I figure a pretty good opening post would be something about freedom of expression and censorship.

The recent events in Fergurson and the resulting media attempt to pour JP9 high octane jet fuel onto an already blazing and highly charged issue lead to some interesting points of view being shouted from the proverbial rooftops.
I honestly don't have too much of an opinion on the event itself, the various spin artists  and left/right aligned spokespersons and newspapers have done their best to ensure that it's easy to find news that conforms with whatever confirmation bias you already have. Thus digging through all that to discover the events of something that happened in another continent to people in a different (but admittedly similar) culture seems a bit of a waste of time, because even if I somehow did manage to discover "the truth" (at least the truth as I understood it) it would be rapidly dismissed by those who had their own "truths" that they had painstakingly researched. Such is the nature of these things.

However, it lead me to start thinking about the rights to freedom of speech and freedom of expression, and of course the flip side of that coin, censorship.
The highly charged nature of things like racism, rape, domestic violence, crimes against minors and other violent crimes means they are often a lightning rod for those who wish to strike a rallying call for society to make a stand against such horrible things. I'm not really opposed to this in general, "raising awareness" as much as I sneer at such slactivism can actually help people think about such horrible things a little more and maybe start to have a little more insight into the crimes other then the knee-jerk "Kill them, lock them up forever." which is to social change what sticking your fingers in your ears and gong "LA-LA-LA!" is to reasoned debate.
But should we, (and do we) draw a line when it comes to our media? The freedom of the presses to create their attention grabbing headlines and their click-bait articles regardless of the irresponsible nature of their work seems to have flown under the radar of  people who cry out for censorship.
Admittedly the government often responds to media pressure, I'm reminded of the headlines a few years ago damning the government for not having enough vaccines to inoculate the country against swine flu. Then three years later the same papers were sporting the headline condemning the government for wasting money on all those vaccines it  had gotten into stock which were now due to expire. The media had effectively bullied the government into "wasting money" only to condemn them years later for responding to the crisis it had manufactured.
It's a very powerful tool for shaping the opinions and policies of both the population and the government, a strong argument for censorship? Perhaps. But it's also one of the only ways outside of a voting that the proverbial "voice of the people" can be heard in the halls of power.

It's food for thought, perhaps instead of looking at what the voice of the people is saying through the newspapers and websites of the world, we should perhaps look closer at who is holding the megaphone to direct that voice, and what their agenda is.