Freedom of Speech Cutting Edge Homework Development

The internet is the most participatory form of mass speech yet developed. The worldwide number of internet users exceeded 1 billion over two years ago, and has since grown. Currently, some 27 percent of online U.S. adults read blogs, and 7 percent pen them

Fired for blogging One blogger who worked at Delta airlines had photographs of herself in her work uniform posted on her blog. Her employer thought that the pictures were inappropriate and she got fired. Mark Jen, an employee of Google, got fired for the comments on financial performance and future products in his blog about working at Google. He also wrote some very critical remarks about Google, complaining about the fringe benefits and the stock options.

Reasons for hostility towards blogs A disgruntled employee could spread rumors about a company to cause a change in stock prices or stock trading. A blogger can anonymously post a company’s intellectual property or trade secrets. Employees represent the companies they work for, if they say offensive things it reflects poorly on their employer. Things said on a blog could make it to the workplace and create a hostile environment.

What about the 1 st amendment? Employees often don't realize the First Amendment doesn't protect their job. It only restricts government control of speech. If someone works for the government, then his or her job is protected by free speech.

Free speech on MySpace In February 2006 a student at Greencastle Middle School made profanity laden, derogatory postings concerning the school's policy on body piercings on a fake MySpace profile of the schools principal. The principal found out and the issue got taken to court. The judge deemed the comments obscene and the girl was placed on nine months of probation. The girl appealed, arguing that her comments were protected political speech under both the state and federal constitutions because they dealt with school policy. The Court of Appeals found that the comments were protected and that the juvenile court had unconstitutionally restricted her right of free expression.

“Censorship at Wikipedia is no different than what one would find in Iran, Syria or China today” –Anonymous Wikipedia user Wikipedia has implemented stringent measures for adding and deleting articles on its website, users can vote to remove or keep an article. There was a vote to remove the Israeli News Agency page from Wikipedia. The vote resulted in a wide consensus of ‘keep’ The Israeli News Agency has had its page completely deleted by executives of the Wikipedia. The source of Wikipedia wanting to censor the Israeli News Agency started after the INA published an article titled Wikipedia: A Nightmare Of Libel and Slander.Wikipedia: A Nightmare Of Libel and Slander.

Wikipedia didn’t go through their normal process of having users vote to keep the INA article. It is not worth anyone’s time to edit any article given that they can be deleted at any time for no reason New York Times, the BBC, The Village Voice, The Boston Globe and the Guardian have criticized the Wikipedia for its blatant censorship of articles as well as allowing hundreds of cases of libel and slander to go unnoticed by many of its administrators. Thanks to the 1996 Federal Communications Decency Act, Wikipedia probably isn’t able to get sued for the libel since Wikipedia is a service provider and not a publisher.

Censorship in China outlawed groups news sources that contain topics like police brutality, Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, freedom of speech, democrasy, and Marxist sites sites related to the taiwan government web sites with obscenity, pornography, and criminal activity Sites linked with the dalai lama

Yahoo in China Provided information to the Chinese government about a man named Shi Tao who ed a government warning about the 15 th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre to foreign web sites "I do not like the outcome of what happens with these things, but we have to follow the law." " Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang 62 people are in prison for violating Internet content laws

Global Microsoft and Google "Like other global organizations, we must abide by the laws, regulations and unique elements of each country in which we operate.“ – Microsoft "Google complies with local laws where it operates. We are also committed to doing what is best for our users," she said. "With China, we are in the process of learning as much as possible in order to achieve both of these important objectives."

Reactions "It's morally problematic that they are partnering with the Chinese government on censorship." - Timothy Fort (George Washington University) Both human rights groups and academics reject the companies' argument that they have no choice but to follow local laws where they do business. U.S. companies can ethically stay in China if they make an effort to improve human rights there

Business in China It is projected that in 2009 there will be more users online than in the U.S. U.S. Companies can make a lot of money

Censorship Methods IP blocking DNS filtering URL filtering Packet filtering Connection reset

Anonymity It is hard to be truly anonymous online Services can be used to make identifying someone online harder – P2P – Web browsing – Redirection services