July 6, 2008
Free Speech Online
A quick overview of the differences between free speech on and off the web.
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 prior 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.”
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Yeah, much as some sites seem a public service (Google, Flickr, Gmail), at the end of the day it’s your speech hosted on their server. “Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one.” (H.L. Mencken)
Here’s the photo of the boy smoking (it’s apparently up again).
Reminiscent of this video. In both cases, I could really care less about the cigarette. I get the sense that smoking is the least of these kids’ problems.
If you want freedom, set up your own server or at least buy hosting space on somebody else’s server. Somebody that allows freedom of expression.