How long before the free speech on the Internet ends?
Right now, censorship has begun. Four years ago, one could find almost anything on the net, but a recent search of mine found many previously radical and controversial websites either closed, heavily toned down, or mentioning having been kicked off of ISPs and how they have had hard times getting another.
Several websites warned of FBI monitoring and TV confirmed it.
Yahoo has decided to kick all porn off of it’s sites.
Dozens more questionable links, open just months ago, are dead.
Freedom of speech, whether I agree with the context or not, is heavily defended on the net, as it should be, but it appears that others have decided to start censoring the last free information frontier.
So, how long do you think before the net falls under censorship and governmental FCC laws?
… most of which was caused by copyright violations, not controversial content.
So long as the U.S. Supreme Court continues to classify the Internet as protected speech, any U.S. laws – Federal, State, or Local – that are passed which try to censor the Internet will be quickly struck down as Unconstitutional.
If censorship goes too far in the United States, controversial websites can always move to servers in other countries. And while it’s true that some controversial websites have been closed down, new ones have opened up. I don’t see any need for a “sky is falling” panic about free speech on the web. yahoo has kicked porn off it’s site, but there’s still plenty of porn around. I think that eventually the major web companies will all ban porn, but the porn industry on the net is too profitable to go away, even if it can’t be advertised among the more mainstream sites.
And another thing that has to be remembered is that webhosts removing pages that violate their TOS, or ISPs pulling accounts that violate their TOS, are not censorship. That’s a private company doing housecleaning.
And copyright defense isn’t censorship, either. It’s the protection of intellectual property. I’ll admit that some organizations can go too far and be a bit too zealous (what good is protecting a copyright that fans no longer like because the company proved to be too heavy-handed?), but it’s their call.
I’m a 1st Amendment advocate. I don’t think the government should censor almost anything. But this isn’t the government.
Short of tearing the cables out of the ground, free speech on the Internet can’t be stopped.
The Internet is too decentralized, too accessable and too redundent to be controled by any single entity. Even if they do find a method of control, the people will find a way to get around it.
They can’t even enforce the rules they have. The US can’t stop the kiddie porn. China can’t stop the dissidents from speaking out. Software developers can’t stop the piracy.
Short of the physical destruction of the Internet’s infrastructure, free speech is here to stay.
Nosirree (I almost used Pit language… I should get out more :D), Yahoo’s pulling of the content was it’s own choice. Why? Because they felt that it’d be better for the company in the long run to NOT have pornographic material on it’s serverse.
It was a business decision, not censorship.
Care to tell us why?
“Yeah, Big Mean Gummint diddit!”
Nosirree, it’s more likely because the websites sucked sour frog ass and couldn’t turn a profit. Or because the whiny college kids who wanted to start their “I’m a great philosopher” websites couldn’t afford the $20 a month to keep the domain name. Or it could be the aforementioned illegal material.
It was simple economics, not censorship.
“The last free information frontier”? You don’t get out much, do you?
In any case, most of the instances that you would consider to be “censorship” is really a simple matter of either companies not being able to make money, or people not bothering to maintain their websites. Those are hardly FOS matters at all.
I coulda sworn I heard on the radio that Yahoo was instead going to offer certain porn pages on a fee-for-services- basis, in order to create a new revenue stream.
Admittedly, I didn’t hear the whole story. Could somebody fill me in?
I don’t know about web pages, but Yahoo is considering shutting down all of the group mailing lists that are adult in content. I did hear about a few people I know getting their websites shut down, though, so I’ll ask around…
Honestly, I’m not surprised…we’ll just find another mailing list site. And that’s why free speach wouldn’t die…there’s always somewhere else you can go to post or read content.
Don’t worry, Sua, you’re not going crazy. I too heard that. However, I can’t give it any more confirmation than you, though. But I am 100% certain that I heard the words “Yahoo!”, “offering”, and “porn” all in the same sentence. I’ll begin scouring now…
Scratch that. Just finished a brief search. Yahoo! did in fact say that it was pulling all explicit content from its people pages, but would be expanding its offering of porn in its Yahoo! Stores. However, due to huge protests from Yahoo! solicitors, they reversed their decision. The bottom line is that you can no longer see boobies on Yahoo.
I will however be ordering two straight jackets for myself and SuaSponte.
There was a “Banner ad” for the My Yahoo! service a couple of years ago. It featured an attractive woman eyeing you seductively. The caption read, “I don’t show my yahoo to just anyone.”
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I always have a few moments of mild amusement when a drive-by poster shows up with an inflammatory topic, presented in a way that, on most message boards would elicit much stamping of feet, gnashing of teeth, and thumping of tubs – but here on the good ol’ SDMB, the group’s levelheaded, well-informed response is like a barrel of ice water into which the red-hot OP is unmercifully and hissingly dipped, held fast with the steel tongs of reason and fact.
…Well, that analogy metamorphosed midstream into a far more baroque incarnation than what I had in my head when I started, but I still thought it was funny.
