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Censorship and the Internet
The Internet is the fastest growing and largest tool for mass communication and information distribution in the world. People use the Internet for communication, expressing their opinions, or obtaining unlimited information access. Nowadays, the issue of wether is it necessary to have censorship on the Internet is being argued all over the world. Censoring the Internet can protect children from strangers, filter unpleasant material and prevent young people imitating negative behaviour. However, it is apparent that filtering the Internet is against the freedom of information, anti-educational and it is difficult to develop people’s ideas and views. This essay aims to discuss the issue of restricted information on the Internet. It will be argued that censorship of the Internet interferes with people having a broad range of ideas, views and experiences.
It could be argued that Internet censorship might protect children from interacting one-on-one with strangers on the Internet. Children are innocent, so they often trust stranger who they talk with via the Internet. According to National Opinion Poll (2000, cited in Allbon & Williams 2002:1), for the sake of receiving free samples, gifts or information or even to start up a friendship, one third of 7-16-year-old Internet users would give out their home address. Furthermore, a study by National Academic Press (2002:3) indicates that chatting with strangers is the potential harm to children becaus...
Albanesius, C. (2013, April 13). Google Sees Spike in Government Requests to Remove Political Content. Retrieved from PCMagazine: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2418168,00.asp
There are over 2,405,518,376 internet users on a global scale. More than 50% of the world have a form of Internet censorship, and of those countries China, North Korea, Iran, and Vietnam heavily restrict its citizens. This recent topic has reached new heights in the US with the growing number of access to internet. More and more people are debating whether the internet should be censored. Internet censorship is the control or suppression of what can be accessed, published, or viewed on the internet. This would affect everyone and me. I specifically use the internet to read about controversial view and other information that gets ignored by the media or isn’t circulated anymore. Most of these sites would fall in the black list of censoring. A small percentage of users post conspicuous posts, graphic material, and infringing copyright links. Although inappropriate it shouldn’t demand internet censorship, because it goes against the individual rights of the people. Freedom of speech and press will be restricted by the government. To a point where people would be scared to express themselves, or spread information for they might be punished. Even if their opinion is erroneous and maleficent, it’s still that person’s opinion and he’s entitled to it. Same can be said for the common good everyone should be able to voice their opinions without censorship anywhere. Everyone should also have the access to any information on the internet. If anyone is offended by what is said on the internet, then they can remember to not visit the webpage next time and hold themselves accountable. This paper will examine the issue of internet censorship constituting a violation to the American people individual rights, common good, and the constitution.
Tears begin to fall down a child’s face. Her body goes into shock out of fear. Her mother warned her about watching inappropriate content, and there it was, right on her computer screen. This could not have happened though. All she was doing was casually browsing the internet before a pop-up appeared. Although it may seem hard to believe, the major cause of events such as this is the lack of censorship on the internet. Internet censorship relates to the removal of offensive, inappropriate, or controversial content published online. The current problem with the internet is that there are few restrictions on what can be published or viewed. Several sites on the internet only offer a warning about inappropriate content that can easily be bypassed by agreeing to the terms. Other websites provide access to private or military information. More dreadfully, however, are websites that use their explicit content as a promotion. These factors bring the conclusion that anybody of any given age can view and publish inappropriate or dangerous content. The current problems with the internet serve for clarification as to why the United States should create a nonpartisan assembly to censor the internet in order to protect its citizens from the mental, emotional, and physical harms the internet creates.
In mid March of 1998, a scientific break through occurred for the engineers at NASA. The space probe that they sent to Mars came back and, for the first time, contained readable and usable photographs of the planet's landscape. Full of pride over their latest achievement, NASA posted the information on the Internet. This allowed astronomy enthusiasts, students, and other interested individuals to take a first hand look at the, never before seen, Martian Landscape. (NASA)
On 16th of December 1949, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was signed. Although we want governments and regimes to abide with the articles not all do. Our government is formed to protect us and to provide every citizen, infrastructure in order to make the person able to live. However our governments also care for themselves as well. They want to stay in power thus they have to protect their reputation. This is where internet censorship steps in. Although censoring some sites is reasonable, some are not. If a site on the internet criticizes the government and if this happens in a country where the government is somewhat oppressive, the site is blocked to access. I believe the level of tolerance towards criticism of a government can be found by the internet censorship in that country. We can categorize these types of governments into five: No or few censorship, normal amounts of censorship, above normal, high amount of censorship and extreme amounts of censorship. I am going to focus about the last three levels. For these levels Republic of Turkey, People’s Republic of China and Democratic People’s Republic of Korea are examples I am going to talk about. These examples would be coinciding with the levels respectively.
"Internet Censorship." What does this mean to us? What is restricted? Censorship is summarily defined as the suppression of objectionable material. That means that material such as pornography, militant information, offensive language, anti-religion, and racism would be restricted in use. Freedom would not only be restricted to material placed on the web, but also what you could access, and where you could explore. Should the right of Freedom of Speech be taken away from us on the Internet? Having stated this, should there be any restrictions and if so, what's the limit of censorship?
There are many different opinions backing and opposing regulations of the web. People argue that because it can be freely accessed by anyone, there is a high possibility that their children will be exposed too explicit websites, for example pop up websites containing pornography. This threats their innocence and damages their views on the world around them. Other issues parents have is with cyber bulling, as 43% of kids have been bullied online at one point in their lives. Online, people have the ability to write anonymously, encouraging them to be more explicit in their opinions, as they feel there will be no repercussions. This makes the internet an unhealthy medium, as these views can show prejudice and insult others. 'Stranger danger' is another dilemma, especially when there are children exploring the internet, and revealing too much information to the wrong people, because of false pretence. In 2006, 14% of adolescence posted their names, addresses, numbers or schools.
