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Discussion: Censorship and Freedom of Speech

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carms	Censorship and Freedom of Speech Sep 2 2009, 1:26 PM EDT \| Post edited: Sep 11 2009, 4:17 PM EDT The Background: A computer system manager at a public university noticed that the number of Web accesses to the system jumped dramatically. In one day, there were 13,000 accesses to one student's home page. The system manager discovered this student's home page contained several sexually oriented pictures. The pictures were similar to those published in many magazines available legally. The system manager told the male student to remove the pictures. The Grievance Cases: A female student who accessed the pictures before they were removed filed a grievance against the university for sexual harassment. The male student who set up the home page filed a grievance against the university for violation of his First Amendment rights. Your Assignment: 1. Develop an argument for the female student, the male student, and the university based on freedom of speech and censorship as it applies to them. 2. Who do you feel should be held responsible and Why? Post reply Do you find this valuable? Keyword tags: None
Shortalmainway	1. RE: Censorship and Freedom of Speech Sep 9 2009, 9:36 PM EDT \| Post edited: Sep 9 2009, 9:36 PM EDT Am not very sure about the question.....I'll still answer it though. Well, both the male and female post pictures that are revealing, the other creates it but, also puts pictures there that should be kept to himself/herself. They both think that the university if violating the 1st amendment, because they have the "right" to post pictures of themselves almost naked or fully naked. They might think its sexual harassment for looking at the pictures, but if the student's didn' want people to see it then why did they put them where people have access to view "things'. I think that both should be responsible because, a person in university should know better than that, and the university itself should have a limit on pictures, but at the same time their trusting their student's since they are know adult's, and should know the differnce between revealing pictures and normal pictures. Post reply Do you find this valuable?
chocolatereena	2. RE: Censorship and Freedom of Speech Sep 9 2009, 10:41 PM EDT whoa, whoa, whoa! 1. Okay, I understand where the female student is coming from. The most logical thing to do when coming across something like that is to point fingers at the most logical entity responsible. The male student brought the Constitution into the argument. He is correct, it is a violation of First Amendment rights, but there are some questions that need to be answered before seeing the university's view. If this "home page" is on the male student's personal domain name, then, according to my interpretation of law, the university has absolutely no right to tell that male student what to do, the male student would probably win his argument, and the female student is pointing fingers at the wrong entity. She should be filing against the male student. Contrarily, what if this "home page" is on the university's personal social network? I have seem some universities have a little social networking within their university's domain. If this is the case, then the university holds the right to moderate what goes on under its domain, the male student is wrong in his conviction, because technically, it is not "his" home page, but the university's home page that he is using. This is comparable to a wall. If one draws on a wall of a domestic household that they own, no one can stop them, unless, like the female, they find it objectionable and harassing. If one draws on a wall of someone else's property, then they are in trouble. I digress; the male student's argument fails, the female student correctly files against the university, and the university can be in significant amounts of trouble and lawsuits because of that one student. 2. Who should be responsible? Personally, I do not think that there is enough evidence and information to be able to accurately point fingers. There is a lot of ambiguity, which I mentioned above. Post reply Do you find this valuable?
psychoCHAN	3. RE: Censorship and Freedom of Speech Sep 10 2009, 5:35 AM EDT 1. Female student By the law, she does have the right to sue the University if she felt sexual harassment. Even though the picture is deleted after she saw the picture, the feeling of sexual harassment does not go away. Male student we all do agree that puting the inapporpriate picture on the site is worng, but i am questioning the poliy of the site. Did university not state the rule or the policy before the male student join as memeber or posting a picture? Anyhow, by the law of child protection, his act of puting sexual oriented pictures that can be viewed for under 18 is iligal, there for, he can be punished by the law. University The female can be able to sue the University, and University does not have any excuse to get out of sue. Becuase clearly the picture was posted on the space where university create, and administrators suppose to catch this kind of problem earlier, but it faild. 2. I think the femle student can sue the University, and University can punish male student IF they stated the rule of posting limites. However, I would like to blame administrator for not doing their job effectivly. Post reply Do you find this valuable?
jennnny(:	4. RE: Censorship and Freedom of Speech Sep 10 2009, 11:02 AM EDT First of all the male student is right, they are violating the First Amendment for not being able to express himself freely. But I think to an extent that he should not be posting up these kinds of pictures on an university home page (even though it is his own). And the female student should not worry about what is posted upon a site. I mean maybe she is trying to help out herself and other people, but I think if she does not want to see these kinds of details then she should not go into the site to look at them. She now knows there is pictures of some sort she dislikes, but she should just worry about herself and not others. In my opinion I feel the male student to be responsible for this problem. He should review the First Amendment better, it does say he has the freedom to express himself, but I feel as if he should know up until what extent. If he wants attention from the public I think he should post his pictures on a site where he knows it is appropriate to post. Post reply Do you find this valuable?
