Occasionally the subject of website censorship comes up. Recently at Blogcritics an article was posted by a newer blogcritic/writer named Mike Larkin which at least one blog and many commenters at that blog, found to be out of bounds and needing to be censored by the webmaster (Eric Olsen).

My response to the question: should Blogcritics censor posts follows, and though it is somewhat direct it is also a general guideline for all websites, I think. I should make the disclaimer that I’m not an attorney, so this isn’t meant to be construed as a legal point of view, but that of a fellow webmaster who owns and operates many different websites and has done so for several years:

Every website follows some doctrine of censorship, either written or unwritten.

However, I have posted before that if there is going to be an editor(s) that would be fine and if there is going to be no editor(s) that is fine too. With no exceptions that I can think of offline and few exceptions online, every professional publication has editors and editorial guidelines. Writers are used to this, or become that way quickly if they are newer to the profession.

And have no false illusions, writing is a profession.

My prediction is that someday editors and eding will become necessary (at Blogcritics) despite Eric posting that he doesn’t want it to be this way. The reason it will be become necessary is that some people will abuse the freedom that Eric has put in place. Historically, a small few spoil policy and procedure for the group as a whole.

It’s just a matter of time.

While most writers, the good ones usually, can police themselves the majority of the time on the nature of the content they produce, editors still perform a very viable and necessary service for publications.

Also, there has to be at least a limited form of censorship on all websites because there are certain things that cannot be posted for legal reasons. Those common sense items: things promoting illegal activity, copyright infringement, plagiarism. Things that can and will get the host to take action on the content. Host level censorship.

Mike Larkin’s post, whether one finds it in extremely poor taste, some great literary achievement or somewhere in between, doesn’t cross the threshold of something a host would have to intervene on for legal reasons. The webmaster has the ability to allow the content to reach certain boundaries and then he must take action — or the host will.

If something is that egregious (illegal) that the host would probably take action on complaint(s), I would argue that there is little point in people whining about it publically. The logical course of action is to take it to private email with Eric and then to the host, and possibly even the authorities, if necessary.

Bottom line is that webmasters know where these legal limits are because they are usually written in the Terms of Service in his hosting agreement. There is legal precedence for hosts being responsible for the content/activities maintained on the server (legally they cannot plead ignorance), though many hosts will identify spam as being the number one actionable offense because that will get them shut down the fastest, they also will intervene — sooner or later — on illegal content, when notified. If they don’t then they can and will be shut down eventually. That is, if the complaints are serious and legitimate.

So it’s not really, factually up to the webmaster, as he/she rents hosting and the host decides the Terms of Service boundaries.

Eric has posted that he already conducts a limited form of copyediting, which seems good enough to me in most cases to protect the quality of the work produced on the website. But he cannot completely turn his head on the content posted here — and I don’t think he does. At least as long as his name is on the hosting agreement.

Did this post make you go hmm?

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