To begin, Twitter gets two thumbs up from Freakthinker.com for having the balls to actually address the issue of free speech, when they could have instead played the cover your ass game. A woman approached Twitter regarding another Twitter user posting defamatory remarks about her, and asked that Twitter ban the offending user. She cited portions of Twitter’s terms of service that say, in relevant part, that Twitter users should not use Twitter to harass or intimidate people. Instead of removing the offending user, Twitter responded by changing their terms of service to protect users’ rights to tweet as they please. Good for you, Twitter.

As a different perspective to yesterday’s post, today’s subject is free speech on the internet.

Yesterday, I encouraged you to really consider who might get their hands on your Twitter updates or your private Facebook messages. Today, I’m going ask you to question why you would ever change what you say on the internet just to suit someone else.

I have two caveats here. First, obviously anything you say and do on the internet is strictly your business. If you get in trouble (and by trouble, I mean sued, fired, divorced, beaten up, or whatever other malady might befall you because of something you’ve posted on your internet forum of choice) for something you’ve said on the internet, that’s entirely your problem. Second, there are definitely limits to free speech in this country that will be enforced against you regardless of where you express yourself, be it on the internet, in your local newspaper or whatever. You are responsible for your own slanderous or libelous remarks, or for defending yourself against the Men in Black when they show up to check into why you described in your Facebook notes your plans to build a nuke in your back yard!

With that said, why are we so worried who might see what we post online? We should instead consider why we are concerned that a future boss might read something and think negatively of us. What if the reason so many people are unhappy with their jobs is because they hide so much of who they are just to suit their boss or coworkers. Instead of showing up at their interview with their tattoos showing, they hide their skin and try to blend in. Instead of speaking up on their blog about how they feel about gun control, abortion or stinky feet, they censor themselves for fear that someone might eventually hold those opinions against them.

What if we surrounded ourselves with people who just accept that we all have opinions? I don’t just mean our friends or family; I mean our bosses, employees, and whomever else we interact with regularly? Instead of holding back on blogging some strong opinion you have, blog away and increase your chances of having a realistic, much more honest relationship with people (at least the people who Google you and see that you have some crazy opinions). So what if some company doesn’t hire you because you’re a rabid, flaming liberal?

Perhaps instead of worrying so much about possibly offending someone, we should instead radically explore our freedom of speech, in hopes that people will move more toward honesty and acceptance, and away from worrying about hurting each others’ feelings or offending someone’s ridiculous sensibilities.

One more thing–be prepared to deal with other people radically expressing their own right to say whatever they want too, even if what they are saying is offensive to you. Accepting free speech means that you are stuck dealing with someone who is making fun of you openly on the internet, rather than being able to sue them. Case in point: In Freeman v. Racinsky, Freeman is the author of a restaurant critic blog. Racinsky began a parody site, in which he makes fun of Freeman’s restaurant blog. Freeman is suing Racinsky for slander. Why should Freeman be able to critique whomever she pleases in her restaurant blog, but Racinsky can’t critique Freeman? Don’t dish it if you can’t take it.

Here are some interesting sites, including a link to an interesting case, regarding free speech and the internet.
Johnson v. Tucker Max. Tucker Max has a website where he details all his sexual exploits with various women. In Johnson v. Max, Johnson sued Tucker Max for telling a story about his sexual experiences with her (”The Miss Vermont Story”). In the initial suit, the judge found against Max, and issued a temporary injunction to restrict Max from talking about Ms. Johnson in any context on his website or in any other kind of publications. Max challenged this decision in the District Court, and interestingly, Johnson dropped the case.

Citizen.org’s Internet legal rights page.

Citizen Media Law database of legal actions relating to online speech.

Every day, social networking, blogging and microblogging sites increase in popularity. People turn to popular sites like Twitter and Facebook, where they can tell the world what they are doing, how they are feeling, and what they had for lunch. Seems like fun, right? Who doesn’t want all their friends to know exactly what their day was like, or what their opinion is of their scary next door neighbor? Who doesn’t want to express their well thought out opinions on their blogs, and receive the digital reactions of friends and random strangers?

Unfortunately, people forget that the internet is unforgiving, and it doesn’t forget. Generally speaking, once something is submitted to the internet, even if it is done so as a private message or a protected blog post, that information can be viewed by unintended audiences.

According to Carolyn Elefant at Legal Blog Watch, 258 web-related court actions have been filed already this year.(1) Recently, a magistrate judge in England posted updates regarding cases he was hearing to his Twitter. (2). The judge was reprimanded, and he stepped down from the bench because of the controversy.

There was a case in Canada this year that is more relevant to typical users of social media sites. In Leduc v. Roman, 2009 CanLII 6838, the claimant was ordered to produce Facebook status updates as part of the discovery process in the case, even though the status updates were made on a private page. The reason? To prove that Leduc’s claim that the defendant’s negligence had caused a loss of enjoyment of life for Leduc was false. While this case was in a Canadian court, you can rest assured that it will only be a matter of time until a similar decision is made by an American judge.

What does this mean for you? It means that all those opinions, status updates, tweets and blog posts you make can be held against you in a court of law. Even the ones that you make privately. You should absolutely remember this whenever you submit any kind of information to the internet. You never know when your words could come back to haunt you.