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U.S. Court: Chinese Search Engine's Censorship Is 'Free Speech'
jfruh writes: "You will probably not be surprised to learn that Chinese search giant Baidu censors a wide range of content, particularly political material deemed to be pro-democracy — and does so for users everywhere, not just in China. A group of activists filed suit against Baidu in New York for violating free speech laws, but the judge in the case declared (PDF) that, as a private entity in the United States, Baidu has the right to provide whatever kind of search results it wants, even for political reasons."
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
... yeah, what stoner thought there was a case here?
Corporations are people. And people have a right to free speech, right? Which, in the case at hand, is a right to censor. Right?
Well, no. Corporations are legal fictions, and coporate personhood has gone too far.
Corporations are nothing more than a piece of paper, an act of incorporation, and should be treated as such.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
Why? The constitution only regulates the US government. It doesn't regulate neither the Chinese government nor private entities inside or outside the US.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
This is the right decision. Private companies should have the right to say whatever they want, assuming there is competition (not government mandated monolpolies or the like)
No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States
The US Constitution requlates state goverement since the passage of the 14th Amendment. A New York free speach law can not limit the speach of the owners and employees of Baidu. They are allowed to have bias.
... The judge was also reported to say "now that's decided I'm going to pick up a couple of strippers who will whip me while i wear their underwear"
Our knee-jerk reaction to this here in the U.S. is predictable: "Oh shit, there goes the 1st Amendment!".
Not so simple, though: Baidu is a private company here in the U.S., even if it's blindingly obvious it's 100% driven by the Chinese government/Chinese communist party (same thing, really) and as such they can provide whatever search results they want. Same would go for Google, or Yahoo, or Bing, or whoever -- the caveat being that if, say, Google decided to start censoring search results to the extent Baidu does, then Google would be finished as the de-facto search engine here in the U.S. However: Nobody is forcing you to use Google, Yahoo, Bing, Baidu, or any other search engine here in the U.S. Even if you're a Chinese National living here in the U.S., unless the Chinese communist party has someone standing there with a gun to your head, you're free to NOT use Baidu, just like you're free to NOT use Google, Yahoo, Bing, or any other search engine, too. Don't bring me your "We don't REALLY have a choice" crap, either, because you do, even if you don't like the choices you have. Also, finally, someone else could always start up their own search-engine company if they think there's a niche to fill, and they could make a gigantic point of how they censor none of the results -- and they might even unseat everyone else in the process.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
The whole point of freedom of speech is to allow people you disagree with to say (or write) what they want. If the westboro church can protest soldier funerals, this ruling should be a no brainer. The search engine is writing the search results in a biased way but the judge has ruled that is free speech. Fine with me... now back to searching on google.
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
This ruling is giving Constitutional protection to the Chinese government to defraud US users. Baidu claims to have the "mission of providing the best way for people to find what they're looking for online" which is blatant false advertising.
This ruling is giving Constitutional protection to the Chinese government to defraud US users. Baidu claims to have the "mission of providing the best way for people to find what they're looking for online" which is blatant false advertising.
So then bring up a false advertising suit. A freedom of speech suit has no legal basis.
OK, by your logic, I will now require that anytime you personally make a pro democracy statement, you also make an equally valid anti democracy statement, because somehow your censorship of anti democracy opinions is infringing upon my right to free speech. I'm fairly certain this is exactly what the founding fathers wanted.
Seriously, how the fuck did this even make to a courtroom? I mean, the internet is full of retards with zero understanding of the what the first amendment does and does not apply to, but where did 8 of those retards find a lawyer who would take their case?
What implications are you trying to suggest? If I run a website, I'm not allowed to control or limit what comments and content other people put on it? If someone sends me some image or document supporting some cause I don't have interest in, should I be required to host it using my resources on my server and website? If I had a blog aggregating cool links to other sites, am I not allows to have any choice in what links or to have some sort of thematic connection between them? In the extreme, you would be talking about people not being allowed to remove graffiti, or venues not being allowed to remove an uncivil person just yelling over the top of others.
