Yahoo News: 'Public' online spaces don't carry speech, rights

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

________________________________________
From: bobr () bobrosenberg phoenix az us [bobr () bobrosenberg phoenix az us]
Sent: Sunday, July 06, 2008 2:56 PM
To: David Farber
Subject: Yahoo News:  'Public' online spaces don't carry speech, rights

Hi Dave

Perhaps for I.P.

I'll be very careful what I say here. [Oh, wait.  this isn't Flickr:  This is I.P.]

Cheers,
Bob

--
Bob Rosenberg
P.O. Box 33023
Phoenix, AZ  85067-3023
Mobile:  602-206-2856
LandLine:  602-274-3012
bob () bobrosenberg phoenix az us

**************

"Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of
opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly
repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and
creates a country where everyone lives in fear."
-- President Harry S. Truman, message to Congress, August 8, 1950



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

By ANICK JESDANUN, AP Internet Writer 32 minutes ago
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080706/ap_on_hi_te/tec_disappearing_freedoms;_ylt=AsgE6hZz92wk9uVhQwaxVLis0NUE

or

http://tinyurl.com/57azvr

NEW YORK - Rant all you want in a public park. A police officer generally won't
eject you for your remarks alone, however unpopular or provocative.
ADVERTISEMENT

Say it on the Internet, and you'll find that free speech and other constitutional
rights are anything but guaranteed.

Companies in charge of seemingly public spaces online wipe out content that's
controversial but otherwise legal. Service providers write their own rules for users
worldwide and set foreign policy when they cooperate with regimes like China. They
serve as prosecutor, judge and jury in handling disputes behind closed doors.

The governmental role that companies play online is taking on greater importance as
their services — from online hangouts to virtual repositories of photos and video —
become more central to public discourse around the world. It's a fallout of the
Internet's market-driven growth, but possible remedies, including government
regulation, can be worse than the symptoms.

Dutch photographer Maarten Dors met the limits of free speech at Yahoo Inc.'s
photo-sharing service, Flickr, when he posted an image of an early-adolescent boy
with disheveled hair and a ragged T-shirt, staring blankly with a lit cigarette in
his mouth.

Without prior notice, Yahoo deleted the photo on grounds it violated an unwritten
ban on depicting children smoking. Dors eventually convinced a Yahoo manager that —
far from promoting smoking — the photo had value as a statement on poverty and
street life in Romania. Yet another employee deleted it again a few months later.

"I never thought of it as a photo of a smoking kid," Dors said. "It was just of a
kid in Romania and how his life is. You can never make a serious documentary if you
always have to think about what Flickr will delete."

<snip>




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