Internet censorship: thumbs up or thumbs down?
“He sat on his laptop as he started surfing the internet. Going from one website to multiple ones. His dad came in on him every 5-10 minutes checking what he was doing in case he was on the wrong website.” What is the reason behind the dad having that kind of behavior? Do you think he does not trust his son? Or is it the internet she does not trust? Internet censorship has been there since a long time, and it is used by the governments, political groups and sometimes parents. Unlike the U.S, Most nations in the Middle East use it for protection. Internet censorship has been an issue since 1864 when a postmaster discovered an amount of nudes being sent to the civil war troops. Craig. A Depken II (2006) said that Internet censorship focuses more on how to make a bomb, pornography, and hate speech.(Para 2 line 2) what he was trying to explain is why is it so important to have internet censorship in every government. Although a lot of people are against internet censorship. But, the reason why every country must have it is to avoid harm in many ways including, pornography, children safety, committing crime, and hate speech.
Criticizers argue that internet should not censor pornography and it is the parent’s responsibility. But, it being censored because it is haram in Islam, and it will not pollute the brain of men and it prevents children from having sexual intercourse from a young age. First of all, preventing teenagers or sometimes children from mating , because when teenagers or children watch those type of inappropriate things, it makes them want to watch more and later on they would want to experience those type of things thinking it would be cool do it or the same thi...
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Mahle (2014). One Man’s Journey: How I Stopped Watching Porn For 1 Year and Why Im not Going Back. Retrieved February 12 2014. http://changefromwithin.org/2014/02/12/one-mans-journey-how-i-stopped-watching-porn-for-1-year-and-why-im-not-going-back/ McElwee (2013). The Case for Censoring Hate Speech On the Internet Retrieved July 22 2013. http://www.policymic.com/articles/55553/the-case-for-censoring-hate-speech-on-the-internet The Book of Destiny (Kitab-ul-Qadr). (n.d.). . Retrieved , from http://www.searchtruth.com/book_display.php?book=033&translator=2&start=0&number=6421
ToughEfrain26 (2013) Does the Internet need censorship? Retrieved from http://www.debate.org/opinions/does-the-internet-need-censorship
Wolfson, N. (1997). 3. Hate speech, sex speech, free speech (). Westport, Conn.: Praeger.
Albanesius, C. (2013, April 13). Google Sees Spike in Government Requests to Remove Political Content. Retrieved from PCMagazine: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2418168,00.asp
Since their founding, computers and the Internet have become a tool that nearly every man, woman, and child in the World have been able to use. E-mail has become one of the Worlds fastest growing ways of communication and the Internet has become one, if not the largest source of information available today. You can find just about everything you wanted to know about anything with the stroke of a few keys on the keyboard. However, along with these positive aspects of the Internet, there lies much negativity surrounding the internet and its use. Access to teenage pornography, bestiality, brutal murder pictures, XXX stories, and other un-ethical sites is extremely easy. In fact, the pornography industry has grown 63% since the Internet was first available for use.(Bishop 91) It is one of the leading industries on the Internet and has become quite a controversy in the United States. Censorship of such sites has done very little due to the fact that most parents feel that these sites are not accessed by their children. We have currently found no solution that has worked and many government officials see the problem only getting worse. Pornography on the Internet though should not be banned, but rather better controlled and censored due to its availability and graphic nature.
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.
“While most teenagers (60 percent) spend on average 20 hours per week in front of television and computer screens, a third spend closer to 40 hours per week, and about 7 percent are exposed to more than 50 hours of 'screen-time' per week”(Many Teens Spend). Many parents agree that they would rather not have their children view indecencies on the Internet and television, and the government should control the obscenities on the Internet. Others believe that it is the parent’s responsibility to control and censor what their children are watching on the Internet and television.
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.
There are many different opinions backing and opposing regulations of the web. People argue that because it can be freely accessed by anyone, there is a high possibility that their children will be exposed too explicit websites, for example pop up websites containing pornography. This threats their innocence and damages their views on the world around them. Other issues parents have is with cyber bulling, as 43% of kids have been bullied online at one point in their lives. Online, people have the ability to write anonymously, encouraging them to be more explicit in their opinions, as they feel there will be no repercussions. This makes the internet an unhealthy medium, as these views can show prejudice and insult others. 'Stranger danger' is another dilemma, especially when there are children exploring the internet, and revealing too much information to the wrong people, because of false pretence. In 2006, 14% of adolescence posted their names, addresses, numbers or schools.
The freedom of speech that was possible on the Internet could now be subjected to governmental approvals. For example, China is attempting to restrict political expression, in the name of security and social stability. It requires users of the Internet and electronic mail (e-mail) to register, so that it may monitor their activities. In the United Kingdom, state secrets and personal attacks are off limits on the Internet. Laws are strict and the government is extremely interested in regulating the Intern et with respect to these issues.10 Laws intended for other types of communication will not necessarily apply in this medium.
Witherbee, Amy and Cushman, C. Ames. "Counterpoint: Sometimes Censorship is Necessary." 2011. Points of View Reference Center. Web. 21 March 2012.
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.
Lloyd Duhaime, Barrister, Solicitor, Attorney and Lawyer, defined Pornography as “sexual acts or sexual representations that are calculated to stimulate sexual feelings, independent of the presence of another loved one or chosen human being.” These sexual feelings and stimulations could result in some mental and emotional issues. Let’s start by looking at the mental issues that pornography leads to. As explained and proved in the ”Family North Carolina Magazine- Winter-2010” pornography viewing among teenagers creates a disorientation in their developmental phase, where they start learning about sexuality and gaining moral values. These teenagers get the wrong meaning of sexuality which have some negative effects on them in the future such as the fear of getting married or unfaithfulness to their partner. This study has also proved that pornography lower the level of self-esteem among adolescents. Also, according to Robert A. Baron, pornography has an effect on mental health among adult, and being highly exposed to pornography creates a ...
The Internet distributes more information than any other medium in the world. There are several problems that have emerged along with the Internet, “As soon as the public began to use the Internet, people began to express concern about its use” (Clark 1). Some groups feel that the World Wide Web is dangerous because of it’s open accessibility, whereas other groups see that the Internet is something that can be used to share knowledge globally. The Internet should not be censored because censorship would restrict Americans’ first amendment rights; regulations have been tried and have failed in the past, and there are better methods of education and protection than censorship.
McCarthy, M. (2005). THE CONTINUING SAGA OF INTERNET CENSORSHIP: THE CHILD ONLINE PROTECTION ACT. Brigham Young University Education & Law Journal, (2), 83-101.
Wilson, Gary. "Your Brain On Porn." Your Brain On Porn. Web. 11 Apr. 2014. .
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...
In recent years, pornography has established itself as perhaps the most controversial topic arising out of the use of the Internet. The easy availability of this type of sexually explicit material has caused a panic among government officials, family groups, religious groups and law enforcement bodies and this panic has been perpetuated in the media.