I don't see how there would be anything the founding fathers could be crying about (other than crying out loud, "Holy shit, what is this magical box of moving light and text that you are trying to talk about!")
Corporations are nothing more than a piece of paper, an act of incorporation, and should be treated as such.
Agreed on that point, but that leads me to the opposite conclusion. Individuals pursue values through institutions. It is the underlying right of the individual employees, workers, owners and executives that give the association of people that collectively we call a corporation the same rights as the individuals that are in association with one another. Call it whatever you want, a corporation or a knitting group, it is the rights of the individual to associate and retain their individual liberty both acting individually or in concert which is what must be respected by law.
It's really not that... a private company does not have obligation to provide a unfiltered/non-curated/fair search engine. It's like Fox News website - that's the "best information" for you, they think.
"Best" is subjective. The claim is mere puffery - any suit for false advertising would be quickly dismissed.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
As China is sovereign, they cannot be brought to bear in anyone's court.
If you seek to penalize companies or people that kowtow to same, that is the job of the president and Congress, not the courts, via diplomacy or military.
Our general policy for 50 years has been encouraging economic (and other) freedoms. Is it working? What are alternatives?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
You are apparently not an American, as evidenced by your lack of understanding of our founding fathers and their writing of the constitution. Private individuals, or corporations, are not bound by the constitution, only the government is. If we were to bound private individuals it would run counter to everything they stood for. In other words, if you force private people/corporations to say what they dont wanna say then you dont have a democracy or a free people.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
So far the groups who are censored by Google lack the political backing or have too much stigma associated with them already. They lack enough public support to bring such suits seriously. Google would have to start censoring someone who can actually fight back for this to start happening.
You should actually read the first ten amendments sometime. The way they are written
Congress shall make no law...
When the founding fathers wrote this, they intended to for the states to be able to pass laws restricting freedom of speech and religion.
Nonsense. The states have constitutions of their own which guarantee the rights of their citizens. The Constitution of Massachusetts, for example, was adopted seven years before the US version and in many ways is even more protective of individual rights than the federal.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
This ruling makes sense when you consider the alternative:
Government would have to police each search engine to make sure it was permitting full free speech.
Then, the potential for abuse is huge. Government could simply drop something -- like, say, far-right information -- off the list and allow it to be censored while claiming it was legally not censorship.
Government could also force search engines to incorporate other information that is favored by government, and penalize them if that information didn't make it high in the rankings.
We don't want government in the business of determining what "free speech" is in legal terms.
Futurist Traditionalism
that is how freedom of speech has always worked here in the US.. Your "requirement" would actually be the first nail in the coffin of the US system, as it would dilute free speech.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
You could, oh I dunno, not use this service.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Tthey could be barred from operating in this country. That isn't much but it is something.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
You seem to be suffering from a common misconception. "Freedom of speech" does not mean I can go into any newsroom and demand that my thoughts and views be broadcast to all local viewers/readers. As a private entity, they have always had the freedom of speech to choose what message they send, and being able to force my way in would mean that my freedom of speech would be trampling over theirs. I'd hate to be in a world where people with a troll mentality could use their freedoms to render whole segments of society unusable.
This situation, while reprehensible to the vast majority of us, is functionally no different, and in no way suggests that corporate policy is above freedom. After all, at least in the US, users are free to use another service that does not send the message Baidu is sending, meaning that Baidu has no hold over them. In situations where there is a hold, such as an employee/employer relationship, there are additional laws and regulations protecting both sides, and we ever had some discussions over related topics a few days back after Mozilla appointed its new CEO who has some controversial private views.
Funny, if this is true. Then why is Google being forced to alter it's search results by court orders? (e.g. anti-competitive, or favored sellers?)
> If I run a website, I'm not allowed to control or limit what comments and content other people put on it?
Of course you are, but only if you actually want to. If the government tells you to control it or else they'll drag you through audits/courts/etc until you do then that's a problem.
