The Line Between FREE Speech and Policy

In the United States, the first Amendment of the constitution guarantees the freedom of speech by saying " Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

The right to freedom of speech is guaranteed under international law through numerous human-rights instruments, notably under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, although implementation remains lacking in many countries.

At what point does free speech violate terms of service with the blog host?

The folks at Blogger say that they strongly believe in freedom of speech.

"We believe that having a variety of perspectives is an important part of what makes blogs such an exciting and diverse medium. With that said, there are certain types of content that are not allowed on Blogger. While Blogger values and safeguards political and social commentary, material that promotes hatred toward groups based on race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, veteran status, or sexual orientation/gender identity is not allowed on Blogger. It is our belief that censoring this content is contrary to a service that bases itself on freedom of expression.

In order to uphold these values, we need to curb abuses that threaten our ability to provide this service and the freedom of expression it encourages. As a result, there are some boundaries on the type of content that can be hosted with Blogger. The boundaries we've defined are those that both comply with legal requirements and that serve to enhance the service as a whole."

Blogger and Google make it clear that they do not allow certain topics and will take action if it is used. These topics include;

• PORNOGRAPHY, Pedophilia, Incest and Bestiality AND OBSCENITY
  
• HATEFUL CONTENT
• VIOLENT CONTENT
• COPYRIGHT
• PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION
• IMPERSONATION
• UNLAWFUL USE OF SERVICES
• SPAM, MALICIOUS CODES AND VIRUSES
  

INTERNET FREEDOM AND REPRESSIVE REGIMES
Bloggers can be pivotal in repressive environments where the media live in constant fear of the political leadership. In Egypt, China Vietnam, Syria, Tunisia, Libya and Iran -- are a few to have been documented.



Recently Google was criticized in the press for complying with censorship. According to these critics, Google complied for better access to the Chinese market, including being able to base servers in China and have to have access sped up because the Chinese government is no t longer blocking them. Reuters provides more details on this plus an explanation from Google:

"In order to operate from China, we have removed some content from the search results available on Google.cn, in response to local law, regulation or policy," the company said.

Despite the restrictions, Google executives said they believe the company can play a more positive role by participating in the Chinese market, than by boycotting the country in order to avoid such compromises.

"While removing search results is inconsistent with Google's mission, providing no information (or a heavily degraded user experience that amounts to no information) is more inconsistent with our mission "

More Recently, 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 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."

There may be legitimate reasons to take action, such as to stop spam, security threats, copyright infringement and child pornography . In Dors' case, the law is fully with Yahoo. Its terms of service, similar to those of other service providers, gives Yahoo "sole discretion to pre-screen, refuse or remove any content." Service providers aren't required to police content, but they aren't prohibited from doing so.

What you can do

• If you are in doubt about whether or not your blog post is not allowed, check the policy of the host giving you the blog space. If you don't, be prepared to accept the repercussions.
• If you stumble upon a blog that you find offensive by the terms set by the host, you have the right to report it. The easiest way is to flag it.
  
• If you are unable to flag the blog, please click here to fill out an abuse report..

Free "Blogging Speech"

This is not a post about tips or how to blog. It is a post which affects every kind of blogger from every part of the world.

In the USA, we are use to having and defending the right to have our rights of freedom of speech. Often we take it for granted until we hear about items in the news such as the recent AP Versus Bloggers issue. What about the rest of the world?

Prior to January of this year, Wei Wenhua was a model communist. In China he is now a bloggers' hero -- a "citizen journalist" turned martyr.

Here is the story, according to CNN, about the former construction company manager nd what happened to him when was driving his car when he witnessed an ugly scene. A team of about 50 city inspectors beating villagers who tried to block trucks from unloading trash near their homes. Would you want other people's trash dumped in your neighborhood?

Wei took out his cell phone and began taking pictures. The city inspectors saw Wei and then attacked him in a beating that lasted five minutes. By the time it was over, the 41-year-old Wei was slumped unconscious. He was rushed to the hospital but was dead on arrival.

