Censorship on the internet is something we hear about nearly everyday. Whether it is in the news or some internet service provider who mentions parental controls in one of their commercials, censorship is something we are all familiar with. The ongoing debate seems to be if the internet should or should not be restricted. Some feel that the internet's freedom is somewhat anarchic, but at the same time very democratic (Weiner, par.1). The internet is an example of what our government is based on but at the same time represents a lack of organization with no established laws. So where should we draw the line with regulations?
People want to have freedom. Throughout history, people have fought for the freedoms we now have in the United States. People have fought to be free from tyranny and segregation. Our "Founding Fathers" wrote a constitution that gave us the freedom to say what we want and write what we choose. Many other countries today do not even have these freedoms. Yet, everyday we hear something new about people not wanting their children to see the "evil" sides of the world. Parents complain about their children having access to pornography and other "harmful" material. Because society objected to the violence and sex on television, rules and regulations were created. In the past, books have been banned because they were offensive to some people or the government felt the books were corruptive in some way.
This only leaves people with the internet to express their true views and beliefs. The internet creates a network where people from all over the world can share their ideas and knowledge. It provides people with what they were once masked from. With this tool, people can access valuable information at the click of a mouse and without searching through outdated libraries. Who would ever want to loose these privileges?
Governments have tried in many ways to block the youth from viewing the "darker corners" of the web (Buckley, par.2). In "Internet: The Lost Fight" by William F. Buckley, Jr. a few attempts are mentioned. The author mentions the Communication Decency Act that was put forward in 1996 but was eventually turned down by both the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court for being unconstitutional. Buckley also reveals how efforts have been made to block the youth from viewing porn but have had little success in doing so. He even follows up questioning that if the Founding Fathers lived during the age of the internet, that the Constitution may have been worded differently (Buckley, par.
Murdoch, S. J., & Roberts, H. (2013). Internet Censorship and Control [Guest editors' introduction]. IEEE Internet Computing, 17(3), 6-9. doi:10.1109/MIC.2013.5
Depending on whether or not you're a net geek like me, you probably know either everything or nothing about Senate bill 314, the Communications Decency Act. (I'm a huge net geek: I've already received at least three copies of an on-line petition against it.) Senate bill 314, proposed by Senator Exon and currently under consideration in the Senate, would ban obscenity on-line, making it a federal crime to transmit or make available over the internet anything determined to be "obscene...regardless of whether the maker of such communication placed the call or initiated the communication." This ban includes all forms of electronic communication, from telephone calls to file transfer protocol sites (computers on the internet that contain files available to the public for copying) to private e-mail messages. In the original version of the bill, penalties also applied to internet service providers (including universities) whose facilities were used for "obscene" communications; however, after heavy lobbying by CompuServe, America On-Line, and other large internet services, those portions of the bill were stricken. Even in its weakened form, though, Senate bill 314 poses a significant threat to the continued growth of the internet and to constitutional rights.
From music to television, censorship has played a major role in how the public is exposed to certain material. Now that our world is entering into a new technology era, the Internet is now in the middle of the censorship issue. Internet access is now one of the fastest ways to communicate with others, obtain information on virtually anything, and purchase items without having to leave your home. As more and more people get connected to this cyber superhighway, concern for the content of material has become a big issue. Since so many children are exposed to the Internet, some material should not be accessible with a simple click of a mouse. In order to protect our younger people from being exposed to mature and explicit material over the Internet, these sites should have a warning posted before one can go into the site.
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?
One Source Cited This paper will elaborate the reasons why minors deserve legislative protection while using the internet, and how to implement this protection.
The internet can be a very disturbing thing for many people. There are a lot of things on the internet that kids should not be able to view. But for some reasons kids are able to view these things. I believe that the government should step in and help with the censorship of the internet. People are but should not be able to view anything on the internet if they are under the recommended viewing age.
The Internet is much too complex a network for censorship to effectively occur. It is a totally new and unique environment in which communications transpire. Existing laws are not applicable to this medium. The lack of tangible boundaries causes confusion as to where violations of law take place. The Internet is made up of nameless interaction and anonymous communication. The intricacy of the Internet makes it near impossible to delete data that has been publicized. No one country should be allowed to, or could, regulate or censor the Internet.
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 American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) works diligently to overthrow every attempt at placing some sort of filter or censorship requirements on the internet. They believe that the things censored are protected by the constitution. The court case ALA v. Pataki (1997) held that internet users must be protected from, “inconsistent legislation that, taken to its most extreme, could paralyze development of the internet altogether” (ACLU, 2017). Our freedom of speech is not absolute, so restricting where people are able to get access to these materials does not affect one’s right to speak freely, rather where they speak
The rights put forth by the first amendment protect the Internet. The first amendment states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” (Wallace). In layman’s terms, this means that the government does not have the right to take away freedoms that involve speech or the press of the American people. The Internet’s lack of censorship encompasses Americans’ freedom because of the first amendment.
The internet has been one of the most influential technological advancements of the twenty-first century. It is in millions of homes, schools, and workplaces. The internet offers not only a way of communicating with people around the world, but also a link to information, shopping, chatting, searching, and maps. This freedom to be anyone and to "go" anywhere right from the comfort of home has become a cherished item. However, there is always a down side to every up. Because of the freedom to post anything and access anything on the internet, the issue of regulation has arisen; for example, what should and should not be allowed on the internet? Who has the right to regulate this space that we cherish for its freedom?
Do you want our future generations being exposed to violence, hate, sex, illegal substances, and false information, and then one day think it would be cool or alright to try these things? The internet is filled with dangerous information, that children should never have the freedom to access. Children learn from example, and if they search, watch, or read something on the web that could be potentially dangerous, they could be influenced or curious and think that it would be alright to imitate one day. If our children now are viewing these things, it could mean that are future generations can grow to be more violent and our world could become more dangerous than it already is today. Censorship is necessary if we plan on having our kids grow up in the safest environment possible.
Free speech on the Internet is a very controversial subject and has been the key problem surrounding the Internet today. The attempt to regulate and govern the Internet is still pursued by government officials. This subject has been intensified due to terrorist attacks against the United States and around world within the past years. The government believes that by regulating the Internet, it will protect the general public from criminal actions and eliminate the exposure of children to pornography or vulgar language. Senator Jim Exon of ...
The Internet is an extremely educational and communicative tool. Everyone can access a tremendous amount of information and connect with people on the other end of the planet; it is capable of doing everything. Nowadays, the society is facing a variety of challenges and controversies which are mostly related to religion, morality, the economic crisis, etc., and the most talked-about issue in today’s world is “Internet censorship”. Although the Internet is very useful, many people are suggesting the idea of censoring the Internet; however, the government should not censor the Internet because a free and open Internet usage has many positive impacts on people’s lives.