Granted, said government in this case is the Chinese, so I'm not surprised the case was thrown out but I can understand why it was brought.
hasn't the tech party line always been "governments can't censor us, the internet sees that as damage and routes around it" or something like that?
it sure looks like governments are doing a pretty good jobs of destroying that meme, be it Turkey or China...or even perhaps the NSA/US.
and of course i *know* vpns and proxies can be set up...i wonder how many typical chinese citizens know how to set those up tho.
never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
This has nothing to do with the topic whatsoever. How about this: people aren't forced to live in Foxconn dormitories in the USA, such that the only way out is to commit suicide by jumping out the window. Are we winning yet?
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
It can most certainly be applied to a business operating under the jurisdiction of the United States, the same way Google is expected to conform to the Chinese government's censorship requests to operate within their country. That's not American centrist thinking, that's just a logical way to assume businesses operate.
I recommend everyone to read J. Furman's judgment: it's crystal clear, and a pleasure to understand.
The argument establishes that what Baidu is engaged in is speech, not advertising or anything, I think these two quotes (or quotes of quotes) sum everything up beautifully:
I wouldn't be so sure about the false advertising angle. Best is an opinion, that's why advertisers love it. If Pepsi says it's the "best cola around", but you think that Coke is obviously the best, Pepsi wouldn't be on the hook for false advertising. In the same way, they may not be the best for your purposes, but if I wanted to see what the web is like for a Chinese national, Baidu would be the best choice.
There's nothing wrong with this decision. In fact, it's the right decision. As long as there is healthy competition, there's no reason any arm of government should be able to force a business to operate a certain way, outside of actions or inactions that are ostensibly illegal or abusive.
It's not like there aren't a thousand other capable search engines you can use instead.
Yes, I agree there are very serious social problems in China. But the same is valid for the USA too.
I saw areas in the US cities where people are just hanging en mass on the streets days long, obviously unemployed. There are also a lot of homeless people, incredibly many.
Certainly, there are well-to-do communities, even gated communities. But it is not like the USA has nothing else to do to improve inside its own country and just has to concentrate on China and the other bad apples.
Perhaps, it shall improve the world via itself? By an example?
I disagree. They are applauding that the law they wrote, is being interpreted exactly as they wrote it.
The First Amendment applies to government censorship, not private entity censorship.
Don't like the private censorship? Don't use that search engine. There's plenty of alternatives, one of which has become it's own verb, and another is trying to through terrible marketing.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
CanHasDIY, the quote you mention is a simplified headline. The real issue is that in the United States, companies are free to operate as they wish and provide whatever filtered information they wish to provide. So, this ruling is a victory for freedom, not the other way around. Would you really want the government decide what kinds of information is "correct" to withhold or not?
So, your solution to Baidu censoring searches to to censor MY access to Baidu?
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Not getting all the information from all parties is anti democratic and simply wrong. If you don't have all the info, I take that has manipulating people...fraud in other words.
Well, no, it's not, because it's totally meaningless. What's "best"? "Best" is meaningless until it is associated with some set of standards. It can mean the way that's best for the Chinese government, in which case it's totally true.
This is pretty straightforward. On the principle that I do not believe in slavery, I do not believe that anyone has the right to tell Baidu what to do, including what search results to return. Really this is a very weak attempt by these activists, and they are violating their own principles by trying to restrict the freedom of others.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
Yes, but that was considered the state's business, not subject to regulation by the US Constitution. In fact, when the Constitution was written, one of the main reasons the Bill of Rights prohibited Congress from making any law respecting an establishment of a religion was that the states wanted to be sure that the new Federal government didn't interfere with *their* establishment of a relgigion; there was state funding of the Anglican Church in some southern states, and of the Congregational Church in New England. The Supreme Court did not rule against state and local funding of churches on US Constitutional grounds until 1947.
