So I'm scrolling through the features rather than the news and I come across this. Software developers, apparently, are under threat from censors. Apple is refusing to put violent games onto its iTunes store and Facebook is going to refuse to distribute some applications.
I'm interested mostly in the psychology that makes this idea offensive. It's rooted, quite deeply, in the original picure of the Internet as promoted by, I suppose, the original geek community who set it up. It was going to be the ultimate free for all, the great leveller - if you wanted to put something on the Internet, the argument ran, nobody was going to stop you.
Except someone is. But the point the article, and the book on which it's based. miss, is that this isn't strictly 'The Internet' being censored. It's a privately owned part of the Web. Yes, people are invited to take part in this area pretty much indiscriminately but it's wrong, wrong, wrong to assume that Apple, Facebook or anyone else is somehow obliged to carry content from a particular individual or company.
I mean, what's the point of owning a mega-successful company if you can't behave like an owner once in a while?
