The use of censorship by one side to gain power over another is apparent throughout history. The development of technology has posed several issues for both parties, both making censorship more and less difficult to enforce. This is especially prevalent in today’s society, where the internet has ensnared the current younger generations with its social networking and online entertainment industries. Even further detrimental to this modernized culture is how this freedom has prevented anyone from efficiently limiting connections to these such sites. The place where internet censorship is most commonly present is in schools, where it raises many issues and questions about the effectiveness of installing the filters. Rather than censor the internet, we should educate its users and take steps to make it more open.
The most common reason used to attack school internet censorship is that they often block educational resources. Often, these filters are shown to be not only too strict in certain areas by blocking required teaching and educational resources and databases ("School Internet Filters"). One major example of this occurring is when the Canadian National History Society’s magazine The Beaver was blocked by internet filters (Wagner). Firstly, this example of “authoritarian” internet censorship is absurd. Rather than nimbly modifying their filters to allow the site through, a magazine founded in 1920 (Wagner) was reluctantly renamed to a supposedly “less-offensive” name, as if it were possibly offensive or inappropriate in the first place. An example of a common scene in many classrooms is when a Minnesota school teacher, Doug Johnson attempted to show a Wikipedia page to his class, but was stopped by his school’s internet filter (W...
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...t be informed about the alternatives to filtering content. In other words, to teach one generation, you must educate another first.
Works Cited
August, Oliver. "The Great Firewall: China's Misguided — and Futile — Attempt to Control What Happens Online." Wired.com. Conde Nast Digital, 23 Oct. 2007. Web. 22 Nov. 2013.
Johnson, Doug. "Doug Johnson." Website. Doug Johnson, 28 June 2007. Web. 22 Nov. 2013.
Lazanski, Dominique. "An Internet Filter Would Be Counterproductive." Spectator Blogs. Spectator Blogs, 3 July 2012. Web. 22 Nov. 2013.
"School Internet Filters." Debatewise. Debatewise, Web. 22 Dec. 2013.
Wagner, Mitch. "How Internet Censorship Harms Schools." Computerworld. Computerworld, 26 Mar. 2010. Web. 22 Nov. 2013.
Wiseman, Paul, and Calum MacLeod. "Cracking the 'Great Firewall' of China's Web Censorship." ABC News. ABC News Network, Web. 22 Nov. 2013.
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Web. The Web. The Web. 07 Mar 2012. Rosenberg, Jennifer.
Web. The Web. The Web. 5 Dec. 2013. McCormick, J. Frank.
There are over 2,405,518,376 internet users on a global scale. More than 50% of the world has 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 internet access. 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.
Naik, Abhijit. “Internet Censorship Pros and Cons.” Buzzle. Buzzle, 25 Nov. 2010. Web. 17 Feb. 2011. .
The inherent educational value of the Internet is being realized in schools across the country. The vast web of information is easily accessible and is quickly taking the place of traditional library resources, because of its current events and diverse views. Understanding the importance of this new technology, the Clinton administration is pushing for school Internet connection with the goal of "more than 97 percent of public schools connected by the year 2000 (Hoffman 15)." However, serious problems arise due to the very nature of the Net. Alongside the educational and commercial resources are sites with pornography, criminal advocacy, and illegal drug manufacturing information. According to Syllabus magazine, "a keystone question becomes how to deal with this richness and diversity of information and interchanges while providing a safe e...
The Internet, with its unlimited access to any kind of information, is today’s most commonly used tool used worldwide. This poses some complex questions that challenge liberal and conservative alike, the most recent defenders of the First Amendment, and the most passionate exponents of censorship. With the rush by our President to make the Internet accessible to every U.S. student, the problem extends far beyond libraries and into our schools. This censorship problem would seem to have no easy solution. First, let's assume pornography is a bad thing. It encourages poor behavior and disrespect toward women in general. Yes, any respectable human being would agree with that. But why does this have to be a problem in our schools? Isn't it the responsibility of the parents to guide their children? Isn’t it up to the parents to teach their kids stuff like that is morally wrong? Kids should already know behavior like that does not belong at school. Schools have a fear of this happening so they take action and put a block on all key words that are linked with pornography. Great, now how will students learn about subjects such as bre...
Since the internet has been available in schools and libraries in this country, there has been a debate about what should be accessible to users, especially minors. The amount of information disseminated on the world wide web is vast, with some sources valuable for scholarly and personal research and entertainment, and some sources that contain material that is objectionable to some (ie. pornography, gambling, hate groups sites, violent materials). Some information potentially accessible on the internet such as child pornography and obscenity is strictly illegal and is not protected under the First Amendment. Some information available on the internet that may be valuable to some is at the same time perceived to be worthless or potentially harmful to some. For libraries serving the public, there has been controversy on the issue of providing the internet, free of censorship or filtering, to users. While some librarians and their professional associations align with ideals of free and unfiltered access to all information provided by the internet, some feel that filtering internet content to exclude possibly objectionable materials is a reasonable measure to prevent potential harm to minors.
McCarthy, M. (2005). THE CONTINUING SAGA OF INTERNET CENSORSHIP: THE CHILD ONLINE PROTECTION ACT. Brigham Young University Education & Law Journal, (2), 83-101.
In an effort to at least protect children, who are the most vulnerable, internet filters were created by vendors and enforced by the government. Parents and caretakers saw this as progress. Intellectual liberals saw this as censorship. Thus began a moral debate. Do we use filters and in an effort to protect our children and impair the freedom of speech? Or do we leave our children to potentially discover the dangers of the internet and preserve first amendment rights? Over the years, more effects of having internet filters in the library became apparent. The moral debate expanded from just first amendment rights to intellectual freedom and digital divides. The question then became: Do we leave our children to potentially discover the dangers of the internet or preserve first amendment rights, support learning and discovery via the Web, and close the digital
The Web. The Web. 6 Jan. 2014. Smith, Chris.
Internet is a powerful tool that allows users to collaborate and interact with others all over the world conveniently and relatively safely. It has allowed education and trade to be accessed easily and quickly, but all these benefits do not come without very taxing costs. This is especially true when dealing with the likes of the Internet. Countries in the European Union and Asia have realized this and have taken action against the threat of net neutrality to protect their citizens, even at the cost of online privacy. Internet censorship is required to protect us from our opinions and vices. Every country should adopt Internet censorship and regulation since it improves society by reducing pornography, racism/prejudice, and online identity theft.