Fine, let's look at your version of "freedom" where the Government now requires every website everywhere to continue to post forever every single word submitted to it. For example, Johnny Q. Racist posts some nonsense about $RACE being intellectually inferior to the NAACP web site forums? Too bad, NAACP; you've got to continue showing that because this fucking idiot says so in his completely incorrect interpretation of one of the most elegant laws ever passed by man.
Wouldn't being legally forced to keep that nonsense on the website infringe on the website owner's rights of free expression; specifically, the right for them to not express something?
Didn't think of that, did you? Pull your head out of your smug pompous ass. That's me freely expressing myself, and Slashdot, as a private entity, can feel free to eliminate it from their database without legal recourse. See what I did there?
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
So many people here do not get what freedom is. Freedom is NOT forcing others to provide information you think they should provide. The very essence of freedom of speech is to decide what to say, and what not to say. Those that think Baidu should somehow be compelled to provide the "correct" information sound like they'd be happy with a "Ministry of Information" that gets to decide what is "correct" speech, in both content and quantity. The freedom of speech is a guarantee that you will be offended and pissed off by what someone says, or what they leave out that distorts context. Think hard. Deal with it. Defend liberty.
For me, in my years on the internet, I've come to believe and stand by the premise that a web server or ANY service offered to the public internet from your equipment is an extension of your home. People who visit are guests of your service. They have to follow your rules or they will be told to leave. It's very simple and I think it rightly extends to businesses operating websites.
This ruling is no different than my operating a gaming forum and asking people not to post about knitting, as it's not the topic we're discussing on my service. You also will not find any information about knitting on my forum, and rightly so.
Search engine is a little different I suppose, but I think since it's pretty obvious they're omitting results they have concluded to be unsuitable (they are filtering content) I don't see a problem. I think where a problem begins is if that search engine claims to return unbiased complete results. That's dishonest.
Another way to think of it would be as a television station. If you object to the content they've chosen to show you, change the friggin channel.
And you'd likely see a mass exodus of Comcast customers to another provider.
I don't think that's going to be very viable for Comcast to continue operating and making money. Do you?
What contract do you have with them whose breach is fraudulent? What have you paid for that is not supplied?
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
There are a lot of other search engines out there. It doesn't bother me that search engines I don't use wouldn't give me results I want.
If somebody wants to set up a search engine that caters to a certain demographic (members of a religious group, political persuasion, age group, whatever) then people are free to use it and the rest of us are free to not use it.
I've eaten chinese food and italian food in NYC. They use tomatoes very differently.
And that's about as on topic as what you wrote.
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
You are apparently not an American, as evidenced by your lack of understanding of our founding fathers and their writing of the constitution.
This statement assumes that most Americans understand these things...
That is the poster's words, distorting (IMO) the courts ruling. The court said that Baidu's actions are allowed by Free Speech. It is a matter of interpretation whether that is censorship or editorial choice. The censorship is not in offering a biased search engine in Baidu, but in blocking alternatives such as Google. And that censorship occurs only in China.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
use some other service. Freedom of speech means that they can provide whatever results they want, but so can Google.
Even worse, every spam comment ever submitted anywhere would need to be kept online lest you infringe on the submitter's freedom of speech. What's that? Some porn site managed to post a comment on your "family friendly - just for kids" blog? Sorry, but you need to keep the link to nasty-horrible-retina-burning-stuff.com because you can't infringe the commenter's freedom of speech.
Imposing the government's freedom of speech obligations on people would be a huge disaster.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
But the Food and Drug Administration has no say as to how prepare Chinese food. And the New York court distributes judgments about Chinese web sites.
It is because that they think that they have a moral high ground to do so. My argument is that I doubt it, that there are serious social, economical and other problems at the USA as everywhere else.
My point is that there should be peaceful international cooperation based on equality.
Actually, you might not for one important reason:
ISPs are in a position where they are often the only provider in the area.
