(This Post Has Been Removed Due to Censorship)

I'm no newcomer to social media by any means. My generation grew up on social media (literally) switching from site to site as the trends changed. It wasn't until Facebook that one site truly appeared as a front runner. In the early days trends and where you were dictated which site was bigger. I remember my cousin in Georgia asking why I was on Facebook when Myspace was the big site at the time. Well, it was because I lived in a college town and Facebook had taken off more in my area.

The first prominent social network, if you can call it that, that I became familiar with was Xanga. Just thinking about Xanga makes me cringe at my embarrassing posts, and overuse of emoticons and feel wonderfully nostalgic all at the same time. This early social network was really more of a blog where you had a newsfeed of your friends' posts than what we consider a social network today. But first and foremost,  Xanga was considered your online diary. You even had the option to make a post only viewable to your if it was especially private. You weren't ridiculed for sharing too much information or making a post too long. It was a great way to get to know what was really going on in your friends' lives beyond what you saw in the future.

Now flash forward to today. Social media has lost its focus as an online diary and in fact, we criticize those who use it as such. We've turned to blogs to be able to express an opinion since we're no longer able to do so on social media. You can even get in trouble in real life for the opinions you express online. There's countless examples of this: employees being fired for ridiculing their bosses, athletes being fined for saying they don't agree with another athlete's lifestyle choice, or simply bashing one of your Facebook friends for sharing too much. Not saying that I want to read a TMI status on Facebook, but I'm marvelling at what social media has become since I started using it. When did we become our Facebook profile?

The potential change that baffled me enough to write this blog was the new Hate Speech Bill that Senator Market has drafted. This bill will monitor online sources, TV, radio, and other media for hate speech. If this doesn't scare you, it should. I can't help but think that our founding fathers are rolling over in our graves right now. A country that was founded on the principle of free speech and prominently placed it as the First Amendment of the Constitution may now spend its resources to seek out speech that falls into their definition of hate speech?  By definition, hate speech can't be defined. So how are we supposed to know what's considered hate speech and what isn't? And another huge question: what is to become of the offenders? Will the first offense have their speech removed, then the punishment increase from there? I'm all for reporting suspicious material that you may come across as dangerous, but to me some government officials debating if a Twitter post hastily criticizing someone because of a racial stereotype should be construed as hate speech is just a little too creepy for my taste.