In China's mainstream media and in the blogosphere, angry Chinese are demanding action. In tru blogger's fashion, the Web site sina.com published news of Wei's beating. Readers promptly expressed their outrage. In one day alone, more than 8,000 posted comments. Bloggers inside and outside China bluntly condemned the brutal killing.

China has more than 172 million Internet users. Officials said about 4 million Chinese go online for the first time every month.

Despite the fact that the Chinese Constitution is supposed to guarantee freedom of speech, China continues to restrict the flow of information. Fearful of the surge in Internet and mobile phone usage -- and the information they are able to transmit -- the Chinese authorities are stepping up efforts to monitor and restrict their use, according to Reporters Without Borders, which fights against censorship and laws that undermine press freedom. A few Internet data centers have been closed down, along with thousands of Web sites.

What is the 2008 Olympic host is trying to hide from the rest of the world?

Can overly-micromanaging governments or othe god-like censoring factions really censor the millions of world-wide bloggers?

According to Reuters South Africa in China with the number of bloggers expected to hit 60 million by the end of this year, it is the world's second-largest Internet market after the United States. China has with more than 110 million users. A survey by Chinese search engine Baidu.com put the current number of blog, or web log, sites at 36.82 million which are kept by 16 million people. Can China's Communist Party's propaganda goons censor this? There are many reports about chat forums and online bulletin boards are routinely monitored for controversial political comments and sensitive words such as 'freedom' and 'democracy' are censored.


Silencing citizen journalists is getting more difficult. Thanks to worldwide bloggers, we are able to experience events from around the globe from the prespective of a citizen and not necessarily of what the reigning government wants us to see. This is more than important to the world-wide comunity if our goals include wiping out world wide hunger, poverty, promoting peace, etc.

Silicon.com has reported,"… Internet companies have also come under fire lately for some actions in China, including Google for saying it would block politically sensitive terms on its website in the country and Microsoft's MSN for shutting down a blog under Chinese government orders."

Reports say that censorship of the Web is now done on every continent. Traditional 'predators of press freedom' — Belarus, Burma, Cuba, Iran, Libya, the Maldives, Nepal, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam — all censor the Internet now. In 2003, only China, Vietnam and the Maldives had imprisoned cyber-dissidents. Now more countries do.

According to Reporters without Borders,
"A score of bloggers and online journalists have been thrown in jail in Iran since Sept. 2004 and one of them, Mojtaba Saminejad, has been there since Feb. 2005 for posting material deemed offensive to Islam. In Libya, former bookseller Abdel Razak al-Mansouri was sentenced to 18 months in prison for making fun of President Mohammar Khaddafi online. You have to wonder how many American bloggers would be jailed if making fun of President Bush were to be deemed 'offensive'.


"The situation has worsened in the Middle East and North Africa. In Nov. 2005, Morocco began censoring all political websites advocating Western Sahara's independence. Iran expands its list of banned sites each year and it now includes all publications mentioning women's rights. Some Asian countries seem about to go further than their Chinese 'big brother.' Burma has acquired sophisticated technology to filter the Internet, and the country's cyber cafés spy on customers by automatically recording what is on the screen every five minutes."


AllAfrica.com is reporting that Ethiopia's Parliament has endorsed a new Media Bill despite fierce opposition at home and abroad. The new law bans censorship of private media and detention of journalists, but critics said that it retains other threats to free expression. Recently in Ethipia, websites critical of the government have been 'inaccessible' in the country since . Ethiopians have also seen all publications hosted by Blogspot.com disappear from the Internet.

It seems apparent that in some countries, the right to free speech online may not or may never fully exist. However, with the number of bloggers growing without hesitation on a daily basis, at what point will these countries call it a day on finding the bloggers they don't like and punish the entire country by banning the internet entirely? Have they not learned the lesson that micro-managing and over-controlling doesn't work? Especially in this technologic age.

On the anniversary of the the signing of the Decleration of Independence and the birth of America, it is important to note that Freedom of Speech in Blogging is important to all.