tfs

Time Warner, the king of the cable television throne, pulled 3 medical marijuana ads from running in the Coachella Valley area last Thursday. The ads, produced by the Marijuana Anti-Prohibition Project, were scheduled to run on Comedy Central, MSNBC, the Travel Channel and Home & Garden Television.

Lenny Swerdlow, the groups displeased president, had this to say:

They are censoring speech that they don’t approve of. They should not be doing that. They should be in the business of fostering new ideas, not trying to squelch them.

Time Warner is allowed to pull ads, but with 14 days notice, and Mr. Swerdlow found out only after a reporter called him regarding the subject and what his comments were. This is a slippery slope that Time Warner is choosing. Removing ads from circulation which are offensive, derogatory, or racist makes complete sense. However, pulling ads from circulation simply over a disagreement in political or topical viewpoints dangerously slants what we do and do not see.

This brings up the question, what other ads have local Time Warner branches pulled? The public never knows of and never sees the informative messages that were intended. Only time will tell if these actions will come back to haunt those station chiefs that censor what Americans are allowed to watch. If you don’t like a message, simply change the channel, but don’t take away someone elses right to be informed on that same subject.

[via Newsvine]