The Internet offers a wide a variety of information which has both its upside and downside, unfortunately the vary nature of the Internet makes policing almost impossible. The Internet, which began as a small network in the United States, has turned into a huge telecommunications network spanning the entire globe. During the past decade, our society has become based solely on the ability to move large amounts of information across large distances quickly. Computerization has influenced everyone’s life.
The natural evolution of computers and this need for ultra-fast communications has caused a global network of interconnected computers to develop. Electronic mail (email), which is one component of the Internet, approximates person-to-person letters, memoranda, notes and even phone calls. Sound and pictures are sometimes sent along with text. Email is mainly for private communication. Electronic mailing lists are rather like club newsletters and readers have to contract-in or subscribe to a list. Another term that is often used is electronic news.
It has some properties of radio or television, particularly talkback radio or television, in that the destination is indiscriminate. This global net allows a person to send E-mail across the world in mere fractions of a second and enables to access information worldwide. 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. The term FTP is also frequently used.
File transfer protocol (FTP) started as an Internet archival and retrieval medium, somewhat analogous to traditional libraries. Files can be retrieved from distant computers using a traditional text-based interface. Also, software is available that allows users with a sound card to use the Internet as a carrier for long distance voice calls and video conferencing is the key to the future of our society. Today the Internet is ruled by no governing body and is an open place for ideas to be shared, developed, and examined. Internet users can broadcast or express anything they want.
The fact that the Internet has no single authority figure sets forth a problem about what kind of materials could be available on the net. The U. S. government is now trying to pass bills to prevent misuse of the Internet, and all the information that goes with it. The government is dreaming to have the control: to view all the information circulating the web, to read our private e-mails, to peek into chat rooms, and to restrict us, the Internet people, in any way possible. No matter how small, any attempt at government intervention in the Internet will stifle the greatest communication innovation of this century.
At present, the web is the epitome of the first amendment of the constitution: free speech and right to privacy. Every American values freedom of the speech and their privacy as something essential. The key to the worldwide success of the Internet is that it does not limit its users. The web is a place where people can speak their mind without being reprimanded for what they say, or how they choose to say it. Our government wants to maintain control over the new, greatest form of communication: the Internet. This is where the problem of net censorship arises.
First, the meaning of “Censoring the Net” must be explained. Simply, it is the banning of offensive material. To see if the government should censor the Net, it is imperative to list the advantages and disadvantages of the “censor the Net” approach. The advantage of government censorship is that ideally, children and teenagers could be kept away from unsuitable material. However, many experts have pointed out that government censorship is not possible. They are trying to use the protection of children as a smoke screen to pass laws that will allow them to regulate and censor the Internet.
It is true that there is a wealth of pornography and other indecent material online for us all to see. All that a person has to do, and this includes both children and adults, is to type an indecent word in any search engine and it will point to sites where the word pops up. Although this material is just a tiny portion of all web pages, it is still a huge number considering there are millions of web pages on the net. Most of the material is very hard to access, and an advanced knowledge of computers must be known. But it is our youth that is gaining knowledge of how to use computers.
Problems arise when minors are left alone on the computer and are let free to browse some of the most graphic pictures taken, or to learn an easy way to make a bomb from household materials. Currently, there is software being released that promises to block children’s access to known X-rated Internet newsgroups and sites. However, since most adults rely on their computer literate children to setup these programs, the children will be able to find ways around them. This mimics real life where these children would surely be able to get their hands on adult magazines, alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, etc.
Moreover, many high schools in the United States provide Internet access to students, which are very useful for looking up information, but if a student intends to look for inappropriate material, he/she is very likely to find such material simply by doing an Internet search. This is not as prevalent today since most high schools are using what is known as firewalls which block access to certain web pages. 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.
Therefore, it is inconsistent to ban the Internet equivalents. If the purpose of censoring is to prevent minors from being exposed to indecorous material, not only the Net has to be censored. Censoring the Net will only eliminate one single medium for minors to find irrelevant material. Government censorship is not the solution to the problem, and alternatives measures that have same effects as censorship can be practiced. While people do not have the right to restrict the Internet as a whole they do have the right to restrict information that is brought into their homes.
