[At-Large] 9th Circuit Court ruling on ICANN Contract.

[Evan Leibovitch]

The answer to this is a thundering "so what?"

The right to free speech is not accompanied anywhere by the obligation of
anyone to provide a soapbox. Never has been -- just as the inability to find
a publisher does not constitute censorship.

I'd you want to talk about media concentration or the difficulty to be
heard, go ahead. But that's no longer a free speech argument.  So please
stop phrasing it as such.

- Evan (sent from my Android phone)

On 2011-01-11 4:50 PM, "Karl Auerbach" <karl at cavebear.com> wrote:

On 01/11/2011 11:25 AM, Evan Leibovitch wrote:

> I continue to be bewildered by the baseless assert...
Sure - but lack of a domain name is a handicap.

By way of analogy - One can speak freely without owning a TV network
(such as Fox News), but it sure makes your voice a lot louder if you
have one.

Similarly one can speak on the net without a domain name, but that means
giving up a lot of decibels in the form of search engine listings,
historical persistence, reputation, cross-linkage with other forms of
speech/media, control of the message, etc.

And by forcing individuals to give up their power of being anonymous
with a domain name that one thereby gives greater power to aggregate
structures - largely corporations - that can easily launder their
identity through any number of intermediaries.

It's sort of like stuffing a rag into the mouths of individuals on the
internet while giving a megaphone to others.


--karl--
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