Survey Reveals Americans Support Blog Censorship

renai42 writes "A new survey has revealed that Americans overwhelmingly support strong censorship for blogs, even though a substantial amount have never actually been to one. Eighty percent of the 2,500 respondents did not believe that bloggers should be allowed to publish home addresses and other personal information about private citizens. However, more than one-third of respondents had never heard of blogs before participating in the survey, and only around 30 percent of participants had actually visited a blog themselves."

Comments

Re:But how?

[rpozz]

The article title is very misleading - from the summary:

Eighty percent of the 2,500 respondents did not believe that bloggers should be allowed to publish home addresses and other personal information about private citizens.

Banning people from publishing the personal details of others is perfectly fair. This is nothing to do with 'unsuitable' content. While the article goes into more detail this appears to be more about privacy than regular censorship based on mature content. This just appears to be slashdot trying to kick off a load of censorship arguments and get more ad hits.

Re:Doesn't really mean much...

[mizhi]

If they don't know what a blog is, then why is their sample point counted? I'd be more interested in the opinion of those who have actually visited a blog.

The question, as has been pointed out, is obviously designed to elicit a specific answer and should be considered in that context.

I'm more concerned about this part:

A further 72 percent favoured censorship of personal information about celebrities, and 68 percent information about elected or appointed government officials such as judges or mayors

What are we defining as "personal information"? Addresses, phone numbers, yeah. I can see that. What about history about the politician? Spouse's name, business dealings (especially for politicians)? You could make a case for all of these as being personal information.

Fifty-two percent of those surveyed said bloggers should have the same rights as traditional journalists, while 27 percent did not express an opinion. Free speech rights are protected under the first amendment of the US Bill of Rights, which says the US Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press.

Since when, in the United States, do traditional journalists have MORE freedom of speech than ordinary citizens? IANAL, but methinks the Australians might have a misunderstanding as to what freedom of speech for Americans means. It's not for some Americans, it's for ALL Americans.

Actually, on a tangent. Reminds me of a discussion I got into with some Canadian friends of mine a couple years ago. They simply couldn't understand why I was so against censoring "objectionable" speech. In this case, speech deemed to be "hate speech."

sigh Anyone want to help me buy an island for libertarian refugees?