Here it comes..Censorship that is.  This topic is so interesting, because of the 1st ammendment that gives people Freedom of Speech, that lets people express themselves and their views freely.  i looke the definition up inhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech  and it is described as: "freedom of speech is often regarded as an integral concept in modern liberal democracies, to outlaw censorship."  Censorship is defined as the control of speech and other forms of human expression often by, but not limited to governmet intervention. 

I am extremely torn by the idea of censorship.  I hate the thought of someone telling you what is and is not correct to say or think.  But on the other hand, I hate knowing that there are people out there who abuse the rights they have and can use it to be destructive and hurt others.  Dr. Halavais used Pee Wee Herman as an example with being tied to child pornography-basically saying that a person has the right to distribute "child porn tapes because that is there right.  I disagree with that more than anything else in the world.  Reason being that if a person has a right to distribute such tapes, we all know that this will pervoke another to go and perform those acts and just because you want to be that crazy person running around chanting freedom of speech- I have the right think of that child who will be ruined for the rest of their life because no one was allowed to take action.  In cases like this I am all for censorship. 

Wheither we like to accept the truths or not, people cannot be trusted and that really sucks because it hurts others who are trying to express themselves in harmless ways.  I have always been a person to defend peoples freedoms, especially freedom of speech but when I listened to Dr. Halavais's lecture it really bothered me and made me realize that freedom of speech that we would love people like Harry Flynt, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton (wheither we agree or not) to have we shouldn't allow others (child predators) to have.

This blog is hard for me to conclude with i used this blog to throw down my thoughts on this topic.  Censorship scares me because I can honestly say I DONT KNOW.  Just like everything there are positives and negatives,and in this case the United Statesis run on the positives of free speech, but the freedom of speech can also cause some serious problems.  I would love for someone to give me there insight because this topic really freaks me out!