While courts have repeatedly ruled that a website or business, forum or blog can censor the content that is placed on its site(s) by its users; social networks in general are finding themselves the new primary communication protocol du jour, and this type of censorship may run afoul of federal wiretapping laws in the future should social networking become the new norm.
In the next few years, the social networking model may extend to become the new communication system via cell phones and netbooks and with it an explosion of different types of communications convergences. It may already be right at the doorstep as the new Palm Pre will have built in MySpace and Facebook contact integration. If someone on your contact list leaves you a wall post on Facebook, your phone will be notified of that wall post via that cell phone contact and Facebook friends integration. Now to reply, you can choose to reply via a commented wall post, a cell phone text message, a cell phone MMS, an email via Facebook, Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo; a comment via MySpace, or for old fashioned sake; dial their phone and talk to them. Quite a few phones are coming out this year with this type of convergence built in.
Should a company that is involved with allowing its users to communicate via its website/cell service/cell phone/blog/forum/etc. be allowed to censor those communications that it find obscene and objectionable? No, they shouldn't. This is the equivalent of Ma Bell cutting off your landline phone call because the conversation became racy or you were using the 7 dirty words.
The argument gets used (quite repeatedly actually) that we have to protect society's children from such vagrancies and ill reputed language. Don't these children have parents that should be supervising their use of the internet on computers, chatrooms on the XBox360, and keeping an eye on who their child is texting and talking to on cell phones? I mean censorship in order to protect a society's children work great in countries such as China and Cuba. THey are communist countries after all, and communist governments are want to do such things and censorship under the guise of protecting one's children.
But why should my First Amendment rights to Freedom of Speech be sacrified in the name of protecting someone else's children? Parents need to keep an eye on their own kids, and kids need to be taught what they should and shouldn't be doing online and communicating while conversing the whiles of the internet. If I choose to have a racy and steamy conversation on any email system I choose, I should be allowed to without big brother-like interference. If I email a friend on Facebook and MySpace, why is someone from the company reading those emails? Its none of their business. That's why there are a public comments section for all people to see, and there's a private email section for 'private' conversations. I should be able to send links to whatever webpage, blog, torrent location, and whatever I choose without someone watching and reading over my shoulder.
I'm an adult. I should have the freedom to choose what about me and my communications are private and what I decide to become public. Its not those who provide the means of communication's job to decide for me. My business is my own and who I choose to share it with.
Should a company that is involved with allowing its users to communicate via its website/cell service/cell phone/blog/forum/etc. be allowed to censor those communications that it find obscene and objectionable? No, they shouldn't. This is the equivalent of Ma Bell cutting off your landline phone call because the conversation became racy or you were using the 7 dirty words.
The argument gets used (quite repeatedly actually) that we have to protect society's children from such vagrancies and ill reputed language. Don't these children have parents that should be supervising their use of the internet on computers, chatrooms on the XBox360, and keeping an eye on who their child is texting and talking to on cell phones? I mean censorship in order to protect a society's children work great in countries such as China and Cuba. THey are communist countries after all, and communist governments are want to do such things and censorship under the guise of protecting one's children.
But why should my First Amendment rights to Freedom of Speech be sacrified in the name of protecting someone else's children? Parents need to keep an eye on their own kids, and kids need to be taught what they should and shouldn't be doing online and communicating while conversing the whiles of the internet. If I choose to have a racy and steamy conversation on any email system I choose, I should be allowed to without big brother-like interference. If I email a friend on Facebook and MySpace, why is someone from the company reading those emails? Its none of their business. That's why there are a public comments section for all people to see, and there's a private email section for 'private' conversations. I should be able to send links to whatever webpage, blog, torrent location, and whatever I choose without someone watching and reading over my shoulder.
I'm an adult. I should have the freedom to choose what about me and my communications are private and what I decide to become public. Its not those who provide the means of communication's job to decide for me. My business is my own and who I choose to share it with.
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