![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
But seriously folks. This whole LJ drama and Six Apart and everyone is so mad and has their panties in a bunch, talking about freedom of speech and the lack thereof, has me shaking my head.
Well, guess what folks? Six Apart and Live Journal together are a private company, offering a members only subscription service. They can do whatever they want. There is no violation of free speech, because this speech is not free. We pay for the privilege to post here, whether through actual money or looking at advertising. And as mis-guided and odious as the great LJ purge of 2007 is, it's perfectly within their right.
So, all these people are yelling "Free speech! Our rights are being violated!" and they really don't have a leg to stand on. The first amendment to the United States Constitution says:
"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."
It does not say that businesses have to extend that right, because they don't. If you walk into a fine restaurant and you're ugly, stinky and dirty, they have every right to ask you to leave. And if Live Journal doesn't like an account, they have every right to delete it. And, everyone has the right to be mad and the right to fight it through complaints, which seem to be working. But the government did not shut down LJ; the government did not tell Six Apart to take down those blogs; the company bowed under pressure from some public vigilante group. And while that is distasteful, it's well within the right of a privately owned company to do so.
Our government is falling into a dictatorship and we're letting our freedoms (real Constitutional freedoms) slip away through our fingers as they type diatribe after diatribe about Live Journal. I think the Americans here have their priorities out of whack.
Well, guess what folks? Six Apart and Live Journal together are a private company, offering a members only subscription service. They can do whatever they want. There is no violation of free speech, because this speech is not free. We pay for the privilege to post here, whether through actual money or looking at advertising. And as mis-guided and odious as the great LJ purge of 2007 is, it's perfectly within their right.
So, all these people are yelling "Free speech! Our rights are being violated!" and they really don't have a leg to stand on. The first amendment to the United States Constitution says:
"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."
It does not say that businesses have to extend that right, because they don't. If you walk into a fine restaurant and you're ugly, stinky and dirty, they have every right to ask you to leave. And if Live Journal doesn't like an account, they have every right to delete it. And, everyone has the right to be mad and the right to fight it through complaints, which seem to be working. But the government did not shut down LJ; the government did not tell Six Apart to take down those blogs; the company bowed under pressure from some public vigilante group. And while that is distasteful, it's well within the right of a privately owned company to do so.
Our government is falling into a dictatorship and we're letting our freedoms (real Constitutional freedoms) slip away through our fingers as they type diatribe after diatribe about Live Journal. I think the Americans here have their priorities out of whack.
