Free Internet Essays: We Must Not Permit Internet Censorship

We Must Not Permit Internet Censorship

The internet is the largest and most diverse source of information our planet has ever known. The internet is integrating our daily life transactions. This is possible because newspapers, television programs, movies, phone calls, computer data, commercial services such as banking and shopping, and a host of other sources of information and communication are all being reduced to the same digital format, and are all be sent along fiber optic cable (Harvard Law Review, 1994).

The libraries of the world, once on line will combine to form a larger base of information than anyone ever imagined. This vast library of information will be accessible in an instant, with the click of a mouse, where internet technology is available. We can compare the internet to another technological advance, which also changed the world. The knowledge potential created by the diverse information accessible on the web is similar to the energy potential realized when we discovered nuclear energy. Like nuclear energy, knowledge is very powerful, and can be used to for both good and evil deeds. Knowledge can indeed have the same converse negative side to it like nuclear energy does. Nuclear energy can be used to power entire cities, or it can be used to erase them. There is an important distinction to be made here. Knowledge is what we use to search for the truth in life, and this fact makes knowledge indispensable. Once we know the truth we can be free from manipulation. Because the internet is so unique in the way it allows access to information, we must protect the internet as a very precious resource. Censoring the internet, a cause, leads to a chain of related effects. The first of which is the upset of the natural balance of information on the internet. This happens when information is removed, thus narrowing the spectrum of available information. From this spectrum of information we derive bits of knowledge. So the second effect of censoring the internet is reduced knowledge. If we allow censorship to weaken the material our searching tool, knowledge, is made of, then we might even lose the truth. The loss of the truth is the third effect of censoring the internet. The final effect of censoring the internet is manipulation made easy. Before we follow this causal chain through its effects, I think it is important to explain what I mean by the truth.