Government Censorship On The Internet Essay, Research Paper
Government Censorship on the Internet
Thesis: Government Censorship would damage the atmosphere of the freedom
to express ideas on
the Internet; therefore, government should not encourage censorship. Introduction I. In the Internet
community, there is a large volume of technical terms.
For this reason, it is first
necessary to examine the terminology specific to Internet. 1.The internet is a world wide computer
network. 1.Electronic mail (email), which is one component of the Internet,
approximates person
to person letters, memoranda, notes and even phone calls. 2.Another term that is often used is
electronic news
(enews/Usenet), enews is a
broadcast, free to the Internet medium. 3.The term FTP is also frequently used. File transfer protocol
(FTP) started as an
Internet archival and retrieval medium, somewhat analogous to
traditional libraries. 4.The world-wide web (WWW), which is another component of the Net,
can be used
to “publish” material that would traditionally appear in
journals, magazines, posters,
books, television and even on film. 2.It is also essential to give a brief history on the internet. 3.The
U.S. government is now trying to pass bills to prevent misuse of
the Net. II. In order to understand the need for the ever-growing body of
legislation, it is important to
explore the controversy, and the current problems involved with the Net as
it exists must be
introduced. 1.The problem that concerns most people is offensive materials such as
pornography. 2.Another crucial internet crime is the stealing of credit card
numbers. III. One reaction to this inapplicability has been the “Censor the Net”
approach (the censorship
bill), we are now to compare its advantages and disadvantages. 1.First, the meaning of “Censoring the
Net” must be explained. 2.However, many experts have pointed out that government censorship is
not possible. 1.First, it is not fair to exclude the freedom and damage the
atmosphere of freely
expressing ideas just for the safety of children. 2.Most internet users are enjoying their freedom of
speech on the
Net, which is
supposed to be protected by our First Amendment. 3.Additionally, only a very small portion of the Net
contains
offensive material, most
people do not use the Net for pornography. 4.It must be understood that censoring the Net is
technically
impossible. 5.While people are concerned about Internet pornography, it should
be recognized that
pornography is sometimes legal; for example, pornography is
legal in video and
magazines. IV. There are many alternative measures to government censorship which
would prevent misuse of
the Net and would have the same effects as censorship. 1.It is very important for parents to provide
moral guidance for their
children, and parents
should have this responsibility. 2.However, at the same time as we carry out moral guidance, we have
to
come out with some
short term approaches to solve the problem in a more efficient way as
well. 3.An alternative to government censorship is the technological fix,
which would prevent
misuse of the Net and would have the same effects as government
censorship. 1.One example of technological fix is t
Internet service providers, such as “America
Online”, allow parents
to control what Internet relay chat (IRC) sessions are available
to their children. 3.Another technological fix is for parents and guardians to have a
separate “proxy
server” for their children’s web browser. 4.There are no computer programs to automatically and
reliably classify
material; only people
can do it. As a result, while practicing technological fixes, the
classification of the contents of
the material when posting is very important. 5.Nowadays, most internet users classify their postings
with standard
categories, and leave
signatures at the end of postings. 6.The combination of the installation of censoring software and the
classification of materials is
a much better solution than government censorship. Conclusion Bibliography
The Internet is a wonderful place of entertainment and education but like
all places used by millions
of people, it has some murky corners people would prefer children not to
explore. In the physical
world society as a whole conspires to protect children, but there are no
social or physical
constraints to Internet surfing. The Internet Censorship Bill of 1995, also known as the Exon/Coats
Communications Decency
Act, has been introduced in the U.S. Congress. It would make it a criminal
offense to make
available to children anything that is indecent, or to send anything
indecent with “intent to annoy,
abuse, threaten, or harass” (”Stop the Communications …” n.p.). The goal
of this bill as written
(though not as stated by its proponents) is to try to make all public
discourse on the Internet
suitable for young children. The issue of whether is it necessary to have
censorship on the Internet
is being argued all over the world. There are numerous homepages on the
World Wide Web
discussing this issue, or asking people to sign the petition to stop
government censorship. The Internet was originally a place for people to freely express their
ideas worldwide. It is also one
of America’s most valuable types of technology; scientists use email for
quick and easy
communication. They post their current scientific discoveries on the
Usenet newsgroups so other
scientists in the same field of study all over the world can know in
minutes. Ordinary people use
the Net for communication, expressing their opinions in the newsgroups,
obtaining up-to-date
information from the WWW, acquiring files by using FTP, etc. Censorship
would damage the
atmosphere of the freedom to express ideas on the Internet; therefore,
government should not
encourage censorship. In the Internet community, there is a large volume of technical terms. For
this reason, it is first
necessary to examine the terminology specific to Internet. The Internet is
a world wide computer
network. The “Net” is frequently used in place of Internet. In the words
of Allison and Baxter, two
experts on Internet Censorship at the Monash University, “the Internet is
comprised of various
digital media subsuming many of the distinct roles of traditional media”
(Allison and Baxter 3).
Bibliography
allison and baxter 3