In my case, Time Warner Cable is my only wired broadband possibility. If Time Warner Cable decided tomorrow that Netflix would be blocked, they wouldn't have a massive exodus since we wouldn't have anywhere to go. What they would have, however, would be a PR and legal disaster. They could be sued by subscribers and would have many, MANY negative article written about their actions. The combination would lower their stock price and could force them to change course. They could also get in trouble from governmental agencies for abusing their Internet access monopoly position in an attempt boost their VOD sales by blocking Netflix. They could try claiming this is their "first amendment right" but they'd find that "right" to be very limited in this regard.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Well, THEN the Founding Fathers should be spinning in their graves. Heck, I think we can install a turbine on Jefferson's grave alone and get power for the entire northeast.
I find it kind of funny (and I find it kind of sad) that US-ians will go all 'free speech' on China while they themselves can barely get on public transportation without the US gov breaching several other aspects of their constitutional rights in some sort
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
The founding fathers of the United States of America were NOT supporters of Democracy as they knew from history and experience that Democracy leads to Oligarchy. Instead they founded a Republic!!!
Perhaps the first post with a long list of replies should learn about US founding history.
Maybe next someone should sue Wikipedia for declaring their article non-notable. That's censorship.
Private companies have no obligation toward any kind of "freedom of speech".
Yes. The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled freedom of speech includes the right not to say something.
It still comes up, most recently in a current case where airlines are complaining about font sizes in government-mandated costs -- they want to call out government costs in giant numbers, but government mandates require some other number pleasing to politicians to be the largest.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Again, I'd refer you to the Fox News example :)
You are apparently not an American, as evidenced by your naive belief that all Americans understand these things. It's sad, but true, that many people have the benefit of a constitution that they cannot read and do not understand.
Somebody really opened up a can of dumb in this room didn't they!
What am I replying to? Everything!
Right, like Papa John's claiming their pizza is "better" when it's basically the same as every other pizza. What a bunch of cheaters and liars they are.
You mean polar bears don't really drink Coca Cola?
Like it or not, the government does exclude some speech from being "free". Threats and defamation are excluded, as is the ever-popular "shouting fire in a crowded theater". Even obscenity can be limited, though fortunately that exception has been narrowed in the past few decades.
Not that I want these to be the camel's nose under the tent. I'm just pointing out that the potential for abuse is already there. I think it's perfectly reasonable that you can't threaten somebody and call it "free speech", but it sets a dangerous precedent.
When a government tries to censor something, it usually means two things:
The right to force a business which has sole control (in China) of access to the world's news and uses that access to control the populations' perception? That right comes from our ass. Same as the rights to free speech, freedom to assemble, freedom not to be killed like a dog on the street if some business deems it necessary. There are no "rights" other than those we seize for ourselves, never have been. Rights are artificial and we buy them with intelligence, sweat, and blood.
We do not derive our rights from a "piece of paper", as Bush dismissively called it, but from our collective will. The constitution of the United States is not a holy book. It was a flawed piece of work, as its writers understood. That's why they crafted the 9th Amendment: rights enumerated in the document are not the static and only rights of man. Other rights exist, and they left that open for future generations to define.
The writers lived in houses without communications systems. They walked or rode horses. Corporations did not really exist. They did not envision a world in which mega-sized non-human non-governmental essentially lawless and untouchable and unfindable entities would seize control of the news outlets and "privately" censor the world.
NO. They would not approve of that and neither should anyone else. They'd kill to stop it.
A world of "private" businesses controlling our spaces, communications, food, water and employment is a feudal oligopoly. We did not build our country only to finally grant utter tyranny to rich Randian collectivists we can't even begin to overthrow because they don't physically exist. Hell, they have their own private police and armies to protect them from overthrow.
Take the right or live in hell. Your choice. Unless, of course, you're planning on cooperating with the new world order and being one of the bosses.
In China is there is only one microphone. Sucks to be the rest of the universe, I guess.
Shoved into a Supreme Court ruling by a former railroad trust lobbyist turned Supreme Court clerk using his unique position. Never was our choice.
