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May 22, 2005
Censoring & Blogging: A RECAP
While I have offered apologies already, yesterday's blogging exchange about censorship revealed two things:
1. Some believe censorship is okay.
2. Some don't.
If you're being censored, you hate it. If you're not, you don't think about it. Bill Colrus' recap of the exchange provides the "property rights" argument. This argument says that because someone owns something, he should be able to do whatever he wants. But of course that isn't always completely true. Just look at the protest by Chattanooga's North Shore community members concerning the Coolidge Hotel. So "property rights" have limits because there may be other competing forces - i.e. government, other property owners, etc.
In the case of blogging, I don't know if those limits have been firmly defined in the blogosphere. However, they are obviously being tested - as seen yesterday. Blogs are often seen as places to say what you want, and therefore they pretend to be open-area zones online for anybody to rail, spit, bully, punch. Is this good for democracy? I'm not sure. It seems pretty safe as an online "acting out," but as Bill Colrus said so well: "People are way more petty/ruthless/evil/annoying/combative/disrespectful when conversing via blogs than they ever are when conversing in person."
Bill's point is that we don masks as if it were Halloween and try all sorts of scary stuff when we are blogging. I certainly overreacted. I know that Bill does once in awhile. I've never seen Josiah this way before (but I have a new respect for the boy). Tyler is just great. The guy betting on wife beating is just stupid. It's not worth $5.
Have I gone over the line?
Posted by wjbailes at May 22, 2005 06:32 AM
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Comments
John, my posts are boring everybody enough. You don't have to summarize them.
Posted by: Bill at May 22, 2005 02:15 PM
"boy"!?? I'M ALL MAN BABY!
Posted by: JosiahQ at May 22, 2005 04:39 PM
If Josiah is "all man," then I'm an "old boy." Bill? He da man!
Posted by: Old Boy at May 22, 2005 04:59 PM