Policing the Web

Policing the Web

Censorship, a word every American is familiar with, has been present throughout our entire history. Censorship is the act of examining and expurgating material. Recently, the internet has become the latest target of censorship. The government is looking into policing the internet and officially having standards that would regulate what is and is not censored from the American public. If the U.S. government attains the right to censor internet content, it will be an egregious invasion of our First Amendment rights, and a flagrant step towards the complete obliteration of our civil liberties.

The First Amendment of the Constitution clearly states

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. (Bill of Rights, 1791).

This is legal proof that we are granted the right to free speech and press. These rights were granted to us by our Founding Father's and were intended to be upheld. We as Americans pride ourselves on being a nation of diversity and freedom. The rights granted to us by the Constitution are world famous, and are the reason many people decided to move and start a new life in America. If we start chipping away at these rights, we lose what makes our country so great. Where else in the world can you have the freedom to express your views, no matter how unpopular? Once the government starts deciding that some views are too unpopular, or too inappropriate and should not allowed to be on the internet, where will it stop. The phrase Big Brother, a term coined in George Orwell's novel 1984, comes to mind. In the novel, people's lives are controlled completely by the government, and all aspects of privacy are gone. If the government can start censoring the internet it will just be one more aspect of our lives they are allowed to control. Internet censorship policies have been instituted in communist countries like China and Russia for the exact reason of controlling the things their citizens are allowed to view and the ideas they are allowed to express. Do we, as a country, really want to institute these kinds of policies? Once a government starts trying to regulate everything in our lives and begins deciding what is "appropriate" to view or not, we lose our democracy. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said it best when he stated "Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime .. . ."(Ginsberg v. United States, (1966)). If we begin instituting censorship, we will be no better than the governments we condemn.

Another important part of the First Amendment is its mention of a free press. The internet is a viable form of press, which is clearly supposed to be protected by the First Amendment. The freedom of the press is important in that it allows the public to get information on stories that the government may not necessarily want you to know about. It is a way for the Public to stay educated on every issue, regardless of the U.S. government's support of it or not. Censorship and a free press are pretty much opposites, and of the two, I would choose a free press anytime.

If the censorship is honest in its intention, it would like to prevent arbitrariness, but it makes arbitrariness into a law. No danger that it can avert is greater than itself. The mortal danger for every being lies in losing itself. Hence lack of freedom is the real mortal danger for mankind. For the time being, leaving aside the moral consequences, bear in mind that you cannot enjoy the advantages of a free press without putting up with its inconveniences. You cannot pluck the rose without its thorns! (Karl Marx, "On Freedom of the Press").

As Marx states, a government cannot allow people the right of a free press and expect to be completely happy with all of the ideologies expressed. It is expected that there will be views that test the limits and are unconventional, but if we allow these ideas to be deemed as unfit to be viewable to the public, then the very essence of our freedom of speech and press is destroyed.

That, is perhaps the biggest issue with censoring the internet. What do you censor? What is so inappropriate that is should be banned from the internet and filtered out? The problem with a country like the U.S. is that there are so many beliefs and ideas out there, yet our government is comprised of men and women who, for the most part, share culturally "normal" ideas. Because of this, many ideas are seen as irrational and unbelievable to "normal" people and are misunderstood. Should the views of the few be compromised for the views of the many? It would be unfair to take one group's opinion of what is "decent" and to impose that level of decency on the entire internet. Looking back on past events, one may remember in 1933 when Adolf Hitler, leader of Germany's Nazi party, held a massive bonfire of "Anti-German books". Although this is an example of censorship in the extreme, Hitler's book-burning is similar to the attempted censorship of Internet materials. Another problem is that, if the government is allowed to block certain sites, how will the public know what sites are being blocked. The government would technically have free reign to block whatever sites they wanted. There would have to be some organization that would have the ability to "check up" on the government in order to make sure they are not blocking sites without reason. Also, in order to successfully block every site with inappropriate material, you have to do it by keywords. This is actual fact, not simply my opinion. The problem arises when these filtering systems end up categorizing certain web-sites that may simply look like inappropriate sites to a filter. For example, it has been shown that internet filters block sites containing keywords like suicide, rape, sex, etc.. The problem arises when sites such as suicide prevention sites, rape crisis sites, rape prevention sites, safe sex sites, and sex education web-sites, which are designed to educate and benefit the public, are then grouped into the blocked category and deemed "inappropriate", when in fact, they are the exact opposite. Until a more effective