Corporation only exist by government fiat. They have no other existence and derive all rights from our common will through our laws. They are a game, a fiction, a cheat.
Wake up fool, anytime a competitor tells your client that your product is better than theirs; that, is a good thing.
I'm just waiting for China to state that Americans have bigger peniuses.
God handed the constitution to Jefferson on a mountain in the 1780's? The founders did not envision a private (government-controlled, for fuck's sake!) company controlling access to the world. They didn't have to. They didn't want to. They expected us to evolve and add more rights. They did not see the document as holy writ. They gave us the 9th amendment to slap us in the face with that fact. Rights exist whether or not the holy book explicitly enumerates those rights. So, fuck the constitution, as I am sure Jefferson would say. Fuck private company takeover of the world. Corporations are legal government-created fictions. They are OUR dogs. We are not theirs. HEEL, bitches.
A nation of business-addled fools blindly following their bosses' leads.
Bullshit.
Because you are requring people to give airtime, and their money in effect, to things they dont believe in, limiting their ability to talk about what they want to be.. It has no bearing on if corps are people or not, the owners of the corps are people, and they can spend their money in any way they want... Giving equal attention to "all sides" is like forcing a science channel to also give equal time to creationists, and hindus, and muslims and all the other groups that have an idea about how the universe and life began. You dont require people to put their effort into things they dont believe in.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Thus, in libertarian heaven, all search engines are indeed private, so... everything you read and see and hear is subject to whatever the company owners collectively think you should. Tyranny, same as if they owned the roads you travel on.
"Sorry, My. Grumpy, but our manager informs that you are not welcome on Roads Numbers 456-780. Please remove your vehicle from our private property or we'll notify our private police force, which you'll notice have a laser battery pointed at you up above. And oh, yes, it seems you are banned on all competing roads in the area, just to give you a heads up. You must have got someone important angry over at corporate, ha ha. You know, watch what you say, watch what you do. Words to live by, indeed. We hope for your future patronage on the Richard Cheney Memorial Highway System, Incorporated. Have a nice day. Get out or get shot."
Rights are not created by laws. They are given to men by God. Atheist like to use the term human rights. But the idea is the same. The Bill Of Rights limits goverment to protect rights. These bills were designed to protect individuals from the "common will of the people." Majorities often suppress minorities. Majorities don't need the bill or rights.
Coporations don't exist by goverement fiat.(at least not most of them. Post Office could be an exception) They are just companies that the goverment wants to regulate. I have family that owns an LLC (limited liabilty corporation). it is not a fiction. It is a small buisness run by three people. It has a building, assets, and customers. Not imaginary at all. It is not a game.
No, it makes no such assumption. The only assumption it makes is that non Americans dont know these things.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
That is the poster's words, distorting (IMO) the courts ruling. The court said that Baidu's actions are allowed by Free Speech.
Right, but said actions are blocking access to information, which is the definition of censorship.
And that censorship occurs only in China.
So... US court rulings that involve foreign entities do not count as legal precedent, and the decision cannot be used in determining other cases that do not involve foreign entities? I have a hard time believing that.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
I have no such belief, the belief is that the people outside of the US have less of an understanding in generally, not that US citizens understand this fully in general either.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Censorship is free speech. Granted it's a private business. They can do what they want, provided they are not acting as agents of the (American) government.
Linking to "objectionable" material (ie: "infringing") is not? Since when does copyright overrule the 1st amendment? Let's find a way to see censorship as copyright infringement. Then maybe we can put an end to it.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Oh bullshit. The idea *is* censorship, the subterfuge is import/export control.
While you hate Fox, you do understand all the news channels do it, right?
Dropping into pedantry is the very best way to show that you have no real substance to your position.
That boils down to all outlets, no need for a name at all.
Dropping into pedantry is the very best way to show that you have no real substance to your position.
Says the person whose post contains no substance, just an ad hominem.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
I know this is completely off-topic, but I had to share it. Pizza Hut pizza in Costa Rica is twice as good at Pizza Hut pizza in the United States. (It also costs almost twice as much).