Another crucial Internet crime is the theft of credit card numbers. Companies do business on the Net, and credit card numbers are stored on their servers; everyone with the necessary computer knowledge could hack in and obtain such databases for illegal purposes. Regardless of what types of software or safeguards are used to protect the children of the Information age, there will be ways around them. This necessitates the education of the children to deal with reality. Censorship is less important issue than good parenting.
Raising well-disciplined and intelligent children isn’t the government’s responsibility; it’s ours as parents. The foremost solution to the problem is for parents to provide moral guidance for their children. At the same time they are providing moral guidance for their children, Americans also need short-term technical solution. Intelligent censoring software and proxy servers can let parents disallow their children access to certain sites. In this way, parents can keep their children from the offensive materials on the Net. Computer porn, after all is a subject that stirs strong passions.
So does the question whether free speech on the Internet should be sharply watched and controlled, as some Senators and members of Congress have proposed. Congress, in their pursuit of regulations, seems to have overlooked the fact that the majority of the adult material on the Internet comes from overseas. There is no clear boundary between information held in the U. S. and information stored in other countries. Data held in foreign computers is just as accessible as data in America; all it takes is the click of a mouse to access.
Even if our government tried to regulate the Internet, it has no control over what is posted in other countries, and it has no practical way to stop it. Not all restrictions on electronic speech are bad. Most of the major on-line communication companies have restrictions on what there users can “say. ” However, they must respect their customer’s privacy, and they do. Private E-mail content is off limits to them, but they may act swiftly upon anyone who spouts obscenities in a public forum. Self-regulation by users and servers is the key to avoiding government-imposed intervention.
Many on-line sites such as Playboy and Penthouse have started to regulate themselves. Both post clear warnings that adult content lies ahead and lists the countries where this is illegal. The film and video game industries subject themselves to ratings as well. If we, the Internet users, want to avoid government-imposed regulations then it is time we begin to regulate ourselves. It is natural for men and women to want to know all and to be informed of everything that’s going on around us. Governments all over the world seem to have the same interest.
The only problem is that it feels that this human curiosity can be applied to the government more than the individual. After all, the one thing that we want to know is how our computers run, so we can get the most out of them and to use them more effectively. Sadly enough, the government’s goal is to use you more effectively. No, our imagination has not gone out of control. Those huge spy computer networks are not fiction and are not a thing to come; they are here today gathering information on almost every citizen of every modern country.
Governments develop most technology, and in the case of computers and communication this could not be truer. The spying programs of the cold war and the technology it produced are what got us to where we are. It seems the government has allowed us to have their leftover technology; so that we may put our private lives on public display, where they monitor it with their now more advanced technology, and we’ve paid for it all. One of the examples of organizations that of recently were a secret is Menwith Hill. It is the largest electronic monitoring station in the world.
It is run by the US National Security Agency (NSA), which monitors the world’s communication for US intelligence. NSA has had the ability to do speech to text translation by means of computer for a long time, where its main use was to monitor international and domestic phone calls and print the conversations that interested them. This has now been expanded to include emails, faxes, and general web surfing. Spy satellites, cables, microwave radio links provide the needed information. Government has built the network to monitor us and it does not want us to be able to put a stop to it.
If we ask about it, the government will deny it, or it simply makes it a crime to ask. As the Internet continues to grow throughout the world, more governments may try to impose their views onto the rest of the globe through regulations and censorship. If too many regulations are incited the Internet, as a tool, will become nearly useless; and the Internet as a mass communication device and a place for freedom of mind and thoughts, will become non-existent. All users, servers, and people who love Internet must regulate themselves, so as not to force government regulations that may stifle the best communication instrument in history.
The government should rethink its approach to the censorship and its restrictions, allowing the Internet to continue to grow and mature on their own. As the issue stands now, there seems to be only two real solutions. One would be the adoption of government controls that would infringe on peoples’ rights to free speech, but also make the Internet a safe place to roam. The other would be for parents to use filtering software to control what information their computer is receiving.
