I'm far more concerned about the fact that there is censorship at all than the fact that it was over a religious issue. Intolerance has always been the father of censorship. But the fact that there is censorship at all, when no rules were broken, and nothing done wrong, is far more bothersome. Where can we speak our minds if the internet is no longer free?
SU is gearing up for acquisition by some larger company and wants to purge the undesirables. Free speech is the last thing on their mind; they have dollar signs in their eyes.
Ultimately Stumbleupon is a benign dictatorship and the groups can be run in any way that will be allowed. I was banned from the Palestine group for pointing out the truth. That group is not interested in the truth and they have the ability to ban who they like.
This is an internet community that should have the conscience of all members in mind, not just the individual. As an individual I don't get my way if it engenders a lot of negative complaints.
The CDA was enacted in February 1996. In the same month, a US Court issued a restraining order preventing its enforcement. In June 1996, a panel of federal judges in Philadelphia ruled the CDA unconstitutional. In June 1997, the US Supreme Court struck down the CDA on grounds that it violated the First Amendment.
The following brief information about the CDA is extracted from the USA Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit's decision (Feb 2000) on the COPA:
"The CDA prohibited Internet users from using the Internet to communicate material that, under contemporary community standards, would be deemed patently offensive to minors under the age of eighteen. In so restricting Internet users, the CDA provided two affirmative defenses to prosecution; (1) the use of a credit card or other age verification system, and (2) any good faith effort to restrict access by minors. In holding that the CDA violated the First Amendment, the Supreme Court explained that without defining key terms the statute was unconstitutionally vague. Moreover, the Court noted that the breadth of the CDA was "wholly unprecedented" in that, for example, it was "not limited to commercial speech or commercial entities . . . [but rather] [i]ts open-ended prohibitions embrace all nonprofit entities and individuals posting indecent messages or displaying them on their own computers.
Further, the Court explained that, as applied to the Internet, a community standards criterion would effectively mean that because all Internet communication is made available to a worldwide audience, the content of the conveyed message will be judged by the standards of the community most likely to be offended by the content. Finally, with respect to the affirmative defenses authorized by the CDA, the Court concluded that such defenses would not be economically feasible for most noncommercial Web publishers, and that even with respect to commercial publishers, the technology had yet to be proven effective in shielding minors from harmful material. As a result, the Court held that the CDA was not tailored so narrowly as to achieve the government's compelling interest in protecting minors, and that it lacked the precision that the First Amendment requires when a statute regulates the content of speech."
standards of the community
standards of the community
standards of the community
most likely to be offended by the content.
Nuff said...I'm out.
18: Fair enough. The government can't censor the internet. But I'm going to play devil's advocate here for a moment. SU is a privately owned website. They can do what they want with their content and user base, specifically because the internet is the place it is. So you can write whatever you want, as long as you can find someone willing to pay to keep it online for you. SU has made a clear stand against questioning religion. So be it. Their decision. The only thing we users can do, is raise hell, (ie. this topic, multiplied hundreds of times) or leave.
15: I have no idea if that is true, and I'm not about to do the research. But if your right, then that makes perfect sense. What better reason to start making your website totally baldn and unoffensive than to make money?
19: Fine, it's privately owned, and yes, they get to make the ultimate decision.
BUT. This group only exists because of its members, and the members (almost universally) want free speech.
As far as bald and unoffensive - controversy makes much more money than agreement does. The only bad press is no press, especially in social networking sites like this.
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