Freedom and the Internet

I have just learned that I have been banned from posting comments to news stories at the Discovery News website. This really surprises me because I am the typical egghead reader of that site. I can sort-of understand CNN’s website blocking me, and I can definitely understand a local news website blocking me, but I thought the people at Discovery News were my kind of people. I gotta say this really cut me, and I mean deep.

I think it’s strange that I get banned from website comment forums because I don’t say bad things about others in the forums, and I don’t say anything that is unwarranted. I also don’t use any language that is worse than what you normally find on those things either. If I can’t avoid a word, then I use some f**king asterisks to mask it. And most importantly, I don’t say anything specifically for the purpose of being mean. The only problem I can see is that I am brutally honest. In fact, one of the things that drew me to the internet way back in the day was the fact that it was originally an unblocked avenue of free speech.

Do you know what the problem is with Facebook? You can’t say anything questionable on there without the possibility of it coming back around to bite you in the butt. From what I hear, employers look up prospective employees on facebook to try to get a glimpse at the real them. The problem isn’t necessarily that you post pictures of one wild night out with friends, it’s that an employer will get the impression that those pictures depict the real you. So, now people have to strictly edit what they post on facebook, or more accurately, they have to be phony and lie about who they really are. People are not free to be themselves on facebook without the fear of the negative consequences.

So I guess what I am saying is, I think it’s strange to see that on the most powerful communication tool ever invented, people are being encouraged to lie. And since truth equals freedom in the grain of this blog post, it is really sad to see American freedoms being compromised to this extent.