'Public' online spaces don't carry speech, rights

As far as I'm concerned, since these companies are the ones providing the service and paying the costs, they have the right to make any rules they please. They are in the "public internet area" game to make money, and they should be able to do what they think they need to do to protect their interests. If they become too restrictive, I imagine that the free market will step up to provide alternatives. I'm glad that my favorite internet forums and social networking sites have content restrictions; it helps me feel safe from accidentally seeing something that I don't want to see. I think that restrictions related to the way internet forum users treat other people is also good; mean-spirited insults stifle discussion and tend to drive people away. No one's speech is really being restricted here, since anyone can create a web site on which to express their views. The web sites that lie in the "main stream" of opinions may always be the most popular, but that's life. The same thing is true of books and television. Publishers have a lot of influence over which books make it into the shelves of popular stores, and TV executives decide what kind of content to allow on their networks. They choose with public opinion in mind, considering what will "sell", and in many cases they may try to avoid being too provocative. Basically, if you have a radical viewpoint, you will have to expend extra effort to promote it, no matter which medium you choose.

I couldn't agree more with Captain_Sakonna.

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.

Did you read the article? "He said MySpace went directly to domain provider GoDaddy, which effectively shut down his entire 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.

Um, GoDaddy is also a HOST! If the user violated the terms set by his/her host then, well, there ya go. You want free speech? Get a raw connection and stand up your own hardware. Otherwise quit bitching. If you rent a room in my house, ad are putting signs on my yard that I disagree with, and the lease clearly stats that I can take action... I will. Same thing.

This is an important story about a disturbing trend: speech being taken from the public square to corporate sites... Censorship is now a customer service issue. And good luck getting through to customer service!

I'd much rather have private companies making these decisions than the government or.... worst of all options, the UN or some other supragovernmental body.

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.

It seems the trend is to continually try to censor the content, based on vague and subjective criteria, where the end user may not even know what they've done wrong.

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.

" Say it on the Internet, and you'll find that free speech and other constitutional rights are anything but guaranteed." I don't think so. I know an online service BiLoves. You can make free speech. And many other things.

I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Dors gave the poor kid the cigarette in order to help him make his photographic "statement on poverty".

Don't these companies use public property to set up their infrastructure on? Don't they depend in some cases on public services to ply their service? If so I say we tell them they can't do so anymore without re-thinking SOME of their content restrictions.

The right to do what you want on your private property (serwer) is more important then the right of others to express their mind on your property.

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.

For those of you who want completely free speech, try setting up a service and not filtering anything. Your site will quickly become useless and nobody will want to use it. Plus, you'll wind up open to lawsuits.

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.

I'm reminded of my mother -- 1960s radical on the streets protesting. "No one is going to take away my rights", she would say: furious. I asked her what rights she was talking about. Federal? State? Religious? This made her even more furious. "I have rights!" she'd cry. But she couldn't say what they were.

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.

Ah yes, we should have to be able to logically prove we're entitled to our free speech rights by what...showing the state we've taken x ammount of hours in x subject from x entity. Brilliant.