We Want Media

It's just too bad Eric Bauman's idea of "free speech" is the freedom to steal everyone else's speech, slap his logo on it, claim it as his own, and make millions of dollars selling a gratuitous number of ads (many of which contain malicious code) all around the stolen content.

I actually think that the Internet could use some censorship. It's very easy to appreciate the freedom of the web when you are young and soaking in as much of the world as you can before you have to possess a few shreds of responsibility. It's impossible to imagine the web without its chaotic essence. But when you are raising children in a heavily mediated world and they have access to all of the scum online (and doesn't the web only make it easier for the crazies to flourish?), said freedom doesn't have that same soft, fluffy exterior anymore.

I think the idea of censoring the Internet is so appalling to most people because no one has proposed a good enough method to do it. It's a new medium, it's delicate, and it's not ready to be tampered with yet, at least not by our current government's standards.

Censoring the internet is a enormously bad idea. As perhaps the only free market of ideas in the world, the internet thrives on an anything goes attitude. The question of whether censorship is appropriate for protecting children is null. If parents don't want their kids to see nasty stuff online, they should keep them from doing it. It is the parents responsability to prevent it not the pervs responsability. And think of all the counter-culture communties online that some uptight Senator would want to censor - people who are doing no wrong but being differnt.

And like with most cases of censorship, once that step is taken, there's no turning back.

Actually, it's rather foolish of you to think the internet should not be protected and governed by our leaders. What is the difference between internet and regular life? There is none. Just as we need our leaders to guide us, keep us out of danger--protecting us both from others and from ourselves--we need them to protect us from the internet. Regulate the internet, tax the internet, make new laws, elect new congressmen, God Bless America, my home sweet home. hallelujah! Jesus Christ is my Congressman and President. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I am a patriot; you are a patriot; God is a patriot. Amen. Yeehaw.

All of Ebaum's april fools pranks have been done on other sites before like Stileproject. NOTHING about ebaum is original.