Free speech is one of the building blocks of any democratic society.
Without free speech we, as citizens of the democratic society,
would be subject to many forms of chastisement including personal
attacks and even legal ramifications.

This is why I for one like the Internet. You see, to me the Internet
is one of the last great representations of true free speech. We
are allowed to post as we see fit whether it is a comment in a
forum or a blog post which gets syndicated around the world.

In fact, many sites have made their livings from allowing the
general public to freely post their viewpoints, both positive and
negative.

Apartmentratings.com has been sued before by angry landlords or
building owners. This is a site which allows renters of apartments
all over the US to post comments and ratings about the buildings
they live in. Of course, many people are generally happy with their
apartments but some are not, and arent afraid to let the world
know.

It is these negative posts which have gotten the site in trouble in
the past even though the websites terms and conditions clearly
state that the opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the
website owners.

Now, Ive talked to the owner of this site before and I dont think
he should be held responsible for posts made on his site. In fact, I
dont think its his responsibility to have to censor those who post
there either.

I believe the only responsibility this site has to the apartment
buildings in question would be to supply information of a technical
nature to them if they have the legal documentation to support
their request.

In other words, his only responsibility should be to supply IP
addresses of those who have posted the offending remarks, and
then let the apartment owner try and track down the anonymous
posters. It really has nothing to do with the site in question.

The reason Im bringing this up is because another well known site
is currently being sued for a similar situation.

CraigsList.org is now the subject of a legal battle because of posts
made to their website.

Apparently, someone posted an ad for an apartment rental and
explicitly asked that certain minorities not apply because, according
to the person who posted the ad, these people tend to clash with
me so that wont work out.

Now, heres the issue for me: Sure the guys post stated that
there were certain races that he did not want to apply, but its not
like he said I hate you all! Instead, he said that these people
tended to clash with him. This isnt necessarily a racist comment,
hes just stating his opinion based on his previous experience. In
my mind, that doesnt necessarily make him a racist.

What really bugs me is that Craigslist is now being held
accountable for this persons post.

Sure it may not have been in the best of taste, but have you seen
some of the other postings on Craigslist? There are many other
posts which, while they arent similar to this one, are of equally
poor taste in my opinion. Yet they are allowed to continue to be
hosted on Craigslist.

You see, to me there are so many issues at play in this one simple
post. Just consider the racism issue for a second. Who
determines that it is racist? And how does one know if a post is
indeed racist?

Lets look at the apartment ratings site for a second. If I was to
post there about an apartment complex that housed primarily
white people and that was ok by me, would I then be considered
a racist? If so, why would you consider me a racist? Because I said
that it was ok that mostly white people lived there? Does that
make me a racist or the apartment owner/manager for renting
mostly to white people? Perhaps it is a community that has a small
ethnic population C does that mean that the towns fathers are
racist because they are not allowing different ethnicities to reside
there?

When does the racist card stop being played?

Racism aside, why should Craigslist have to censor its postings? Is
there some acceptability threshold? Some common denominator
that says your post is OK but mine isnt? This then leads to the
larger issue of who decides what is common decency?

If the community as a whole should decide what is acceptable, why
is it then up to the private business (in this case Craiglist) to
enforce that common decency protocol?

Because this is a privately run, for-profit business it should be up
to them to decide how to run their business. I dont think Google
actively filters racist sites from its search results, so why arent
they being sued because that content is also freely and easily
accessible through a Google search?

In the end, I think if you are a believer in true freedom of speech
with no strings attached, you must support sites like Craigslist and
Apartmentratings. Because if you dont, you never
know where the government or lawyers will stop.

Before you know it our Internet could be as heavily censored as
Chinas. And then where will democracy live?