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[Graebeard]

So, WikiLeaks, Anonymous, Amazon, Assange, Paypal, Lieberman fa de do la la.

Questions:

• Private corporations are censoring WikiLeaks.  They are also (probably) within their rights to do so under the 1st Amendment (which only applies to the government) and their contracts (TOS) with Wikileaks.  Should corporations have this censorship power, or is this wrong?
• The Air Force is directly censoring the New York Times and other websites.  (Don't try to click that link if you're in the Air Force.)  Here, the federal government may or may not be violating the 1st Amendment since the military always basically gets to do whatever they want in the name of national security.  Is the military right for censoring websites that publish classified material, or is this wrong?

Let's concede that there are some times when it's good to keep a secret.  My question is: when is censorship (if ever) justified?

[Sowelu]

If 1) your corporation or 2) the military say "You can't bring any newspapers on-site", then that's well within their rights.  If they say "You can't bring newspapers X or Y on-site", that's fishy, but acceptable.  If a corporation says to their employees "You can't read newspaper X at home", they have crossed the line.  If the military says that to its servicemembers, I am undecided.

Though it's not directly relevant, I propose to you a case where at-home censorship IS valid and necessary:  Jury duty.  The government must be able to tell jurors "Do not look up information about this case while you are serving on a jury".

[Earthquake Damage]

when is censorship (if ever) justified?

when it's good to keep a secret

Anyway,

1.  In preventing such censorship you risk even greater civil rights violations.  However, this censorship is presumably on behalf of the US government, so who do you blame (if, indeed, "blame" is an appropriate word):  those dastardly corporations with their handlebar mustaches or the gubmint?

2.  The Air Force is preventing Air Force personnel from viewing classified information.  You make it sound as if they're DDOSing the Times or something.

[Grakelin]

Lawl, preventing the soldiers from knowing things that are now public knowledge. That's kind of funny.

[Sowelu]

Okay, let me offer something:

Theoretically, at least some classified information would be useful to our enemies.
Less than 100% of our enemies have read through all of Wikileaks.
Information is more likely to fall into the hands of our enemies through a captured or careless soldier in the field than through a civilian back at home.

[Leonon]

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[Graebeard]

Though it's not directly relevant, I propose to you a case where at-home censorship IS valid and necessary:  Jury duty.  The government must be able to tell jurors "Do not look up information about this case while you are serving on a jury".

Interesting point, although I don't know if that's really censorship.  I mean, you're not cutting the juror's DSL, you're just telling them they have a duty not to read something.  That seems like a big difference to me.

when is censorship (if ever) justified?

when it's good to keep a secret

I think I disagree.  Even though there may be information that should be secret I don't think censoring the media should always be a justified means of keeping it secret.  Particularly when it isn't effective.  Other methods, like, say, classification, might be all that is justified.

1.  In preventing such censorship you risk even greater civil rights violations.  However, this censorship is presumably on behalf of the US government, so who do you blame (if, indeed, "blame" is an appropriate word):  those dastardly corporations with their handlebar mustaches or the gubmint?

Good question.  My gut reaction is that both are to blame.  I mean, under the 1st Amendment the federal government could never demand Amazon to kick Wikileaks out, so I feel like they shouldn't be able to do it indirectly either.

As far as the corporations, it's tough to say.  They aren't required to by law, but I feel like they have a moral obligation not to censor the media.

2.  The Air Force is preventing Air Force personnel from viewing classified information.  You make it sound as if they're DDOSing the Times or something.

Tru dat.  But it seems like serious overkill to block the whole domain just to prevent access to a (very) small amount of information on there.  And it's all public knowledge now anyway.

[LordNagash]

The military is always going to exercise information control - I can't say I agree with it, but as far as I know they're well within their rights to do so and I can understand their reasons.

It's the private corporations thing that worries me a bit more. Where does it cross the line from being acceptable censorship to being unacceptable? It's all sort of a grey area, and I think this whole thing with Wikileaks is going to bring another big push for looking into this sort of thing as it relates to the internet.

The difficult thing is, where do you draw the line? For example, I think most people would consider moderation of a forum, a comments section or something of that nature run by a corporation or an individual to remove content that they don't agree with acceptable because people on the internet say dumb, inflammatory, racist and just plain wrong things all the time, as youtube comments show us. I also think most people would agree that, for example, if you had a website on hosting that was full of ridiculous racism or something of that nature the company providing you with the hosting would be within their rights to remove it. But what if what you're saying isn't illegal, isn't against the terms of service you signed but is just something someone else doesn't want you to say? I mean that's basically what has happened with Wikileaks, the US government doesn't want the documents published, and various companies are complying with this pressure.

I'm not gonna start the debate over whether that's right or not in here, there's already a thread for the whole Wikileaks thing, but where does that sort of censorship stop? What if a website has something on it that a politician or a celebrity just doesn't particularly like/want published? We already see this tactic used by the Church of Scientology to have negative content and websites taken down. I think it's a dangerous road to start down if organisations can get things taken off the internet just by applying a little pressure

[Tsarwash]

It's just ridiculous, and surely counter productive. Now, all these military personnel are going to know that they cannot access certain newspapers, and are going to ask themselves why. When they find out the reason, they are more likely to be aware of the leaks site than before. If anything, it'll increase awareness of the issue and access to wikileaks by these people, if only to see what the fuss is about.  This will blow up in the military's faces, I'm sure.

[Grakelin]

Okay, let me offer something:

Theoretically, at least some classified information would be useful to our enemies.
Less than 100% of our enemies have read through all of Wikileaks.
Information is more likely to fall into the hands of our enemies through a captured or careless soldier in the field than through a civilian back at home.

Despite what we are led to believe, Al Qaeda has the internet.

They have read through all of Wikileaks, I assure you.

[olemars]

Iceland thinks VISA/Mastercard went too far. And I agree. Those two companies have the ability to cripple the major income venues for a lot of organizations, completely on a whim and without need to justify.

[MrWiggles]

Corporation are treated as meta persons under the law, at least in the US. So, for the US Corporations are, in part, entitled to the Bill of Rights.

So, lying, and withholding information, is, in part, an inalienable right of corporations.

I bolded the in part, because I wanted to make it clear that I am aware there are various circumstances where Corporations are not allowed to lie, and forth to tell the truth.

[Sowelu]

Oh hey, relevant.  http://theselfpublishingrevolution.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazon-in-book-banning-business.html

[Megaman]

The military should be allowed to place censors. They are the guys who shoot people in my defense.

Edit: Careless talk kills

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[MrWiggles]

Oh hey, relevant.  http://theselfpublishingrevolution.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazon-in-book-banning-business.html

I dont find this relevant. This isn't censoring as much as private publisher choosing which materiel they're willing to be associated with. Amazon isn't stopping them from perusing other means of e publication, or submitting the works to anthologies, or magizines which carter to the genre.