Another reason for not censoring the internet is the psychological effects that it can have on a child. The filtering of the internet can tell a child that adults do not trust them to surf the net on their own. This can lead them to believe that they can not make their own decisions, and that a computer determines what right and wr...
Censorship of the internet is a very important topic. There is quite a bit of things shown on the internet that man people think little kids and premature adults should not be able to view. Many people view things every day that they should not be aloud to in my others people eyes. This is becoming a growing topic in teens life’s today. Things such as pornography and violent attracts on people such as murder and many other things are viewed every day as a threat to society. People are very much outraged and very concerned.
The freedom of speech that was possible on the Internet could now be subjected to governmental approvals. For example, China is attempting to restrict political expression, in the name of security and social stability. It requires users of the Internet and electronic mail (e-mail) to register, so that it may monitor their activities. In the United Kingdom, state secrets and personal attacks are off limits on the Internet. Laws are strict and the government is extremely interested in regulating the Intern et with respect to these issues.10 Laws intended for other types of communication will not necessarily apply in this medium.
...Kids Points of View: Internet Censorship." 2011. Points of View Reference Center. Web. 21 March 2012.
Censoring the Internet The internet offers a huge wealth of information both good and bad, unfortunately the vary nature of the internet makes policing this new domain practically impossible. The internet began as a small university network in the United States and has blossomed into a vast telecommunications network spanning the globe. Today the internet is ruled by no governing body and it is an open society for ideas to be developed and shared in. Unfortunately every society has its seedy underside and the internet is no exception. To fully understand the many layers to this problem, an understanding of net history is required. Some thirty years ago the RAND corporation, Americas first and foremost Cold War think-tank faced a strange strategic problem. The cold war had spawned technologies that allowed countries with nuclear capability to target multiple cities with one missile fired from the other side of the world. Post-nuclear America would need a command and control network, linked from city to city, state to state and base to base. No matter how thoroughly that network was armored or protected, its switches and wiring would always be vulnerable to the impact of atomic bombs. A nuclear bombardment would reduce any network to tatters. Any central authority would be an obvious and immediate target for enemy missiles. The center of a network would be the first place to go. So RAND mulled over this puzzle in deep military secrecy and arrived at their solution. In 1964 their proposed ideas became public. Their network would have no central authority, and it would be designed from the beginning to operate while in tatters. All the nodes in the network would be equal in status to all other nodes, each node having its own authority to originate, pass and receive messages. The messages themselves would be divided into packets, each packet separately addressed.
The Internet started out as a tool for transmitting information to learn and study. Free expression on the Internet is one of the things that makes the Internet so great. People can get information on a subject from many different areas. This gives the chance for people to see an issue form other points of view. The Internet has developed into a vast medium of knowledge with many users contributing to its growth. With the growth of the Internet, many people have seen it as a source to express their ideas to the public. Some would even view the Internet as a virtual community, and say it is a democracy. People argue that with such freedom, the Internet should be censored to protect children form pornography, and others from sites that may concern 'objectionable'; material. There are people who live under the 1st Amendment and they use the Internet as an outlet to express their ideas and to incorporate ideas from others. Censorship of the Internet is wrong because it obstructs other people from accessing what they want to see and it inhabits people's free speech. Censorship on the Internet has been a growing concern for the past three years. The wide range of information available has made it a tempting target for those who want to control what a person can see and read. The Random House Webster's School and Office Dictionary defines censorship as, 'An official who examines books, films etc., to suppress anything objectionable';. (CD ROM) The next question is who is going to decide for the millions of users on the Internet what is objectionable for them to see and read. The Internet has developed into a vast medium of knowledge with many users contributing to its growth. In this country, many activists for censorship on the Internet mainly have one thing on their minds. They want to protect children from pornography. Although I view this as big concern, there is a grater issue at hand. Since censorship involves all forms of expression, censoring the Internet would hurt many people. The Internet is an international community; we must view it as pertaining to other countries, not just the United States. Not all countries have the privilege of living in a democracy and under the Bill of Rights. As a result, the Internet has brought a new sense of freedom to most people who oppressed by tyrannical governments, or those that disagree with a government but are not allowed to express it.
Many opponents say that Internet censorship can protect their children from accessing bad websites which have a lot of violence and sexual content. Also, they believe that these materials can be harmful to teenagers and make them addicted. However, parents are the ones who should be completely responsible to prevent their children from accessing bad websites, such as pornography, and it is not the government’s responsibility. According to Opposing Viewpoint reporter Adam Thiere, “parents should be the ones to impose censorship on children, not the federal government.” Besides, some websites, which have educational information about safe sex or disease awareness, were blocked. Everyone has the right to use the Internet to find answers to private questions. In addition, teenagers can educate themselves. For example, when I have some questions about sex or sexually transmitted diseases, I cannot ask my parents because of my embarrassment. Thus, the Internet is the best choice for me. Nevertheless, when I searched those questions on the Internet at home, they were restr...
Internet is a network that virtually connects computers around the world. It has an address network which makes communication possible between the computers. It is an open phone line and an open television channel to millions of people around the world who can communicate anonymously (Palmer, 2006). People use it to exchange files and e-mails, to surf the World Wide Web, to download songs or other types of files, to take part of discussion boards, and to send instant messages. It can be beneficial when it comes to freedom of press, and less disintermediation between people (Palmer, 2006). It can also be of assistance when it comes to doing some kind of research, finding some specific information about any topic, or even getting an undergraduate or a postgraduate degree when it comes to busy people who want to expand their horizons. However, internet has many risks in contrast to its benefits and it should not be used by children without adult supervision and parental control.