lexi_=)	5. RE: Censorship and Freedom of Speech Sep 13 2009, 7:01 PM EDT Female student:I'm not even sure this girl has an argument to begin with!If she wasn't the one in the sexually explicit photos then why is she filing a grievance for sexual harassment? She wasn't sexually harassed!We all see things that we don't approve of and may offend us but we can't just go filing grievances just because we get offended!However, if she was the one in the photos then she has every right to file for sexual harassment. This guy just took those pictures of her without her permission and put them on the web for everybody to see! He completely exploited her and her privacy as well, because if she didn't give him permission to use those pictures that means that he had to go looking for them and who knows where he got them.Male student:Is he serious?! Violation of his First Amendment Rights!He is not using his own website to display these pictures, but of all websites a university website! This guy has no argument at all in my opinion. That's just like if I were to post those type of pictures on Myspace.They would not have it! Even though I may have put them on my own page its still like "under" Myspace. There are certain rules and guidelines you have to follow and the male student didn't follow them. Plus the First Amendment has nothing to do with the Internet and says nothing about it being okay to display any content you want on another website, even if you do have a homepage on there.University: The university has every right to tell the male student to remove those pictures. This is a school website and once again even though it is his homepage he still can't do whatever he wants to do with it because there are certain rules and guidelines I'm sure he had to follow but didn't and now he wants to get mad. I think the male student is absolutely accountable for this whole problem. If he had never posted the pictures in the first place this would have never happened. Post reply Do you find this valuable?
Skylar_010	6. RE: Censorship and Freedom of Speech Sep 14 2009, 12:05 AM EDT Female Student I understand why the student would feel like she does but I do not think that she should be able to file a grievance because she chose to go on the site no one forced her and it does not say where the pictures were on the page. So I cannot say whether she looked in the picture gallery or if it was on the actual page but either way it was her choice to go to the male student’s page. Male Student Well he is right about violating his freedom of speech, but then I don’t know because it is a photo. If the University had any guide lines on what is allowed and not allowed to be posted will determine if he has a true case. I also do not understand why the student would think that it would be ok to even display those types of pictures on a university page, but that was his choice. The University is responsible for monitoring the pages. They should allow each student their right to free speech but they should have guidelines and rules that each student with a page should have to be held up to. If that is the case then the university will not be held responsible for their actions of asking the students to remove the inappropriate pictures. As far as the sexual harassment case I do not know if it should be charged to the university or to the male student who decided to post the vulgar pictures. Post reply Do you find this valuable?
Sydney_0911	7. RE: Censorship and Freedom of Speech Sep 16 2009, 3:19 PM EDT I can see the female student's point of view, and i understand her being offended by the photos. However, i feel that she is directing her negative feelings toward the incorrect party. While the university is part of the way responsible for what is on their website they fulfilled their job requirements by taking off the pictures and reprimanding the boy, because while he is right about his freedom of speech he is also intelligent enough to self censor himself and realize that while this is a public network site that it is still related to a higher learning instituition. so i feel that he should be fored to deal with the consequences of his actions. The university is not able to closely monitor everyone profile because that is nearly impossible. But also if the page had received that many views then it is obvious to me that someone told the girl what was on the website before she went and viewed herself, so she should not have went on the young man's page and instead have just reported it to the correct authoritive figure, but instead she chose to go and view the files for herself which she did not have to just because it was there. Post reply Do you find this valuable?
Shortalmainway	8. RE: Censorship and Freedom of Speech Sep 20 2009, 9:11 PM EDT The female student shouldnt feel grievance toward the university for sxual harassment, its totally differnt from feeling and actuall being harrassed. I understand that First amendment rights lets her take pictures, but they should be kept to herself. She should also know better not to post picture that are suxual oriented. The school should have also put a rule of something towards the pictures that can be taken and posted on line since its being done in campus. The male student has the right to feel grievance, because he created the home page and it;s violating the first amendment, however he should know that if his going to put something inapropriate he should look up the polocies for things that can be posted on the home page, and if he didnt find any; and the university told him he couldnt put he had evidence that in no book says that he cant post sexual oriented pictures online espacially on campus then he would have the rights. The male student should know better than that then to post pictures like that online, because many people view them and it should also be common sense since your in school. Who should be responsible: I think all of them have resposibility, because the students should know not to post pictures like that online. The university should have a rule book or something that says what can and cant be posted on home page, so students can be aware of the situtation. Post reply Do you find this valuable?

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