Thoughts on Censorship

I was watching some regular TV in the early evening and was a little surprised at some of the words they were able to say with having to bleep them out. You’ve probably noticed this as well. It got me to thinking about censorship.

FOR THE RECORD

I can swear like a sailor and often do (maybe even better). I am not a big censorship fan. Yet here and online most everywhere you might see me get a little racy but never much over PG-13. I’ll also edit, delete or unfollow people for going over that line. Why? Hey, I’m no Terry Rakolta in fact I’m far from it! It’s not that I’m worried about me, it’s the people I’m connected to. Maybe the best way to explain it is with the video that’s on my Twitter Follow Policy

Agree with it or not. It’s how I feel. Deal with it.

Back to TV

Once upon a time there were just three TV networks. They broadcast their signals to all. To receive their signal all you had to do was tune in and adjust the bunny ears a bit. There was no filtering. We found out that wasn’t necessarily a good thing for the masses. To protect the public, censors were put in place. They had a say in what went out over the airwaves.

Then along came HBO and other premium channels. They broadcast with little or no filtering. Their reasoning? If you had an issue with the content it was up to you to deal with it yourself, after all you paid for the subscription.

Nowadays we all have to pay for every channel. I have DirecTV in the house so I pay for even the original three. Does that mean then that there’s no need for censors? Is that what has happened?

SOCIAL MEDIA

That got me to wondering…. Is there censorship and filtering in Social Media? Here’s what I found out.

For Twitter. Like my Follow Policy states, drop the F-Bomb enough and I may unfollow you. But that’s akin to me changing the channel. It’s all on me. Twitter is unfiltered. In their Terms they even say

All Content, whether publicly posted or privately transmitted, is the sole responsibility of the person who originated such Content. We may not monitor or control the Content posted via the Services and, we cannot take responsibility for such Content. Any use or reliance on any Content or materials posted via the Services or obtained by you through the Services is at your own risk.

Facebook terms (http://www.facebook.com/terms.php) Sec. 3 line 7. takes a stab at controlling it with

You will not post content that: is hateful, threatening, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.

Flickr has guidelines.

Don’t forget the children.
If you would hesitate to show your photos or videos to a child, your mum, or Uncle Bob, that means you need to set the appropriate content filter setting. If you don’t, your account will be moderated and possibly deleted by Flickr staff.

YouTube has T.O.S that state

YouTube reserves the right to decide whether Content violates these Terms of Service for reasons other than copyright infringement, such as, but not limited to, pornography, obscenity, or excessive length. YouTube may at any time, without prior notice and in its sole discretion, remove such Content and/or terminate a user’s account for submitting such material in violation of these Terms of Service.

Am I different, abnormal, strange?

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Mike Mueller

A former professional hand model, Mike now builds Custom WordPress Blogs that rock!

He's an avid hockey fan, rides a mountain bike, a few motorcycles (he had a really fast one,bought a cool orange one, and still rides a really slow one), he loves strong beer and good red wine.