by David Pickett

Created on: July 15, 2008

Internet community sites are places where more or less anything can be discussed and often without fear of being hunted down by corrupt dictators. As soon as regulation comes in people feel scared and it allows many things to take place which you wouldn't call regulation. Let's take countries for example. In China where freedom of expression and speech is nearly non-existant a good political forum may provide the link between their life and the outside world where they can show their dislike for the government. Also think about this, if community sites regulated violent or possible offensive content then what would happen if someone posted pictures and news about a government massacre somewhere and it was deleted? It could be the only way that the people can talk about what has happened.

Freedom of Speech does not include racist remarks that cause serious offense. As that's not freedom of speech but hate speech. A lot of people would think that as soon as Freedom of Speech is allowed then everything will turn to chaos. It wont as long as the freedom of speech rule is not in huge block capitals at size 72 on every page. If people don't know when they join they shouldn't see anything different from any other forum and even when they do find out certain rules and guidelines can be put in place. Remember community sites should regulate themselves and by democratic fair vote items deemed to be unreasonable by members only should face possible editing, not deletion but editing.

Freedom to be who we are and say what we like are freedoms that need to respected at all costs, and this could mean placing up a specific area of the forum/site for freedom of speech. Some areas may be regulated by the community itself, very much like the Wiki idea, look at how good that is in terms of information. We don't see any hate speech and racism because it is controlled by the community who promote freedom of speech. It is important to allow people who live oppressed lives to be able to come out and express themselves without fear. Freedom of Speech can also allow anonymity on behalf of the person saying things, this stops any trace back to the person and possible follow up problems. People often don't speak freely because of oppression and a good community can allow them to express themselves in whatever way they want and say whatever they want any fear at all. Long live Internet freedom and freedom of speech!

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