Censoring The Net Essay, Research Paper

Every time our technology advances and some new form of entertainment, such as television, magazines or music begins to develop or change, there are some people that would like to control what goes on by some form of censorship. The recent growth of the Internet has created the same demand. Some communities would like to control the incoming and outgoing information, but the Internet makes such control impossible. There are at least thousands of pages created each day and downloaded to the Internet. There should be no censorship on the Internet because all users should be able to express their opinions in any form that they chose.

The Internet is the largest source for information used by people around the world. The amount of information used for educational, business related and entertainment purposes is incredible. With such a large number of users it creates a lot of diversity and that leads to many different subject matters. Some people may not take interest in every subject matter posted, but this is not sufficient reason to censor some material. If you are on the web then you chose to be there and the decision to what sites you visit is ultimately up to you.

If we look at the issue of censorship, then by whose standards would we judge what is inappropriate? Each person has the right to make a decision based on his or her own values. Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary defines a censor as “One who supervises conduct and morals or as an official who examines publications or films for objectionable matter.” The debate as to what is objectionable, obscene, indecent, or immoral is useless. If anything has come out of this endless debate is that everyone will agree to disagree.

When the issue of censorship is brought up children are always mentioned in the discussion. Should we censor the Internet so children won’t stumble upon a page that is immoral? Parents are the ones that should be instilling good values and setting examples of what is right and wrong to their children. It should not be up to the government or any other group to decide what children should see and not see. If children are raised responsibly then they should be able to make decent decisions. If parents decide that they would like to restrict some Web pages that they personal find inappropriate then there is plenty of software available for that. Parents can’t expect their computers to baby-sit their children; there still needs to be supervision by the parents. The parents need to monitor what their children are doing and what sites they are visiting. Censorship to protect children from the realities of our world is not the answer; rather parents need to protect the innocence of our children.

A lot of people will agree that the Internet does have a dark side and children need to be educated about the dangers. There are some people that are on the Internet that do not act responsibly and use bad judgment. People try to lure children to meet them and others just try to take advantage of some innocent people. With everything new someone will try to manipulate some innocent person.

In the First Amendment we are given the right to express ourselves freely. One person dictating their values on everyone else is absurd. Certain things offend people differently and the only way to prevent this from happening is to have people avoid things they find offensive. The Internet is a one of the greatest things that has come.