The Friendly Guide to Regulating the Internet: Challenging Removal of Speech

Part three of The Friendly Guide to Internet Regulation is out.

The power to remove the speech of others is dangerous. Even when used with good intentions, removing the speech of others can end important arguments and innovations. For this reason, speech regulations usually allow a person to challenge the removal of his or her speech. Speech regulations that do not allow challenges are generally considered bad policy, and either do not become law, or do not survive the scrutiny of the courts.

Find the full post at FriendlyToS.

2015-12-29 Update

FriendlyToS is no longer on the Internet. The content of the originally referenced post has been reproduced below.

Understanding why Internet regulations are the way that they are is confusing. So, FriendlyToS is creating The Friendly Guide to Regulating the Internet, a set of brief introductions to the most important concepts in Internet regulations. Today we add the final section to this guide - a discussion of how tricky national sovereignty can be online.

Challenging Removal of Speech

Let's say a copyright owner can go around the Internet and take down works that infringe their copyrighted material. Under this law an overzealous creator of The Simpsons might take down millions of original animated videos like this one just because these videos also contain cartoon people, cats, and hamsters. If there is no process that allows the creators of these videos to prove their originality and get them back online, then millions of people might be unable to share billions of ideas because of a handful of copyright holders who are simply being a bit too protective of their creations.

The power to remove the speech of others is dangerous. Even when used with good intentions, removing the speech of others can end important arguments and innovations. For this reason, speech regulations usually allow a person to challenge the removal of his or her speech. Speech regulations that do not allow challenges are generally considered bad policy, and either do not become law, or do not survive the scrutiny of the courts.