Term Papers on Internet Censorship

Term Paper Title	Internet Censorship
# of Words	1339
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	5.36

Internet Censorship

Brent Fischer
English III
Argument Paper
Mrs. Regynski

The Internet is a wonderful place of entertainment and education but like all places used by millions of people, it has some areas people would prefer children not to explore. In the physical world, society as a whole conspires to protect children, but there are no social or physical constraints to Internet surfing. In this paper I will argue that I believe that there should be some censoring but the government should not and cannot do it.
The Internet Censorship Bill of 1995, also known as the Exon/Coats Communications Decency Act, has been introduced in the U.S. Congress. It would make it a criminal offense to make available to children anything that is indecent, or to send anything indecent with "intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass". The goal of this bill is to try to make all public discourse on the Internet suitable for young children. The issue of whether is it necessary to have censorship on the Internet is being argued all over the world. There are numerous homepages on the web discussing this issue, or asking people to sign the petition to stop government censorship.
The Internet was originally a place for people to freely express their ideas worldwide. It is also one of America's most valuable types of technology, people use the net for communication, expressing their opinions in the newsgroups, obtaining up-to-date information from the web, etc. Censorship would damage the atmosphere of the freedom to express ideas on the Internet; therefore, government should not encourage censorship.
The worldwide web (WWW), which is another component of the Net, can be used to "publish" material that would traditionally appear in journals, magazines, posters, books, and television and even on film.
The Internet can also be compared to a church; it has its council of elders, every member has an opinion about how things should work, and they can either take part or not. It's the choice of the user. The Internet has no president, chief operating officer, or Pope. The constituent networks may have presidents and CEO's, but that's a different issue; there is no single authority figure for the Internet as a whole. Internet users can broadcast or express anything they want. The fact that the Net 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 Net. The Internet Censorship Bill of 1995, which has already been discussed earlier, was introduced to the U.S. Congress. Under the Censorship Bill, a person breaks the law if they put a purity test on a web page without making sure children cannot access the page. Also, if a person verbally assaults someone on IRC, they break the law. If a university, where some students may be under 18 years old, carries the adult sex newsgroups, which contains adult material, it breaks the law.
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" (break into someone else's private accounts) and obtain such databases for illegal purposes. Americans have to come up with a solution in order to keep children away from inappropriate material and to prevent misuses of the Net. However, many experts have pointed out that government censorship is not possible. It is not fair to exclude the freedom and damage the atmosphere of freely expressing ideas just for the safety of children; therefore, government should not encourage censorship.
Most Internet users are enjoying their freedom of speech on the Net, which is supposed to be protected by the First Amendment of the United States. The freedom of idea expression is what makes the Internet important and enjoyable, and it should not be waived for any reason.
Additionally, only a very small portion of the Net contains offensive material, most people do not use the Ne...

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