4 ms·

Anyone see an emerging problem here? 1)Increasingly the only places to talk are privately owned. 2)Private interests can control and prevent speech if in thei

Anyone see an emerging problem here? 1)Increasingly the only places to talk are privately owned. 2)Private interests can control and prevent speech if in their domain. Also, just wondering if Tumblr is going to be removing Tumblr blogs that have their own domains?

blvr 15y ago
> 1)Increasingly the only places to talk are privately owned. What public places did we have to talk in forty years ago that we don't have now? > 2)Private interests can control and prevent speech if in their domain. If you own an newspaper/magazine/website/whatever you have a right to exercise editorial control over it. That's always been the case.
- orbitingpluto 15y ago
  1) Perhaps I should have said proportionally. More importantly, online speech didn't exist 40 years ago. And it's all happening on someone else's privately owned infrastructure to some degree. 2) We live in a world where community events are now happening in malls. Formerly publicly owned halls have been sold off. Parks have been turned into condos with civil planning concessions of 'public' play areas and child care provisions. This should be increasingly apparent where population density is higher and/or the funds to maintain public spaces is harder to come by.
  - blvr 15y ago
    > 1) Perhaps I should have said proportionally. I don't see how that's a problem. If I had a vegetable garden and this year was a bumper year for carrots I wouldn't be complaining that there's proportionally less potatoes.
    - orbitingpluto 15y ago
      So let me get this straight, potatoes are free speech and carrots are lack of free speech? Um, pass the potatoes?
nmridul 15y ago
And the pity is, there are very less private spaces online. Even if you buy your own domain name and host your own site, you are still only leasing the name. And the domain and the site could well get seized when you start speaking things that the powers don't like.

blvr 15y ago

> 1)Increasingly the only places to talk are privately owned. What public places did we have to talk in forty years ago that we don't have now? > 2)Private interests can control and prevent speech if in their domain. If you own an newspaper/magazine/website/whatever you have a right to exercise editorial control over it. That's always been the case.

orbitingpluto 15y ago
1) Perhaps I should have said proportionally. More importantly, online speech didn't exist 40 years ago. And it's all happening on someone else's privately owned infrastructure to some degree. 2) We live in a world where community events are now happening in malls. Formerly publicly owned halls have been sold off. Parks have been turned into condos with civil planning concessions of 'public' play areas and child care provisions. This should be increasingly apparent where population density is higher and/or the funds to maintain public spaces is harder to come by.
- blvr 15y ago
  > 1) Perhaps I should have said proportionally. I don't see how that's a problem. If I had a vegetable garden and this year was a bumper year for carrots I wouldn't be complaining that there's proportionally less potatoes.
  - orbitingpluto 15y ago
    So let me get this straight, potatoes are free speech and carrots are lack of free speech? Um, pass the potatoes?

nmridul 15y ago

And the pity is, there are very less private spaces online. Even if you buy your own domain name and host your own site, you are still only leasing the name. And the domain and the site could well get seized when you start speaking things that the powers don't like.