By your reasoning, anyone who refused to tell the Nazis where any Jews were hiding was practicing censorship.
I'd hate to be in a world where people with a troll mentality could use their freedoms to render whole segments of society unusable.
Hopefully, you're not planning on attending college soon.
I finished with college quite awhile ago, but I now live in a college town with about 50K students, who together make up about a quarter of the area's population. Thankfully, most of the students here are rather respectful and pleasant to be around. In fact, tomorrow they're engaging in the largest, annual, student-run service event in the nation, with over 20K students participating in helping people out around town with repairs, painting, cleaning up, maintenance, etc. at over 2000 homes and businesses in the area.
So, I suppose my experience with college students may be a bit different than most. ;)
By your reasoning, anyone who refused to tell the Nazis where any Jews were hiding was practicing censorship.
I always love it when someone who isn't me tries to tell me what my reasoning is.
Even better, you're equating China's censorship with protecting Jews during WWII. Not to mention the fact that you've completely missed my point: Legal precedent set in a US court is used in future US court decisions, regardless of whether or not one of the named entities in the original case are foreign. Thus, if a US court rules "Censorship is free speech" in any way, this decision can and likely will be used to determine future cases.
Side note: how on Earth did you manage to fit so many logical fallacies into one sentence? That's impressive.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Should have been thrown out before it went to trial.
People really do not understand the Constitution, especially the First Amendment.
Reductio ad absurdum (yes I know what that means, and it applies here). You charged that Baidu choosing to "censor" (in quotes because the word doesn't really apply here) blocks access to information. I applied your reasoning to a situation in which another person might choose not to provide information (theoretical person being quizzed by a Nazi).
Both are refusing to provide information to fulfil the request (one using technical means, and the other by refusing to remember). In a free society, unless you have a very selective value system, you cannot call one censorship and the other, well, whatever you decide to call it.
Freedom of speech means exactly what if says. You are free to say what you want. You cannot be compelled to say what you don't want to say. You can't have "freedom of speech" if you are not free to not speak. Therefore Baidu can't be accused of censorship because they are not preventing any speech. They are just choosing not to provide a platform for certain "speeches" and those speakers are free to speak on any other platform of their choosing.
Baidu cannot be accused of censorship any more than Fox News or MSNBC could be accused of censorship.
Yeah. They to have the right to censor their search results if they want to, being a private entity in the U.S. Though, if they don't make clear that they are censoring search results, then I imagine they open themselves up to being sued for false advertising if they claim to be a 'internet search engine'.
That's a rather broad statement to make.
You're correct in that the founding fathers wrote the constitution to restrict the power of government, not that of private individuals, and for that matter mostly to restrict the power of the federal government. The issue however is the fact they didn't go to all the trouble of restricting the government's power to restrict free speech because they were anti-government, they did so because they though free speech was critical to a free society. They also explicitly set up a strong central government to protect the people. I'm not by any means convinced that the Founding Fathers would be at all comfortable with this kind of thing.
You really don't understand what Baidu is. It's a fascist corporation teamed with the Chinese government to perception manage a billion people. It's not a plucky lemonade stand. It's not a business.
And I'd be willing to wager, if one ISP turned dick in a neighborhood with no other options. Another option is going to appear very soon. People aren't as dumb as you might think, there's a buck to be made off irate customers!
All very true. Thank you for your comment.
However, I think there's another dimension to this, which is the question of "what is speech"?
To me, protected speech is the ability to write and publish political, scientific, social, artistic, etc. ideas of some substance.
It would not include statements made in a crowded theater at all since that's not a public forum.
Regarding obscenity law, it would protect the ability to publish obscene material but perhaps not display it.
The main point as the founding fathers(tm) saw it was to protect political speech from being censored before it was able to reach its audience.
Futurist Traditionalism
When the founding fathers wrote this, they intended to for the states to be able to pass laws restricting freedom of speech and religion.
