The Student Room Group

University of plymouth students union bans newpapers they disagree with...

The university of Plymouth has just banned three right wing newspapers from being sold. Now well I can’t defend those papers (I honestly dislike them) I do think this is a perfect example of why universities, or more specifically their “unions” are becoming jokes.

Freedom of the press is a fundamental part of democracy. If you disagree with a viewpoint you convince others that you are correct you don’t ban them from reading things you don’t agree with.

http://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/plymouth-students-vote-to-ban-hate-filled-tabloids/story-29947153-detail/story.html



This is a worrying trend and Plymouth seems to be getting worse… as do a large number of universities.

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Reply 1
Ah, bright eyed, fresh faced students who always know best, out to change the world.

Let them have their fun. Once they get to their mid-late twenties they will realise that life is a little bit **** but you just get on with it. Far more important and banal things to worry about than propagating echo chambers for social justice warriors.
Save the rainforest.

I don't think I've read a whole newspaper in my entire life. Really don't see the point of them in the digital era.
Reply 4
Old news, they're not alone, quite a few have in recent months.
Original post by Drewski
Old news, they're not alone, quite a few have in recent months.


Just because someone else has done it doesn't make it any less worrying.
Reply 6
Original post by SomeGuyHere
Just because someone else has done it doesn't make it any less worrying.


It's not remotely worrying.

It's stupid, it's childish, it's pathetic, but it's not worrying.
i like to hide the wretched publication Morning Star at our local newsagents

:teehee:
Reply 8
Original post by Mistletoe
Save the rainforest.

I don't think I've read a whole newspaper in my entire life. Really don't see the point of them in the digital era.


Well firstly, rainforest trees are not used in paper production, temperate climate trees like pine,aspen or birch are prefered for paper.

Secondly, no paper today will come from wild forest, it will come from tree plantations, which are usually planted on land where there were no trees previously (Ever been to Kielder forest in Northumberland? It's actually a giant tree plantation, and prior to the 1920s when it was first established, it was just open grazing land, with very little biodiversity. Now it is a thriving ecosystem that is sustainably managed for timber production. Galloway forest is another example and there are countless other plantation forests across the country)

Thirdly it has been standard practice in timber production for centuries now that for every tree you cut down you must plant at least one in it's place (generally they will plant several for every one they cut down so as to never exhaust the supply and to expand the plantations) or use sustainable harvesting methods such as coppicing or thinning. Ironically the timber industry has probably done more re-forestation than any other institution on Earth.

So if you really care about trees, buy lots of paper and wood.
Reply 9
Original post by the bear
i like to hide the wretched publication Morning Star at our local newsagents

:teehee:


I don't think I have ever seen the Morning Star for sale in any of the shops around me. But I do live in rural conservative heartland so that might be why.
Original post by Wōden
I don't think I have ever seen the Morning Star for sale in any of the shops around me. But I do live in rural conservative heartland so that might be why.


these socialist wastemen get everywhere :mad:
Original post by Wōden
Well firstly, rainforest trees are not used in paper production, temperate climate trees like pine,aspen or birch are prefered for paper.

Secondly, no paper today will come from wild forest, it will come from tree plantations, which are usually planted on land where there were no trees previously (Ever been to Kielder forest in Northumberland? It's actually a giant tree plantation, and prior to the 1920s when it was first established, it was just open grazing land, with very little biodiversity. Now it is a thriving ecosystem that is sustainably managed for timber production. Galloway forest is another example and there are countless other plantation forests across the country)

Thirdly it has been standard practice in timber production for centuries now that for every tree you cut down you must plant at least one in it's place (generally they will plant several for every one they cut down so as to never exhaust the supply and to expand the plantations) or use sustainable harvesting methods such as coppicing or thinning. Ironically the timber industry has probably done more re-forestation than any other institution on Earth.

So if you really care about trees, buy lots of paper and wood.


There's a reason the Amazon is vanishing at an amazing rate (20% of it is now gone) and it's not because people are replanting the trees they cut down. This isn't the standard at all.

Original post by Drewski
It's not remotely worrying.

It's stupid, it's childish, it's pathetic, but it's not worrying.


I think it's both. People like this tend to be convinced of their own moral superiority.
Original post by SomeGuyHere
I think it's both. People like this tend to be convinced of their own moral superiority.


And they will remain so, but in the real world - outside of the parroting echo chamber of dullard, single IQ student politics - everybody ignores the **** out of them and they have no effect on the world.

That's why it's not worrying: they can't do anything.
Reply 13
Original post by SomeGuyHere
There's a reason the Amazon is vanishing at an amazing rate (20% of it is now gone) and it's not because people are replanting the trees they cut down. This isn't the standard at all.


Well it is in the developed world and has been for a long time. And my point still stands, paper production is not what is destroying the rainforests.
This has nothing to do with freedom of the press. They are not stopping their students from reading these papers, merely opting not to stock them. Plymouth student union is a private entity that can stock what they want.
i agree with the union! anything that promotes far-right capitalist hate-speech should be banned from campus!
Reply 16
Original post by Wōden
I don't think I have ever seen the Morning Star for sale in any of the shops around me. But I do live in rural conservative heartland so that might be why.
I suspect it is more to do with the laws of supply and demand at work rather than the local newsagent's unilateral censorship. Besides, it allows space for two bundles of Horse & Hound :smile:


For the greater good.
Original post by douglas merritte
The SU are saying that the views of Daily Mail, Sun and Daily Express are hate-speech. Pretty strong.

So, they haven't merely stopped the campus shop from stocking these papers, they have blanket-judged readers of those papers too. Quite intolerant. Typically "progressive" behaviour to want to shut down and demonise those with different views.

I like to read The Sun sometimes. Doesn't make me a racist, a sexist, or any other label. It just makes me more open-minded than someone who doesn't.


Well said.

It's not just about the papers no longer being sold but the "union" claiming anyone who reads them, papers they read because they line up with their political views, are hateful. This is about freedom of the press, but it's just as much about not judging others.

Even the Guardian, a paper I stopped reading because they went too far to the left for me to feel represented, agree with this.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2016/dec/01/plymouth-university-students-ban-three-newspapers-from-their-campus?CMP=share_btn_tw
(edited 7 years ago)

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