No bones about it, the Internet needs to be censored. At least according to Gerry Morgan, president of an Internet contents provider and a parent, he among other non-denominational Christian parents claims that they have found the only realistic answer to the Internet porn-crisis. Theyve created a program where all Web sites are pre-screened, avoiding any material that can be harmful to kids (Watson). They say that the Internet has to be censored because it has material, especially pornography, which can and will be offensive to others.

But not everybody agrees with that. The censorship of the Internet is still a very controversial issue, and people all over the world debate whether or not this is a case against free speech. While Morgan states that by censoring the Internet well be protecting ourselves and our children, Mr. Jeffrey Pollock, a Republican from Oregon who used to think the same, recently changed his mind when he found out that his own site had been blocked by an Internet filter.

After the incident, Mr. Pollock expressed that To mandate the federal government to legislate morality, I find abhorrent(Schwartz). The disagreement on this issue continues and every person has a different opinion on what would be a satisfying solution to it. Even though I agree that it is not any parents desire for his/her children to have access to pornography or other potentially offensive material on the Internet, it is not worth jeopardizing our right to free speech in the name of morality.

The truth is we cannot protect our children from all the violence or pornography available in todays world just as our parents could not protect us. The interest and curiosity that children and adolescents have on what we, as a society, may rule as immoral did not begin with the Internet. Similarly, the governments attempts in determining the publics thoughts also began before the Internet. In fact, governments around the world had been trying to control the peoples minds for a long time and some of them are still trying to do so by filtering information.

There is a report from the comprehensive survey of print and electronic news media that shows that nearly two-thirds of countries restrict press freedom, that would be about eighty percent of the worlds population (Society). By doing so those countries are having the same attitude that Hitler had when he burned books. Unfortunately for them they are now facing a much bigger enemy, indeed according to Leonard Sussman, the coordinator of the 22nd annual press freedom survey, the Internet is the most formidable challenge to the censor(Society).

We may consider pornography harmful and think that it should be banned from the Internet. To achieve such large-scale censorship, it would have to be done in the whole world since the Internet is a global method of communication and anyone is able to access material on international sites. The problem with this strategy is that the issue of censoring the Internet goes far beyond pornography; in fact in some countries it also includes political issues. What in the U. S. is seen as free speech or part of what make us have a critic sense about what is better for our country, in China can be seen as a crime.

In fact in March of 2001 a high-school teacher was sentenced to two years in prison for saying Down with the communist party! online in that country (Liu). Furthermore, it is important for us to be exposed to a variety of concepts and ideas in order to develop our own sense of morality. It is impossible for us to have a critic sense if we dont know all the aspects of the issue in question. If you have a concept that is based on one-sided information you dont have a strong argument. Its the same with a child, if he/she is not given the right to unedited information how is he/she going to develop a strong personality?

How is a child going to be able to make his/her own choices if they are not given the right to explore a variety of possibilities? This is not to say that it is good for children to have access to pornography or any sexual material at any certain age, but as said before it would be impossible to make this kind of material absolutely unavailable online without losing other information indispensable to our freedom. According to Mr. Morgan the Internet needs to be broken down and censored(Watson). He and others blame the Internet for the fact that children are having more access to pornography than ever before.

I agree that with the Internet it has been easier to find anything you want, even pornography, but should we blame the program or who is accessing it? The only way by which we can protect our children, not only from pornography but also from other issues such as drugs or alcohol, is by talking to them without taboos, by instructing them and showing them the possible consequences of their choices. According to David Sawyer, a former mayor, the parent guidance is more loving, more educational, and a hundred times more effective than regulatory control.

There are also ways in which government or other agencies may provide Internet control without censorship. For example, it may be necessary to implement laws which require of all Internet servers that provide pornography to have their sites names clearly stating the content of the material about to be seen. This would at least prevent children from accessing such sites accidentally. By doing that the government would be helping the parents who don’t want their kids to see that kind of material, but would not be interfering on the right to free speech that the Constitution assure us to have.

