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Online Censorship

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Online censorship is a contentious subject for most people. Many very mistakenly make the argument that it’s an attack on the 1st Amendment. The 1st Amendment of course is a restriction on the Government, not on businesses. Businesses can and do censor speech and actions every day and should have every right to do so. It’s their business and their corporate reputation.

Obviously this censorship only applies to the workplace and folks who publicly identify with the corporation. A UPS driver can’t wear a Trump Hat or a Bernie sticker on their uniform or truck for example. A company can censor you from sending emails from a corporate account to a planned parenthood fundraiser. Most folks are ok with this.

Amazingly, when it comes to social media, people have very different ideas regarding your “right” to post something. Makes no sense to me. You get to use a company’s product for free but then complain if you don’t get to post something that the company has decided doesn’t fit their corporate model or what they perceive to be their corporate reputation.

For the social media companies, they are in the middle of a big dilemma. On the one hand, they built their companies on the notion of being a totally wide open opportunity for people to communicate and share ideas. Then they run into stock holders that want to pursue a social agenda. Then they have the “socially responsible” folks who want them to censor things that they find offensive (on both sides of the political spectrum). Then governments want them to censor things that governments find “dangerous”.

In an attempt to accomplish all of this, many have come up with a computer program that identifies “key phrases” of sorts that might fit all of these categories. It would impossible to review every post manually. Facebook alone sees over 300 MILLION pictures a day being posted. The computer solution is a good alternative. Of course sometimes the computer is wrong.

We all get excited and angry when something we like gets booted by the computer. The “boot” gets lots of attention. What gets little attention is when the computer ruling is overturned and the post being put up again. These companies have a very good system of allowing for appeals and posts get put back up regularly.

This site has lots of examples and shows how to appeal. Read more here.