Is The Internet Really Free??? Essay, Research Paper

First Amendment rights for Net users:

The Internet can be credited for being the greatest invention of the twentieth century. Along with this marvelous invention comes great controversy, should the Internet be

Censored?

Granted that the Internet is seen a vast array of pornography and explicit material, it is also one of the greatest communications, learning, and reference tools ever created by man. This double edged sword, better known as the Internet has caused a feud between family value groups and their counterparts who are hell bent on free speech. It seems that most of the focus in the heated debates are pertaining to young children and how accessible pornography is to them. As Mike Russel stated in Joshua Quittner s article

Free Speech for the Net, Were talking about material going into the hands of young people whose lives can be permanently altered (Quittner 350).

Steps to combat this dilemma have gotten off of the ground only to fail, for example President Clinton s Communications Decency Act (349). Which keep in mind was written and passed by Net illiterate government officials who knew nothing about the internet but only knew that porn in that hands of a child was bad (350).

It seems that anymore when ever there is a discussion of this magnitude it always has to be one of the opposing side s way or nothing at all. When the Communications Decency Act went on to the Supreme Court the three federal judges were given a crash course on the Internet and shown how accessible this vulgar material actually is, and through those judges findings it was shown how the public could install censoring software on their home computer in order to deter this new age smut (350). It was also seen that any offensive material view by children was to be addressed by the parents (350). This ruling seemed to fuel the censorship favoring groups even more.

Never the less, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of keeping the Internet a free speech zone, Stating that communication over the internet does not invade an individuals home or appear on ones computer screen unbidden (350). Which I feel is absolutely true; people who don t want to run the risk of having their child look at pornography while unattended don t have to have the Internet. And for those people who find it necessary to have the Internet only as a reverence tool in their home, that exact same software that protected the Supreme Court judges from those dirt web site is available to the public at slight cost.

It just amazes me how stupid people can actually be sometimes, for example: If you don t trust your child on the internet, either sit there with them or get rid of it, but just don t point fingers at someone else because you were too ignorant to address the probable before the incident occurred.