It is always dangerous to refer to the "founding fathers" collectively, since they had many disagreements.
You can get a better idea what Madison intended by looking at his draft:
"The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any matter, or on any pretext, infringed."
"The people shall not be deprived of their right to speak, to write, or to publish their sentiments, and the freedom of the press, as one the great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable".
"No State shall violate the equal rights of conscience, or the freedom of the press, or the trial by jury in criminal cases".
The explicit reference to limiting State power surprises many who mistakenly believe that the Bill of Rights was intended only to limit the power of the federal government. Certainly Madison was aware of the danger of abuse of state government authority. Richard Labunski, in his book on Madison, has asserted that this was Madison's favorite amendment.
By the end of the ratification process for the Bill of Rights, Madison's text was substantially rewritten. We could reasonably suppose that much of what he wrote was already implicit in the 9th Amendment, and thus did not need to be made explicit.
The "official" 1st Amendment does in fact only apply to Congress under the "official" Bill of Rights (but since it is the only Amendment so explicitly limited, a reasonable person would infer the others apply to state and local government as well).
Hence, the slave states could in fact pass laws authorizing people speaking out against slavery to be put in prison, or have laws specific to particular religions (in some cases, this was prohibited by the state-level governing documents). In a sense, there is a loophole in the 1st Amendment.
It can be argued that a number of aspects of state law, such as libel laws, and laws authorizing coerced testimony in the courtroom, are only allowed to exist as a result of this decision to limit the 1st Amendment restriction to Congress. But nobody pays attention to this (which has interesting implications for the ethical practice of law).
The 14th Amendment is supposed to close this loophole, which in turn has interesting implications for all those things done when the loophole existed.
Madison's writing on "full and equal rights of conscience" seems particularly applicable to the issues of today when one considers some of the current controversy regarding so-called "whistle-blowers"...
Private individuals, or corporations, are not bound by the constitution, only the government is. If we were to bound private individuals it would run counter to everything they stood for.
This is way over-stated. Enormously powerful companies such as the East India Company had been in existence for over 150 years by 1776. Some of the Founding Fathers were certainly well aware of the power such corporations could wield, and nothing explicit was written into the Bill of Rights that limited the assertion of rights against corporate entities.
There are several considerations you will want to think about:
1. First we have the issue of third party entities being used as agents of the government to infringe fundamental rights. If the Bill of Rights can not be asserted against these entities, then it might as well not exist: government can infringe any right simply by delegating to a third party.
2. Second, one can reasonably assert all manner of rights under the 9th Amendment as being retained by the people, or the 10th Amendment ("reserved to the people"). If such rights can be taken away by third party entities, they are no longer retained -- a contradiction.
3. Third, we have the issue that many rights enjoyed by private entities actually flow from authority granted by government. The various rights associated with private property, for example, flow from property law, and since property law is part of state law, it is in turn limited by the Bill of Rights. Similar assertions can be made for the many laws governing commercial or business entities and transactions.
It is entirely appropriate to limit what can be done by private entities with respect to property they own, or with respect to contracts they create, as a consequence of this point.
For example, the current practice of fencing off (or posting) much off America (I suspect this has been happening as a result of people being afraid of lawsuits) can be viewed as a massive infringement of the 9th Amendment right to travel. Fencing off a small area around a private home makes sense, as an exercise of the 9th Amendment right to privacy, but should we allow private entities to fence off large tracks of land that isn't even in use?
None of these exceptions are applicable to the current situation. If people want to use a search engine known to do censorship, that's ok.
It doesn't matter. As far as the United States federal government is concerned, it is a private corporation complying with corporate law. They operate a business that produces a product which is unsuitable for a percentage of the US population, in which case there is a simple form of redress: don't fucking use it, and use Google / Bing / Yahoo / etc. instead.
The US government has no jurisdiction over what happens in China, or any other country not named the United States of America or it's legal territories. In fact, it's the usual refrain on this web site - that the US should stay out of everyone else's business.
Well, they just did. Next?
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.