Nathan Davalos
ENG 114
The Internet started out as a tool for addressing information to learn and study. Free expression on the Internet is one of the things that make the Internet so great. People can get information on a subject from many different areas. This gives the chance for people to see an issue from other points of view. With the growth of the Internet, many people have seen it as a source to express their ideas to the public. Some would even view the Internet as a virtual community, and say it is a democracy. People argue that with such freedom, the Internet should be censored to protect children from pornography, and others from sites that may concern 'unpleasant' material. There are people who live under the 1st Amendment and they use the Internet as a place to express their ideas and to combine ideas from others. Censorship of the Internet is wrong because it restricts other people from accessing what they want to see and it take up people's free speech. Censorship on the Internet has been a growing concern for the past three years. The wide range of information available has made it a target for those who want to control what a person can see and read. The question now is who is going to decide for the millions of users on the Internet what is ‘unpleasant’ for them to see and read. In this country, many activists for censorship on the Internet mainly have one thing on their minds. They want to protect children from pornography. Although I view this as big concern, there is a greater issue at hand. Since censorship involves all forms of expression, censoring the Internet would hurt many people. The Internet is an international community and we must view it as connecting to other countries, not just the United States. But not all countries have the privilege of living in a democracy and under the Bill of Rights. Since the Internet is a virtual community, it should be treated specially and should not be censored for the convenience of anti-pornography or other religious reasons. As a result of Internet censorship, other nation leaders could use it as a weapon against the people who oppose them or have opposing views. Many people would argue that the Internet is filling with pornography and children can be influenced by the things they see on their screens. This may be true, but censoring the Internet should bet the last solution to solving the problem. We see television reports all the time talking about child pornography and Internet pornography on the news. So, should television reports on these stories also be censored from children who might see them? If a child really wants to he or she can find a pornographic site, but the child must make a choice to what they are going to look at. There are not really any times where a child 'accidentally' goes to pornographic site. A kid does not get linked to a pornographic site if he or she is trying to look up other sources online. A person must search for what they want to see. Yea a child can type in 'sex' at any search link and be connected to hundreds of