Internet Censorship

Ann Lee, Gregory Fillios, Hugo Ponte, Kathryn Wells, Malcolm Greaves

•Control or suppression of the publishing or accessing of information on the Internet.

•Examples: -Parents or schools censoring certain websites

from children to prevent access to something that may contain inappropriate material.

(Cybersitter)

•Highly controversial topic; some may agree with the idea of censoring certain things, but other believe that freedom of access to the internet is necessary

•No matter what the censors' reasons are, the end result is the same: They block access to the Web pages they identify as undesirable.

•Internet censorship isn't just a parental or governmental tool. There are several software products on the consumer market that can limit or block access to specific Web sites.

•Censoring can happen within a household to a business or company.

•In a household it may be for the safety for children, whereas in a business censorship may be used to increase productivity.

1958: Internet is created

1996: US criminalizes the transmission of “indecent” materials to minors1997: US rules internet as a print source1998: Digital Millenium Copyright Act && Child Online Protection Act

2006: Save the Internet Campaign

Censored

Countries

2009

Criticisms of Censorship

• By limiting the available free information, free though it limited as well. And, as free thinking is limited, progress is limited.

• Galileo and the Church.

• Censoring the internet––the greatest source of information––seriously hampers the flow of creative, original, free thought.

• Censorship directly inhibits some kinds of ideas from being created.

• [Thought Experiment] If no one discusses democracy in China because all internet queries related to democracy are censored, then how can the Chinese learn more about democracy?

Opinion on Censorship

• No good can ever come from censoring any information: censorship allows people to (unknowingly) think and act with filtered, incomplete information. Censorship is morally wrong.

• “Restriction on free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.” William O. Douglas

• “Free speech is to a great people what winds are to oceans and malarial regions, which waft away the elements of disease, and bring new elements of health; and where free speech is stopped miasma is bred, and death comes fast.” Henry Ward Beecher