Internet Censorship
With the click of a mouse, anyone can access an incredible wealth of information on topics ranging from aardvarks to zygotes. We use desktops, laptops, palmtops, and cellular telephones to connect through telephone lines, cable connections, and wireless ports. The Internet is here. It has made our lives richer and easier; it has collapsed boundaries and expanded horizons.
Accessibility of information is one of the Internets fundamental features. Never before have so many had access to so much. Herein lies the paradox; while this increased level of information accessibility is one of the Internet's greatest strengths, it is also one of its greatest possible weaknesses. Because this new medium grants more access to the individual, now more than ever, the power and responsibility to censor rests in the hand of the user. While the debate on Internet censorship is complex, it is worth exploring. Through a careful examination of the issues, one can gain the knowledge necessary to make informed decisions on how to responsibly use this awesome tool.
Like the invention of the printing press before it, the Internet is a technology capable of changing the way the world functions by releasing information to the masses. Prior to Gutenberg's printing press, only a select few had access to the Bible. This monopoly of information allowed a small group to exploit and abuse the masses through the process of nondisclosure. In the same way that the printing press liberated millions from religious tyranny, the Internet has the ability to further empower a new generation in many areas by increasing the accessibility of information. The possibilities for low cost, widespread education are boundless. The applications for business are endless. The opportunities for consumers to gain new and better ways of shopping are becoming apparent. All of these goals can be realized through the constructive use of the Internet.
The freedom of expression movement argues that people have the right to express their views regardless of how offensive they may be. Conversely, many see a need for limits to be set on the amount of exposure some of these messages can gain. While the principle of free expression may be theoretically appealing, the accessibility of some of this material often poses moral dilemmas. Should a child have access to explicitly sexual or violent material?
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
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.
Naik, Abhijit. “Internet Censorship Pros and Cons.” Buzzle. Buzzle, 25 Nov. 2010. Web. 17 Feb. 2011. .
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.
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...
that some of the material that is on the net needs to be filtered and regulated. The word censorship is defined as examining any material and prohibiting what is objectionable, according to Webster’s II dictionary. Censoring the internet is a violation of the first ammendment rights of every citizen in the United States. There are two general truths that some people feel are attitudes towards censoring the internet. The first is that very few people admit to favoring it. The second is that no matter who you are, in a matter of minutes spent surfing the net almost anyone can find something that they find to be offensive. In fact, some web surfers feel that the truly inappropriate things are inspired by one’s own religion. For example, the Nurenberg Files website showed pictures of mangled fetuses with the photograph, name, and address of some abortion clinic doctors.
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.
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.
This paper will show whether the ethics of censoring internet content depends on the culture and laws of the country. I personally believe that internet censorship is not ethical and internet users should decide for themselves what they can and cannot see. This paper will prove the ethical implications of internet censorship through two case studies: the United States' Communications Decency Act, and Australia's Broadcasting Services Amendment (Online Services) Act 1999. The United States and Australia have both taken two different approaches to internet censorship. However, both countries started out with similar censorship laws. The United States in 1996 passed the Communications Decency Act. This law was later found to be unconstitutional and in violation of first amendment rights to freedom of speech. The US currently has no internet censorship laws. The Australian government uses the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Online Services) Act 1999 to censor internet traffic to this day.
...t those that seek to censor some of the information found on the internet. Nunziato (2009) concludes that in order to fulfill the Internet’s promise of being “the most participatory market-place of mass speech that this country-and indeed the world- has seen,” the companies that serve as gatekeepers for free expression need to be regulated to ensure that they fairly administer any censorship such that it “does not detract from the free speech values that are necessary to facilitate the public discussion and informed deliberation that democratic government presupposes and the First Amendment requires”.
Vandergrift, Kay E. CENSORSHIP, THE INTERNET, INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM, AND YOUTH. n.d. Rutgers University. 2 Oct. 2009 .
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.
In our society, there has been a revolution which competes that of the industrial revolution. It is called technological revolution. At the top of the technological revolution is what we call, the Internet. In the following report we will be discussing about what the internet is about in general and how it might be in the future, why it is necessary in our everyday lives, and why has it become so important to everyone (i.e. companies, individuals ).
Censorship of the media for children is necessary, but should not be handled by government or other groups. Instead it should be directed and controlled by parents. Censorship for children is necessary because the average American view’s 100,000 acts of violence on TV before reaching t...
The internet has come along way since its birth back in 1969, from its start as a government network to the everyday life; it has proven to be one of the greatest inventions ever discovered. It has helped many people with an array of task ranging from everyday government usage, and personal web pages to the ever so expanding horizons of technology still being produced today. Between the good and the bad, the internet has improved the way of life, and will continue to improve throughout time.