Should the Internet be censored? Censorship on the Internet is a verycontroversial issue. Many agree that censoring violates the First Amendment of freespeech. Yet many also believe that it is the governments duty to censor to protectThe EFA (Electronic Frontiers Australia Inc.
) is an organization against Internetcensorship. The EFAs goals are to advocate the amendment of laws and regulations inAustralia and elsewhere which restrict free speech. . . and to educate the community at largeabout the.
. . liberties issues involved in the use of computer-based communicationssystems. (President of EFA) The EFA shares similar goals with the USAs EFF(Electronic Frontiers Foundation) These organizations believe that free speech is a rightand it will be taken away by censoring the Internet.
Does freedom of speech include pornography and obscenity’some argue thatobscenity is a matter of opinion and it cannot be defined. The truth is that it has beendefined by the Supreme Court, and in 1957 in the Supreme Court case of Roth v. U. S.
theSupreme Court decided that obscenity was outside the protection intended for speechand press at the time during which the First Amendment was written. (Roth v. U. S. , 354U. S.
, 476) Therefore, the First Amendment does not protect it. So what about the children’should they be subject to obscenities andpornography? People opposed to Internet censorship argue that it is a parents job tosupervise what web sites their children are going to. But parents argue that it is almostimpossible to always be there to watch their children, especially for single parents andfamilies where both parents work. Most people arent even looking for obscene web sites.
The sites are hidden and are targeted towards people who arent even looking for it. In aninterview with the Washington Times, Donna Rice Hughes says, Children do need to beonline. They have benefits there. . .
for their future. . . But we cant have a system where ifyou type in dog you get a picture of a woman having sex with a dog! (Goode.
)And obscenities and pornography isnt all of the harmful material on the Internetthat children can access. There are sites on how to make a bomb, how to hi-jack a car,and how to use a gun, as well as almost anything and everything imaginable. This can leadRebecca Fairweather, a high school graduate of 1999, does not agree with this. Inthe Detroit News she wrote that Rather than trying to prevent these actions, adults musttry to keep youth from feeling desperate enough to commit such acts. She feels thatinstead of focusing on eliminating the negative, focus on promoting the positive- sports,music, art, writing, dance, community service, and math and science because, Fairweathersays as any parent can tell you, young people will find a way to get what they want nomatter what obstacles adults put up against them. (Fairweather)Many schools still are required to use a filtering program to censor the researchthat students do in school.
The Board of Education in New York City has installed a filteron its computer system that blocks students from gaining access to any web sites thatinclude categories like news and sex education. Even those of major new outlets, policygroups, and scientific and medical organizations were even blocked. This blockingprogram makes it almost impossible for students to do sophisticated research projects onthe Internet. Teachers and parents have complained to the Board of Education. Theblocking program sweeps far too broadly, (Hartocollis) comments Morman Segel,Executive Director of the civil liberations group. Teachers and parents feel it would bemore efficient to use a filtering program that allows the Board of Education to set thestandards and decide what to block and what not to block instead of the current programthey have called I-Gear, which does not allow this option.
The Internet should be censored, not by the government, but by the individual. If aparents feels the need to keep their child away from the dangers of the Internet, they canuse a filtering program on their computer. Censoring the Internet for children is not as biga problem as a lot of people make it out to be. The Internet can be a very safe and helpfulresource for children to learn and research.
As Rebecca Fairweather said, adults should bemore concerned with gearing children towards positive material, than trying to cover upBibliography:Works CitedBorn-again Rice answers call to clean up the Net. Insight on the News; Washington;December 21; 1998; Stephen Goode. Policing the Wild Net. Time Magazine.
South Pacific; June 21, 1999; Nathan Tripp. Board Blocks Student Access To Web Sites. The New York Times. New York;November 10, 1999; Anemona Hartocollis. Teens Need and Deserve Time From Adults.
Detroit News. Detroit, Michigan; August18, 1999; Rebecca Fairweather.
