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Frank Zappa on Crossfire

Ed Jordan · 2.7M views · 2006-10-06 · 21:18

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Overview

A clip of Frank Zappa appearing on CNN's Crossfire in 1986, debating censorship and copyright. Zappa argues his position against record labeling and content restrictions.

On Hacker News

HN commenters invoke it in free speech and censorship debates as a classic example of a articulate defense of free expression.

Discussed on HN; no positive recommendation is recorded in this export · HN mentions 2011–2013

Topics

Free speech, censorship & civil libertiesMusic performance & songs
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frank zappacensorshipcrossfire1986free speech

What people said

ihsw · 2013-08 · Reference

The article has a very interesting statement: > A website is speech. It is not a bomb. There is no imminent danger it creates and no provider has an affirmative obligation to monitor and make determinations about the theoretically harmful nature of speech a site may contain. Replace website with song and provider with record label , and you'll have a very familiar conversation from nearly 30 years ago: Frank Zappa on Crossfire, [VIDEO] The comparison is loose, but it's eerily reminiscent.

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joydeepdg · 2012-07 · Reference

On the contrary, anything unscientific is great. I am a musician myself and I find proof based scientific discussions very claustrophobic at times. All I am trying to say is, in this case, the article is a bunch of opinion from a Jazz musician about fellow Jazz musicians and bands. How does this fit in with other HN threads? I would say that something like Frank Zappa on censorship [1] [2] is much more suited to HN discussion than this link. [1] [LINK] [2] [VIDEO]

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sneak · 2011-11 · Joke / meme

A conference I can't hear dick jokes at is a conference I don't want to attend. I'll just leave this here: [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by Ed Jordan, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

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HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

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