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Online "Public" Spaces Don't Guarantee Rights
mikesd81 recommends an AP piece covering a lot of examples of the ways free speech and other rights don't exist on the private Web. One case featured was that of Dutch photographer Maarten Dors, who had this picture deleted by flickr. Without prior notice, Yahoo deleted the photo on grounds it violated an unwritten ban on depicting children smoking. While Dors eventually got the photo restored, after the second time it was deleted, the case highlights the consequence of having online commons controlled by private corporations. "Rules aren't always clear, enforcement is inconsistent, and users can find content removed or accounts terminated without a hearing. Appeals are solely at the service provider's discretion. Users get caught in the crossfire as hundreds of individual service representatives apply their own interpretations of corporate policies, sometimes imposing personal agendas or misreading guidelines. First Amendment protections generally do not extend to private property in the physical world, allowing a shopping mall to legally kick out a customer wearing a T-shirt with a picture of a smoking child." Reason.com has some more analysis on the issues brought up by the AP story.
No one is forcing anyone to use YouTube, MySpace, Flickr, Facebook, or any of the other social networking and media sharing sites. People just use them because they are free and convenient. If the administrators on those sites take your content down, tough luck. Nothing is stopping you from hosting your own website, however that would require effort. Yes, I RTFA and even your web host can block your site, but the odds of that are quite slim. If anything, review the terms of agreement of your webhost before choosing them. The logic here is the same as me letting people put signs on my lawn, but if I don't like one of those signs, and I remove it, they complain. Too bad, it's my lawn.