Today in quality ACTA reporting from Real Newspapers: the true meaning of those Guy Fawkes masks

[unjapanologist]

Things may be going in a hopeful direction regarding the EU ratification of ACTA. Bulgaria is the latest individual country to halt ratification procedures, and after the Greens and the Socialists, the Liberal political block in the European Parliament finally seems to be getting worried as well (though it remains to be seen what they will actually do when it comes to a vote - they are associated with this individual). By contrast, the extremely large and therefore important Christian Democratic block is clearly not listening.* Stop ACTA now has a very handy letter-sending form right at the top of its homepage.

In other good news, the self-styled Flemish 'quality' newspapers, which I've largely been boycotting since their disgraceful reporting about the 3-11 disasters in Tohoku last year, have finally begun informing the populace about ACTA after weeks months years of saying basically nothing at all about it. They put out some very interesting articles that are masterpieces of contradictions, misinformation, and hilariously incoherent nonsense. The articles are also nearly identical and clearly copy-pasted from a press agency text, but I suppose that's the least of their imperfections.

My absolute favorite bit: anti-ACTA demonstrators "wear masks out of fear of reprisals".

That is seriously in there (Google translate). Every time I hear somebody bemoan the evils of unreliable citizen journalism and blow trumpets about how "professional" reporting needs to be protected and respected, I laugh and laugh.



*In a lovely example of them not listening: one of their members, Ivo Belet, just replied to a mail I sent him containing a link to a debunking of much of the contents of a document called "Ten myths about ACTA" that the European Commission has been sending around. Mr. Belet tried to assuage my fears by sending me a link to the "Ten myths about ACTA" document. I realize that it's absolutely impossible for EP members to follow links in and give personalized responses to all the mails they get, but this sort of thing doesn't make them look concerned with citizen's opinions. Or very bright.

Comments

[flourish]

Well, weren't the Guy Fawkes masks originally used in Scientology protests, when people actually were worried about reprisals? Not that I think they're being used that way now, but... kernel of truth?

...?

Maybe not.

[unjapanologist]

I thought the masks were used in the Scientology protests mostly as an allusion to that epic fail stick figure thing?

Anyhow, in the case of these newspapers, I think we can reasonably assume plain ignorance. They love masks. When they were reporting about Fukushima a year ago, they were running lots of dramatic pictures of little Japanese kids in white face masks and saying that people were trying to protect themselves against radiation. Those were hayfever masks.

[flourish]

Definitely, but I'm not sure if that was the only reason. I also may have gotten the idea that it was an identity protection thing from another equally full of shit newspaper, or even from my own assumptions, because Scientology does hunt people down pretty assiduously.

LOL re: Fukushima.

[unjapanologist]

Could be that it had to do with identity protection for some people, I don't recall those protests very clearly myself and Scientology is indeed pretty damn scary...