Stars Can't Express Themselves On The Internet (Inspired By Terry McMillan)

The internet is a fun place. Actually it's more than a fun place. For some of us who's lives are not quite established and we're trying to find a voice the internet can serve as our outlet. For those people who have lived their lives and have tons of advice to give, the internet can be their outlet too. The only problem is if those people are stars they can't express themselves as much as they want.



Months ago I joined Terry McMillan's fan page on Facebook. It was beneficial at first because she gave out tons of advice to writers. Then once I started using twitter more I started following on her there. Twitter was better, because I saw the real person. She rarely held back on her thoughts. While she rarely held back, soon she might not voice her opinion anymore,  because unfortunately stars can't just speak.

What caught the media's (or at least internet's) attention was a comment she made about Jada and Will's Smith's children. She felt they were being pimped. Then she talked about how she always wanted her son to think of himself as normal. Many bloggers read her tweets and wrote blogs about her opinion. The comments left under those blogs had mixed reactions. However, it shouldn't have been that way. It was Ms. McMillan's opinion to say what she did. Today she retracted her previous comments with an apology. She also told her readers that twitter is not the best forum to express all opinions. She then said it's too bad people don't pay as much attention when it comes to politics or other serious matters.

The sad part is stars get judged the hardest for their opinions. If they wear fur they're bad. If they vote their good, but if the vote for the wrong party they are judged. They can't give out opinions about how a family should be raised or even talk about government issues.

The sadder part to this is stars aren't the only ones being scrutinized. As of this moment we all hop onto the internet to express out thoughts. We create Facebook and twitter pages. We then create blogs to really express how we feel. Some people create blogs to express others thoughts, which is how Terry McMillan's comments on the Smith kids became such a big deal. But soon we really won't know how much we can express.

There's a internet kill switch bill which is trying to be passed. It originally came out last summer and had some revisions in December. This bill gives the president access to either shut down the internet or parts of the internet if he feels it's a threat to our country. The bill isn't exactly clear on the type of threat the president would be looking for. Could that threat be the leaking of government information or could entertainment blogs be the threat? In other countries Facebook and twitter have been blocked, so I don't know enough about this bill. This was just some food for thought.