'Public' online spaces don't carry speech, rights
July 6, 2008 By ANICK JESDANUN , AP Internet Writer(AP) -- Rant all you want in a public park. A police officer generally won't eject you for your remarks alone, however unpopular or provocative. Say it on the Internet, and you'll find that free speech and other constitutional rights are anything but guaranteed.
Content from The Associated Press expires 15 days after original publication date. For more information about The Associated Press, please visit www.ap.org .
Similar stories from PHYSorg:
Chinese police shut down hacker training business
Feb 08, 2010 |
5 / 5 (2) |
0
American-born pandas reach their new home in China
Feb 05, 2010 |
not rated yet |
0
Rulings cloud issue of school MySpace suspensions
Feb 04, 2010 |
5 / 5 (1) |
0
Hollywood studios lose landmark Internet download battle
Feb 04, 2010 |
5 / 5 (12) |
6
Senator seeks information on tech firms in China
Feb 02, 2010 |
5 / 5 (1) |
2
Feb 08, 2010
If you want to use other people's sites, you'll have to abide by their rules.
If you don't want to play by their rules, you'll have to setup your own site.
He did set up his own site. His domain registrar yank him off the internet with no warning and no process that involved him. Domain registrars claim on one hand they are not not responsible for the content of domains registared with them (which I agree with) but on the other when a large company with lawyers comes along they do what ever is aked, screw even bothering to contact the little guy.
Private companies in a competitive market who repeatedly censor content will find themselves in competition with those who don't. There will be a niche for those preferring to see nothing offensive and another one for those who prefer the freedom to make their own decisions. It's not perfect but it can't be much better than this. But it could easily be a lot worse. Sometimes the best intentions can produce horrible results.
Keep the government's hands off the internet for anything other than national security. Prosecute activity that is illegal, i.e. kiddy porn, the way it is already done. We don't need government agencies snooping and filtering content here in the US. And eventually the Chinese and Canadians and others will figure out they don't need them either.
Instead, perhaps a censorship classification system is required similar to that of movies and video games. A censorship scale could be used over a range of categories and each site set its own level. Then you have a simple identifier as to what is allowed on the site and users can make their own decision as to which level suits their needs.
Government regulations would lead to absurd situations, for example you could get sued by removing comment from your own blog, on your own server, on your own connection.
Yes some providers make dumb decisions but the only reasonable way to fight it is publicizing them. According to this article many dumb decisions were reversed due to a public outcry so it works.
Besides more companies will emerge in time and social networks will become more and more compatible with each other increasing the opportunity for competition.
Clearly, there has to be some censorship to keep things useful and a positive experience for the users. There will always be fringe issues that are tough calls. Either way, these services are d*mned if they do and d*mned if they don't. They make judgment calls - some "right" and some "wrong". If, overall they make decisions that their users agree with, they'll continue to succeed. Otherwise they won't.
The current system's fine.
What rights? To say whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted?
She was part of the foaming majority who thinks that they -- personally -- in their vast study of law and philosophy "really" understand what is going on.
People violently expressing opinions -- about subjects which they've "studied" for two or three hours in Internet blogs -- well...if you were a corporation or a government...how would you handle such people? They don't know the issues well enough to even pick which side is most to own advantage. I'm not saying at all that corporations are better. They're just another entity that's convinced they are right...without any evidence, except being able to balance their books at the end of the year.
Free speech isn't so simple.