It's the internet so I can say whatever I want.

Free speech is a great right that our government here in the good ol U.S. of A. gives us. However, just because the government gives it to us doesn't mean anyone else will. There's been news stories and controversy about the Chinese censoring the internet in their country and not wanting anything about democracy being read. Well, that's all them. It's China after all. Aside from Kung Pao Chicken, Kung-fu and cheap often shoddy labor there's not much we want from them, unless you're the previously mentioned government and then you want to borrow tons of money.

But this is America and we can say anything we want, especially on the internet! Right? Wrong.

This took an amusing turn when Deffie McDouche was threatening to sue GaiaOnline for banning his accounts. Gaiaonline is one of the biggest internet communities out there and like nearly every internet community they have a terms of service that you have to agree to if you want to be in that community. This is vital because it covers them legally and gives them all the reason they need to toss nutjobs off their site.

Terms of service agreements vary a bit from site to site. They state what you can and can't do on that website in accordance to the owners wishes. Its along the lines of going to a restaurant and that restaurant states that gentlemen must wear a tie to dine their. It's their business and they can run it however they like as long as it does not violate the law. The perceived sticking point was that the terms of service (ToS) conflicted with the Right to Free Speech. Well, it doesn't because no one is forcing people to use that website.

There's another forum out there in which I've seen some really horrible crap posted be supposedly intelligent people. However, when I became a member and recent attempted to start a thread about favorite holiday movies and specials it was deleted without any word or reasons given. However that forum's terms of service states clearly that they don't need to give any reason whatsoever to delete anything they want to. So was it a crappy thing to do? Kind of, but it's their site and they have the right to control the content of their site.

So those wanting total free speech may be thinking "well I'll just start a blog and then I can say whatever I want". Well, blogspot and youtube and any other site out there that lets you post content has their own ToS as well.

At this point if those people are so frustrated by ToS that they're ready to create they're own website just to get whatever they want to say out out to the masses, they want to think about what they want to say. Most ToS agreements are quite reasonable and are there to stop weirdos. If something you want to post violates a ToS you have to either question what you want to say or question why you want to say it on that site.

So yes, we do have Free Speech in America, but this isn't America, it's the internet.