Wild Woman
Censorship vs proprietary control
Tue Aug 14 18:04:52 2001


There often seems to be confusion regarding censorship. Actually, censorship is the restriction of speech and ideas BY GOVERNMENT. The clearing of an internet message board by those with a proprietary interest is NOT censorship. The people with proprietary interest in an internet site are no different than a retailer who chooses which products to place in the store. Those who operate this message board have a vested interest in seeing it continue, and they have the absolute right to eliminate or control those elements that they deem detrimental. Anyone in customer service must make choices between components that alienate some customers but make others feel welcome.

The mere existence of a message board does not mean that everyone posting there has a God-given right to say whatever they want, in whatever way they want, just because they located the internet site. It is run as a convenience, and just as management has the right not to serve people who are dressed inappropriately in a restaurant, or toss out people behaving disruptively in a bar, so too do those who monitor and operate a message board have the right to control the tone of the crosstalk. If those controls bother some people, those people have the option of seeking out other message boards with less restrictive controls.

That is not censorship. It is the free exercise of the marketplace. Those who are made uncomfortable operating within certain boundaries should remember that there are others who are made more comfortable by those same boundaries. Just as many of us don't want to spend an evening being harassed in a public place by a drunk looking for a fight, so also do those businesses employ bouncers to make sure the vast majority of their patrons do not have to put up with that behavior. The drunk may not return because his fun was spoiled; on the other hand, if the bouncer doesn't intervene, many more people who represent dollars for that business would refuse to return.