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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Eaton wrote:
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If a private school wants to exclude any and all books
from its premisis talking about Darwin’s evolutionary theory, that’s
censorship! Everyone involved might be totally fine with it, and they might
have made you aware of their policy before you sent your kids there, but
it’s still censorship!
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Nope. The child and parents can still read the book at the local library or
at the bookstore or even online. The private school is choosing not to carry
a particular book on private property, which isn’t censorship.
Suppose I write a book that is lousy by every objective standard, and I pitch
it to Random House. Are they censoring me because they choose not to publish
it?
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It seems that you’re suggesting that if you agree that your particular input
might get removed, that somehow it’s not censorship. I think what you’re
talking about more along the lines of waiving your right to free speech,
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You explictly agree to restrict your own speech when you agree to the TOS.
The first amendment does nothing whatsoever to guarantee your right to free
speech in a private forum.
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I came in at the point where I wanted to clarify that while censorship may
be defined strictly as a flat *denial* of access to information, that
censorship may also include instances where information isn’t necessarily
denied, but somehow obscured.
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If it’s obscured to the point of being made effectively inaccessible, then
you may be correct. But in the case of a private forum, the price of entry
to the forum is the abiding by the TOS, even if that entails a voluntary
curtailing of one’s right to free speech.
If you spout off a string of obscenities and get yourself booted off of
LUGNET, then you are still free to spout your obscenities in the public
square. This is much the same as that idiot Imus; he violated the TOS of his
contract (and cost CBS a bunch of sponsor-money), so he was axed. But he can
still spew his idiocy on the street corner or in a park, so his freedom of
speech is not denied; it’s just that he no longer has the privilege of
speaking on CBS’ licensed airwaves.
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I have to admit you’re the only one I’ve seen so far in this debate who
seems to think that flat denial of information by parties in power might
somehow NOT constitute censorship.
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That’s probably because I’m the most smartest of all, but I’ve learned to
live with that.
Anyway, a private forum’s choice to deny something or not is the business of
the private forum. But if the user can still readily get that information
elsewhere, then it’s not censorship. If the information is available solely
through that private forum, then the user is simply being required to abide
by the TOS.
What you’re arguing, in effect, is that anything short of a fullscale
free-for-all is censorship. In fact, the choice of private entities to
restrict speech within their boundaries is entirely consistent with the first
amendment.
Dave!
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Just because something is a legal restriction of free speech doesn’t make it not
censorship. Free speech is not a complimentary set of censorship and the two can
in fact overlap, likewise the absence of one does not guarantee the presence of
the other.
Furthermore if the first amendment is important in determining what is or isn’t
censorship (as your last paragraph seems to imply) does that mean every country
without explicit free speech laws can’t have censorship? I think not personally.
Tim
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: What Censorship Isn't
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| (...) What's the standard, then? Does censorship cover anything that doesn't include everything? That would define "censorship" so thinly that it would have no meaning at all. But if we insetad define "censorship" to be an action of government, then (...) (18 years ago, 13-Apr-07, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: What Censorship Isn't
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| (...) Nope. The child and parents can still read the book at the local library or at the bookstore or even online. The private school is choosing not to carry a particular book on private property, which isn't censorship. Suppose I write a book that (...) (18 years ago, 13-Apr-07, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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