Concerning the various Nation-States’ restriction on the freedom of speech now, Matthew Ingram clearly misses the point in this article.

“But Twitter’s decision to bow to Germany’s desire to block a specific account is troubling for a number of reasons. Although it is nice that Twitter can allow the rest of the world to see the tweets in question, rather than blocking it entirely, this is a little like Google selectively blocking access to the offensive anti-Muslim video “The Innocence of Muslims” from Egypt and Libya. Do people in those countries not deserve to see content that everyone else can see? Are we prepared to sacrifice their free-speech rights (assuming we think they have any) to protect the interests of a specific company?”

The main question behind the restriction of free speech is the subjectivity of cultural values. Germany, Egypt, USA have completely different legal system that are based on different conception of individual and collective freedom. Until recently Internet de facto tended to impose the American values to the rest of the world, and now that the Nation-States begin to re-implement their own judicial system on their populations online a lot of American observers have the impression that it’s a simple restriction of liberties because they assume their values are universal. The question should not be ‘how to defend our right of free-speech against countries that have a different conception of what it should be’ but rather ‘how can we both protect the integrity of free-speech in our country and the Country X conception of free speech in this very Country X’? Assuming that American-based freedom of speech should be extended to every country is the same process of thought that the one that assumes that Sharia-based restrictions of publications should be extended to America. Using the quotation above , what underlies the reasoning of Matthew Ingram is simply “Are we prepared to renounce deciding in their place to make them adopt a system of values that is strictly ours but that we personally think is best for them?”

The real problem he should have spoken about in this article is the danger that occurs when a company decides to restrict the global content it provides to respect the law of a single country, like Yahoo did 10 years ago. Matthew Ingram just observe that its “nice” that Twitter “allows the rest of the world” to browse the incriminated content “rather than blocking it entirely”, without realizing that such a policy is precisely enforcing the protection of American Free-Speech for the American Citizens.

Most people seem to have forgotten or are unaware that Gawker’s moral crusade is built on hypocrisy.

People have no more right to say anything on Twitter without being censored than you have a right to barge into my private living room if I don’t want you there.

When it comes down to it, I agree with JohnP. If it’s technically legal, then legally we can’t stop you, but we can exercise the same rights as them to name the people involved and express our disapproval. Michael Brustsch is the latest one, but I think David Duke is the best example. Sure, he has the right to be a neo-nazi scumbag, just like we have the right to call him the face of hatred and racism. Governments can ban him from entering the country, like the Czech Republic did, but if he had been let in and allowed to tell everyone there that he doesn’t believe in the Holocaust, they would have found out first hand what an idiot he is and cast him out anyway. When you’ve only heard rumors about an issue, it’s trivialized. But when people like this are in your face, the issues become real and serious and you can’t ignore it.

Heaven forbid people be held accountable for the things they say. This idea that “the internet is containment” is purely appeasement and is actually horrible counter to the idea of freedom of speech. Remember, the concept of free speech is ONLY that speech should not be limited by governments and people with the power to suppress it. You don’t get to choose who’s speech is free – the pedophile’s speech or the journalist’s speech outing the pedophile.