Will censorship become the norm on the internet? Will freedom of speech eventually be quelled? Maybe not enitrely, but perhaps in the areas where it matters. It's not that crazy of a thought if you think about it.

Almost every major website that brings people together have two things in common, they are free to use and they are owned by people that like money.

If the site is free to use and the owners of the site still wants to make money then the money is going to have to come from somewhere...either the website has to advertise to the users so that they can make money off advertising or the the users of the website (us) become the product that they can sell to others.

Now the first option is rather straight forward so I won't speak on it. But the second option, that's what's interesting. If the users of the site become the product (much like what has happened on Goodreads) then you can expect that the users will eventually be treated as a product. This has already been seen in the form of censorship on Goodreads, look at it as a form of product management; the better the product the more money you can sell it for.

If this method is successful in selling more books and increasing revenue for Goodreads then you can be sure that other websites will be adopting it as well. Over time the method of telling users what they can and can not say will become the norm. Over time people will comply to these standards; the argument of "It's a free site, you agreed to our terms" will likely be enough for people to deal with new rules without creating too much fuss.



We have always worried that countries with vast armies might crush freedom of speech, but instead, it appears that websites with a good user interface and premise will do the trick.

If that's all it takes to make a person forfeit their freedom of speech, then maybe it's not a big deal to have it.

You summed stuff up nicely. We already gave up our freedom of speech and we didn't even notice. I believe there are ways to recover it (there are always ways) but I seriously question if enough people will understand, care, or be willing to do anything about it.

I have no doubt it can be stopped. If people wanted it to stop, it could be stopped rather easily in my opinion. But I really don't think people care. I think it partially has to do with social conditioning.

Kids sign up to facebook and other social media sites at a very young age. They are used to giving their info out and quickly hitting the agree button to everything. And when they sign onto these sites, nothing noticeable negatively effects them. All they know is that they are being included in something social, which younger people crave.

It's pretty hard to fight that...

That's truly a great article! Very good information! I'm always looking for that kind of stuff to post on here!

Sadly, there's not a single comment under it and no one seems to be discussing. But we don't have too much activity either at the moment.

I also can't find anything pertaining to goodreads itself on that site.

If you know where all that is that'd be great!