In summary, censoring the Internet falls into the controversial category of censoring free speech. Therefore, it is a violation of the Constitution to apply censorship to such a commonly used source of information. Instead of banning material from the Internet we should make sure that we have clearly stated information. Perhaps government intervention may be necessary to assure that Internet servers comply with regulations. However, parental guidance and control still remain the most reliable ways of protection against misuse of the cyberspace.

This is a sticky question; no matter what answer you give to this question there will always be a valid argument in response to your answer. There are lots of arguments in the answer I found doing the research I did. The United States is not the only country with this problem. Because, remember now the Internet is worldwide and it involves every single country in the world. If a person thinks the Internet should be censored then the following question should be asked: Who should censor the Internet the federal government or parents?

Censorship on the Internet is a controversial issue. A lot of people agree that censoring violates the First Amendment of free speech. But many also believe that it is the government’s duty to censor to protect children and teenagers. The EFA (Electronic Frontiers Australia Inc. ) is an organization against Internet censorship. The EFA’s goals are “to advocate the amendment of laws and regulations in Australia and elsewhere which restrict free speech… and to educate the community at large about the… liberties issues involved in the use of computer-based communications systems. President of EFA)

The EFA shares similar goals with the USA’s EFF (Electronic Frontiers Foundation) these organizations believe that free speech is a right and it will be taken away by censoring the Internet. Does freedom of speech include pornography and “obscenity”? A lot of people argue that obscenity is a matter of opinion and it cannot be define. There was a ruling by the Supreme Court in 1957 in the Supreme Court case of Roth v. U. S. the Supreme Court decided that obscenity was “outside the protection intended for speech and press at the time during which the First Amendment was written.

Therefore, the First Amendment does not protect it. Also there was an act signed by Bill Clinton Called the Communications Decency Act (CDA) in 1996 that censors the freedom of speech on the Internet. But the Supreme Court on June 26,1997 Ruled it Unconstitutional saying “As a matter of constitutional tradition, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, we presume that governmental regulation of the content of speech is more likely to interfere with the free exchange of ideas than to encourage it.

The interest in encouraging freedom of expression in a democratic society outweighs any theoretical but unproven benefit of censorship. ” — Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the majority. So what about the children? How does a parent regulate what is viewed through a computer? People opposed to Internet censorship argue that it is a parent’s job to watch over what web sites their children are going to. But parents argue that it is almost impossible to always be there to watch their children, especially for single parents and families where both parents work.

The duty should not be left totally on the parents, but also the creators of these web sites. Parents have some responsibility, but they cannot watch over their children twenty-four hours a day. That is why the web site creators need to find ways to prevent underage people from accessing the page they have created. The web site PsyberNut on Protecting Children Online provides a valid argument for why the Internet should not be censored and why parents should be watching what their child views on the Internet.

There are new programs/developments that can be used to block access to a site that is inappropriate for children, like sites that have pornography. These sites that provide these programs are Surfwatch, CYBERsitter, and Cyber patrol. These web sites really help parents control what there children view on the Internet when they are not being supervised. Most people aren’t even looking for obscene web sites. The sites are hidden and are targeted towards people who aren’t even looking for it. For example “pop ups” open up when you go to certain web sites even though you never click on it.

And obscenities and pornography isn’t all of the harmful material on the Internet that 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 lead to serious or deadly results. Children don’t have the right mentality to posse’s information like “How to create a bomb”, because they might to build a bomb for “fun”. Many schools still are required to use a filtering program to censor the research that students do in school.

The Board of Education has installed a filter on its computer system that blocks students from gaining access to any web sites that include categories like news and sex education. Even those of major new outlets, policy groups, and scientific and medical organizations were even blocked. This blocking program makes it almost impossible for students to do sophisticated research projects on the Internet in school. Teachers and parents have complained to the Board of Education. “The blocking program sweeps far too broadly,” (Hartocollis) comments Morman Segel, Executive Director of the civil liberations group.

Teachers and parents feel it would be more efficient to use a filtering program that allows the Board of Education to set the standards and decide what to block and what not to block instead of the current program they have called I-Gear, which does not allow this option. In conclusion I feel that the Internet should be censored, not by the government, but by the individual. If a parent feels the need to keep their child away from the dangers of the Internet, they can use a filtering program on their computer.