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I help moderate a medical internet forum, and I'm FAST to censor bad advice.
People post their questions, and other people post dumb ass answers that could likely end in injury or even death if the advice is taken. Lordy.
So yeah. I've got a BIG eraser and am quick to censor answers.
To this point, that's a very different sort of censorship.
In the context of free speech, the government cannot censor people. However, a private body can censor whatever it wants. This can be good or bad.
Your example is good censorship. A medical forum is meant to serve as general medical advice, so if people post things that exist beyond that scope or contrary to it, removing those things isn't some cruel violation of their rights.
Then there are examples of Google, censoring conservative content. To be certain, they are 100% allowed to do that and I think it should stay that way. This doesn't mean I approve of them doing it.
Of course, you are correct.
But if someone does NOT "realize what free speech is all about", should we shut them up??
With the exception of the classic "fire! in a crowded theater" argument, everyone should have a right to speak freely. But when that speech breaks down into a constant repetition of an unchanging (and usually over-simplified) position, those of us who are tired of the spew ought to be able to impose a few ground rules within the medium in order to end the monotony. It's the disruptive "my way or the highway" clique who need to be told to move on.
To the person that repped me asking about what happens if you have concentrated private ownership.
At some point if that is the case you have what would be construed as monopoly power and they would need to be broken up. Either that or if they were under sufficient government control and influence was being applied then it would be public pressure on a private business and therefore defacto government censorship or free speech violations.
Russia for example did this a lot a decade or so ago to bring their private press under tighter control by pressuring owners and reporters with threats and violence. So if a private Russian newspaper won't carry a story it could be called government censorship just indirectly.
I help moderate a medical internet forum, and I'm FAST to censor bad advice.
People post their questions, and other people post dumb ass answers that could likely end in injury or even death if the advice is taken. Lordy.
So yeah. I've got a BIG eraser and am quick to censor answers.
That's an interesting scenario. Is the site liable for bad medical advice (if it's followed)??
Is your first instinct to correct the bad information on the site, or just yank it??
The problem is that most of the time I see people whining about free speech and censorship anymore it involves an incident between two private parties which are not covered by those concepts.
This. A newspaper saying "We're not printing your screed" or an online forum saying "You're not welcome" is not censorship. An employer saying "We're not asking our Jewish employees to work with your neo-Nazi self, please leave" isn't censorship.
Robert Murray trying to use the courts to preemptively use the power of government to keep John Oliver from making fun of him, however...
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Originally Posted by maineguy8888
That's an interesting scenario. Is the site liable for bad medical advice (if it's followed)??
Is your first instinct to correct the bad information on the site, or just yank it??
I would think they might be liable for information if it was clear that the moderators saw the information and didn't pull it.
I yank it. Correcting it does nothing - you can see here on City Data that there will be something posted that corrects prior information, and no one sees it. They only seem to see the original incorrect information.
Edited to add: I've even yanked some questions that were inappropriate. "My niece is very pregnant and we're going on a camping trip out in the boonies. Can someone advise me how to do a C-section with common household stuff if the need arises?" Um. NOOOOOOO we will not tell you how to cut a live fetus out of a woman. Geez. *yanks question* Another time some one posted, 'Is it possible for girls who haven't started their period yet to get pregnant? So, she will ovulate before she actually has her first period, right? Just out of pure curiosity, how can you tell if she's ovulating?" Um, no, we will not aid you in having sex with prepubescent girls and not having them end up pregnant.
So yanking a question is more censoring really than yanking an answer, but I think it's 100% justified. Sometimes censorship can prevent disaster.
"The whole principle [of censorship] is wrong. It's like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can't have steak." -Robert Heinlein
I do not believe in censorship, especially for things in which I disagree. It is the cornerstone of a free society.
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