Censoring the Uncensored
Written by Therefore
January 9th started out as an average day for me. I went to school, came home, finished homework, and hung out with my brother. Later that night, I tried to check my email. This is where it started. All of a sudden, I could not sign in. It said repeatedly that my password was incorrect. Then I tried to check my myspace; the same thing happened. I did everything I could. Even my “Secret Question” had been changed. Needless to say, I was distraught. Everything was in my email inbox, including the passwords to Post Falls Uncensored.
I messaged my own myspace pleading for whoever was doing this to just give me back my passwords. There were so many important things being sent to it including college application replies, and scholarship replies. My heart skipped a beat when I received a reply. It read,
Don't worry. I have enough respect not to delete any of you college stuff. Actually i didn't delete any of it...But let's just say this is because of your little uncensored site. If you want your password back you need to take those pictures off...Please be kind. That webpage is very disrespectful. I will respectful of you if you are respectful to your fellow peers. Email me when that page is gone and i will give you your passwords back. Is that a deal?
I do not really see the ‘disrespect.’ I know this is about the article “Flaunting Underage Drinking,” and it is ridiculous that people get so angry about those pictures being posted on this website when they were previously posted on another, more popular website. I would have never taken them down; I am much too stubborn, and my beliefs are much too strong. Before I even had a chance to respond, I received the following,
You can have your email back now and your old myspace if you want it, it's yours. I got what I wanted.
As fast as my shaking fingers could type, I went to Post Falls Uncensored (1). It was completely gone. Someone had gone so far as to delete the entire website (including all of Holly’s work from last year, which had nothing to do with this article). If you go to the old address, you will find the following paragraph,
This shit is over! Well hello everyone... There is no more Post Falls Uncensored! No more bashing the popular kids and making a big deal about nothing! This site was very disrespectful to my fellow peers and took the necessary action to stop it! Thanks!
The pink background was a nice touch. I find it hilarious that this anonymous person did not find deleting hours and hours of someone’s work ‘disrespectful,’ since after all, respect is so important to him or her. The submitter of “Flaunting Underage Drinking” only wanted the law of the United States of America to be respected. Is that so much to ask for? Making a big deal out of nothing? If the law is nothing to this person, they need serious help. And who bashed popular kids? And who said those people were popular anyways? I certainly do not think so. That article was not about bashing popular kids, it was about underage drinking. If a person has a problem with the United State's law, he or she should take it to court, not just defy it. “Flaunting Underage Drinking” was an opinion article. If someone had a different opinion, they were free to write it, and I would have posted it without even hesitating (even if I disagreed). So thank you anonymous destroyer of Post Falls Uncensored for showing the students of PostFallsHigh School what respect is all about. And how creepy is it that someone I do not even know broke into my email inbox, website, and myspace? I would like to point out that this is also illegal. I will make sure to lock my doors at night.
According to Rodney Smolla, “Freedom of speech is the right to defiantly, robustly and irreverently speak one’s mind just because it is one’s mind. Freedom of speech is thus bonded in special and unique ways to the human capacity to think, imagine and create. Conscience and consciousness are the sacred precincts of mind and soul. Freedom of speech is intimately linked to freedom of thought, to that central capacity to reason and wonder, hope and believe, that largely defines our humanity” (2). Freedom of speech will live on in American, and in Post Falls. We owe no one the respect to cover up for their law-breaking. Post Falls Uncensored is almost completely restored, and we will not be silenced. We are the minority, and we have rights.
1. http://www.geocities.com/postfallsuncensored
2. http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/Speech/overview.aspx