not liking it.

CVS is Massachusetts based, no? Not that I ascribe them motives, or if they have them that they are wrong.

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@ossobuco,

CVS is a RI-based corporation.

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In the meantime, I'd like to read the actual article.

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@Lash,

Back to your point re freedom of speech and boycott, what is the question?

Clearly I'm fine on this combo.

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Alias is the name of a member here, if that is in fact to whom Lash refers. Please note that she refers to something Alias posted which is someone else's opinion.

Free speech means you have the right to say what you will--by the courts the only limit on that is incitement to criminality, or tendentious speech which presents a clear and present danger. The right to express yourself does not entail a right to be heard--no one is obliged to listen. Such a boycott is mostly a public relations act; people can buy the magazine elsewhere. But having free speech doesn't mean anyone has to listen, and those promoting a boycott aren't infringing anyone's rights.

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Being a middle-of-the-road moderate kind of guy (firm believer in Aristotle's Golden Mean), here's my opinion:

(1) Rolling Stone has a perfect right to publish whatever they want and put anybody's picture on their cover as long as they're not being libelous.

(2) CVS has a perfect right to ban from its news-stands whatever publications they deem to be inappropriate for their clientele.

It's really that simple and, for me at least, has absolutely nothing whatever to do with moral rights or wrongs.

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@Setanta,

And then there's the issue of effectiveness of boycotts. So if one large CVS sells 100 fewer magazines? And..perhaps, as a billion-dollar corporation, CVS loses $50,000 for one week? They'll regain it again the next week.

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@Lustig Andrei,

Like, duh.

not to mock, thanks for saying it.

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@Ragman,

Both the boycott and the reactive protest against the boycott are meaningless exercises in self-imposed self-will.

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@Lash,

Hi Lash,

thanks for starting this thread. My thoughts on the topic are getting a little long for Facebook. Here is my current position on the subject (more or less copied and pasted from your Facebook thread.)

(1) Retail shops like CVS's are not just private agents. They are also public accommodations under the Civil-Rights Act. As such, they owe it to the public to refrain from discrimination.

(2) Rolling-Stone magazine, a part of the public, has designed a cover for its current issue, in exercise of its civil rights to freedom of speech and press. This cover offends you, someone at CVS, and some other customers of CVS. Other customers, if given the choice, would elect to buy and read it. CVS is taking this choice away from them, and you're applauding them for that.

(3) CVS's refusal to sell this Rolling-Stone issue constitutes viewpoint discrimination, which is morally tainted and legally at least iffy.

(4) The reason I only say "iffy" is that from googling legal-reference websites, the typical viewpoint-discrimination case against public utilities involves a university that gives a room to one student group but not another, or something of that nature. The rationale of these cases seems to apply to CVS, because CVS is a public accommodation just as universities are, and public accommodations can't discriminate against viewpoints. But that being said, I couldn't find any viewpoint-discrimination cases specifically against retailers. Maybe someone with more experience in the law can enlighten us.

So while I don't want to overplay my hand, and I don't know for sure that CVS's conduct was illegal, its viewpoint discrimination is at least in a legal grey zone. And to anyone who cherishes civil rights as an ethical value that goes beyond mere legalities, CVS clearly did the wrong thing ethically here.

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@Lustig Andrei,

This is a fine kettle of fish, now I can't buy Rolling Stone here in the cultural desert of west Albuquerque, in order to read it.

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@Lustig Andrei,

100% agreed.

And this cover (and coverage) will do nothing to advance free speech nor will it get him convicted in any potential future trial or civil rights case.

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@Lash,

Lash wrote:

I support the businesses and people who boycott the issue.

To me there's a crucial difference between the two. Purely-private agents, such as yourself, are free to withhold business from anyone, including Rolling Stone. But public accommodations, such as CVS, are barred by law (and by the ethical standards underpinning the law) from discriminating against viewpoints they don't like. It is your support for CVS's viewpoint discrimination, not your abstinence from buying Rolling Stone, that made me call your support of free speech hypocritical.

1 Reply

@Thomas,

I am guessing there was wording in some initial agreement that lets CVS make this choice.

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@ossobuco,

ossobuco wrote:

Who is Alias?

On A2K, he is known as Failures Art and Diest TKO

In another post, you said you'd like to read the article. You can read it on the Rolling Stone website:

http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/jahars-world-20130717

2 Replies

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