[SGVLUG] Stiring the pot: online freedom ?

[Emerson, Tom (*IC)]

Recently, a friend sent me a --physical-- newspaper clipping [she's
still a bit new to the internet, but at least she runs SuSE on her
laptop...]  A little bit of googling around found the article,
ironically enough, on Yahoo...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080706/ap_on_hi_te/tec_disappearing_freedom
s

[Ironic in the fact that it's about Flickr's apparent censorship
policies/practices, and Flickr is a Yahoo "property"]

She included a note that reads in part, "...I can see censoring
pornagraphy and ultra-bad language, but a kid smoking a cigarette in
Romania, for god's sake, come on!"

This got me to thinking about things, and I came up with this "devil's
advocate" thought:

    what, exactly, would lead a person to believe
    they actually have the "right" to free speech
    or expression when dealing with a private entity?

After all, you are either there "as a guest" [for "monatarily free"
accounts] or under contract [when you pay them to host your photos],
both of which have limits as to what you can or cannot publish (though
apparently these limits are not always stated in advance)  Incidentally,
the particular picture in question appears to have been re-instated: 

http://flickr.com/photos/maartend/1429385268/in/set-72157600751049378/

She also commented "If censorship is practiced on the Internet, why does
child pornagraphy exist on it?"

To which I might reply, "Oh, so you want to eat your cake as well, do
you?"  This is the slippery slope bit -- where to draw the line and all
that.  On the one hand you want "free speech", on the other it's "OK to
censor /some/ speech" [or expression, in this case via photos]  Perhaps
the hardest pill to swallow is the fact that protecting "freedom of
speech" also means protecting "unpopular speech", and by it's very
definition precludes ever classiffying speech/expression as "illegal" in
the first place.

What's your take on this?

Tom