Facebook has entered the censorship arena by actively blocking a Pirate Bay linking app and perhaps more worrisome, censoring emails on its messaging system that contain links to the site. Users are also blocked from cutting and pasting Pirate Bay URLs into Facebook messages. This has lead to questions of whether the popular social networking site is violating free speech. Some say because Facebook must read emails to see if they contain the prohibited links they could be in violation of federal wiretapping laws.
Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt told TorrentFreak, “Facebook respects copyrights and our Terms of Service prohibits placement of ‘Share on Facebook’ links on sites that contain “any content that is infringing. Given the controversy surrounding The Pirate Bay and the pending lawsuit against them, we’ve reached out to The Pirate Bay and asked them to remove the ‘Share on Facebook’ links from their site. The Pirate Bay has not responded and so we have blocked their torrents from being shared on Facebook.”
Given that Pirate Bay is known for offering copyrighted content, I can see why Facebook would want to avoid any connection with them, but is censorship the answer? As long as no illegal content (videos, music, movies, etc) is posted on Facebook should they really be blocking simple links?
Interestingly enough, Facebook is not blocking any other bittorrents, only Pirate Bay. What do you think about Facebook’s decision to block Pirate Bay? Are they doing the right thing? Going too far? Leave a comment with your thoughts!
Read [PCWorld]
well since its their website offered to you for free and run by a private company, it's their choice whether to allow the magnetic pins on their own hard drives to be aligned a certain way or not especailly when you agreed to a terms of use. it's not like they are actually looking into your email or copying it onto the CEO's email