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. The first benefit that would result from censoring the internet would be the protection of the mind. When children are doing homework online, they frequently get distracted by the presence of other websites. This often interferes with their progress. In cases of teenagers, the websites they are commonly sidetracked by are pornography websites. Pornography has negative effects on the brain because it makes people lose their innocence and promotes v... ... middle of paper ... ...e. "Internet Pornography Should Be Restricted." Free Speech. Ed. Scott Barbour. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2000. Current Controversies. Rpt. from "Porn on the Internet: Is It Free Speech?" Family Voice (Mar. 1997). Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 18 Nov. 2013. Leiner, Barry. "Internet." Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online Academic Edition. Encyclopedia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web. 30 Nov. 2013 Lester Holt/Peter Alexander. "Censoring Internet Content". NBC Today Show. NBCUniversal Media, LLC. 01/06/2007. Accessed Sun Mar 18 2012 from NBC Learn Snowball, David. "Propaganda and its Discontents." Journal of Communication 49.3 (2009): 165-71. ProQuest. Web. 2 Dec. 2013. Turner, John. "Don't believe propaganda: Libs were bad managers." Sydney Morning Herald [Sydney, Australia] 17 May 2013: 22. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 27 Nov. 2013.
Hummel, William and Huntress, Keith. The Analysis of Propaganda. New York: William Sloane Associates, 1949
Pornography is considered by many to be an unwelcome and distasteful part of our society. However, I argue that it is necessary to voice the unpopular viewpoints, under the Constitution. This paper is a defense of pornography as a constitutional right of free expression, under the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights. In illustrating this argument, I will first define pornography as a concept, and then address central arguments in favor of pornography remaining legal and relatively unregulated – such as the development of the pornography debate throughout modern US law, and how activist groups address the censorship of adult entertainment.
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.
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.
The Internet is an enormous and complex network that allows innumerable devices across the world to communicate with each other. With merely a few keystrokes, one can use the Internet to find anything from cute cat videos to the news, and everything imaginable in between. However, one could also effortlessly, and sometimes unintentionally, find graphic content. The term graphic content encompasses many things including pornographic videos, violent movies, and explicit music. However, it can also encompass far viler things such as videos of rape, torture, murders, and other heinous acts. The omnipresence of both kinds of graphic content is relevant to Philosophy because it has led many people in the United States to believe that the Government
...e are matters that should never occur in a child’s life. While some people claim that censorship completely solves these issues, this is not the case. It is the parents’ job to make sure that their kid is not exposed to these kinds of websites. Besides, it is possible for them to use browsers that will edit out offensive and inappropriate material for young users. This is why cyberspace surveillance should start and end at home. Extensive censorship will not directly help stopping the acts; it will not help find the criminals. As a matter of fact, it makes it even harder for them to get caught. Indeed, often data contained in the content such as the IP address is crucial for establishing the identity of the offender. Blocking the content removes the possibility to use such information. Therefore, censorship makes the problem less visible but in no way less real.
Censorship on the Internet is a controversial issue. A lot of people agree that censoring violates the First Amendment of free speech. But many also believe that it is the government’s duty to censor to protect children and teenagers. The EFA (Electronic Frontiers Australia Inc.) is an organization against Internet censorship. The EFA’s goals are “to advocate the amendment of laws and regulations in Australia and elsewhere which restrict free speech...and to educate the community at large about the...liberties issues involved in the use of computer-based communications systems.” (President of EFA) The EFA shares similar goals with the USA’s EFF (Electronic Frontiers Foundation) these organizations believe that free speech is a right and it will be taken away by censoring the Internet. Does freedom of speech include pornography and “obscenity”? A lot of people argue that obsce...
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...
Spending too much time on the internet isn’t the only problem that children can encounter. The content which children access on the internet can be harmful as well. There is no regulation of the content on the internet. Children can acces...
In summary, censoring the Internet falls into the controversial category of censoring free speech. Therefore, it is a violation of the Constitution to apply censorship to such a commonly used source of information. Instead of banning material from the Internet we should make sure that we have clearly stated information. Perhaps government intervention may be necessary to assure that Internet servers comply with regulations. However, parental guidance and control still remain the most reliable ways of protection against misuse of the cyberspace.
The internet is a powerful venue for knowledge. With information on virtually any topic, collaborative forums, and a massive library of media, it seems at times that everything is available on the internet. However, it is not without its darker side. Within these vast catalogues of knowledge lurk immense amounts of disagreeable, offensive, and obscene material. Just above the blatantly illegal, this distasteful layer of information contains content that could be labeled as vile and revolting by any culture’s standards. The notion of striking this unsuitable material from the internet, and declaring hateful and repulsive content as ‘unfit for public consumption’ is tempting; essentially, mitigate the issue by removing offending content. In our effort to protect ourselves, however, we cannot disregard the freedom of speech. Is it proper to restrict expression on the internet for the sake of limiting exposure to offensive material?
One of the main controversies about pornography on the web is if it should be permitted in first place, since it is morally wrong to some people, and because it allows adolescents to access pornography, both willingly and unwillingly. Since there are no specific laws for the internet, a simple disclaimer is the only barrier between a user and X-rated material, in addition some pornographic sites have addresses which are similar to popular sites, such as www.whitehouse.gov (the real site) and www.whitehouse.com (the porn site), causing people to be lured to their sites through a simple misunderstanding or even a minute typing error.
The dirty, evil side of the internet has become a magnet for pedophiles and hate crime activists. The problem is that due to freedom of speech there is not much control that I know about in regards to items being posted on the internet. This device is so easily usable that even kids in middle and high school are posting websites and chat lines in order to say what ever they like and send information to all corners of the world in a second, practically for free. There are some issues that have always concerned me in regards to the legal censorship over the internet that I would like to explore in my paper. The reason for my curiosity began a few weeks ago when my 8 year old cousin was playing on my computer....
Boepple, Paul. "Internet." The New Book of Knowledge. 34th ed. 20 vols. Chicago: Grolier Inc., 2000.