The thoughts of a web 2.0 research fellow on all things in the technological sphere that capture his interest.

Monday 26 November 2007

Freedom of Speech

I have never particularly been a fan of absolute freedom of speech, I believe that too often such a policy provides a platform for the more disgusting elements of society (Oxford Union hang your head in shame) and we need to impose certain limitations. Whilst most people would agree with certain limitations, for these limitations to be acceptable they have to be the limitations we impose.

Few complain about the deletion of hardcore pornography or racist hate speeches from YouTube, and any who do defend such rights are idiots, but these values are based on what is acceptable behaviour in the West. Other cultures have different values and ideas of acceptable behaviour, most more conservative, but some potentially more liberal. Is it any more acceptable for us impose our values, than for a more liberal society to impose their values on us?

Mashable draws attention to the 'hypocritical' YouTube censorship in Taiwan, but when we accept such censorship in the West we should be careful about who we call hypocritical.

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