The EFF cautions that a blogger should not abuse the power to edit comments posted by others on their blog. This is explained in light of Section 230, which grants a blogger the right to edit in good faith certain comments which might be found to fall outside of the limits of common decency.
In this current age of internet anonymity allowing people the secrecy to post negative, obscene and altogether harassing comments, I find it difficult to navigate the ethics around editing comments. On the one hand, I am of the mind that inappropriate, hateful comments should be deleted without pause. Especially in this era of seeming media illiteracy, these comments are negative to the process and should not be tolerated as legitimate speech. On the other hand, I am a staunch supporter of free speech. Where do these two concerns meet in the middle? Where is the happy—or at least acceptable—medium?
Take the recent example of the County Music Awards (“CMAs”). Beyoncè joined the Dixie Chicks onstage for a performance. Following the ceremony, commenters posted racist and sexist remarks in such abundance that the CMAs removed all mention and video of the performance from their website. Most of me is sickened by this development; however, is not one of the lessons we are learning from this past election that we need to hear each other’s opinions, even when they are ugly? That is an answer I’m not quite ready to accept.
http://www.tmz.com/2016/11/03/beyonce-dixie-chicks-scrubbed-racist-cma-website-black-lives-matter/
Strategically Communicating 
I wasn’t shocked to see or hear about hate-speech directed at Beyonce and The Dixie Chicks after their performance on Country Music Television. In a sense, the current election cycle (in addition to social media), has allowed hate-speech to become the new norm . . .again. The actual surprise came when I realized how fast the video and comments were removed from the CMT website. How did this happen so fast? More importantly, why? Were the comments removed because racist and sexist individuals spewed disgusting things about them in a public forum or were the comments removed so quickly because a majority of the world adores Beyonce and The Dixie Chicks? P.s. The “Bey-hive” is a real thing.
I agree with the 1st Amendment granting Americans freedom of speech, however, some of the censorship used in other places maybe beneficial to the ways we communicate with one another on social media. In my opinion, setting, monitoring, and carrying out decency standards for social media would help curb the level of hate speech in general.
The Federal Communications Commission requires platforms like radio and television to adhere to rules, but why is this not a thing for social media? We are using social media for everything nowadays, and in my opinion, it is not well regulated.
I think we as people need to hold one another accountable, flag what is offensive in general, and do a better job reacting as quickly as CMT did. Not just for celebrities, but for the betterment of people around us.
By: sommerbrz on November 27, 2016
at 9:50 pm