Exploration and Discovery

3 Pages 657 Words

Exploration and Discovery

Censorship of the Internet


Censorship on the Internet is unjust in any form and hinders creativity, stunting a society’s search for truth, while it also presents a difficult task to overcome when considering the design of the Internet. No one person or committee has the ability to judge the material that goes onto the Internet regardless of their political role or amount of power because it would have to be a global decision involving the entire world. It would also be difficult to decide what should be censored because of the various cultures involved. Censorship on the Internet also hinders the ability to express one’s ideas and personal perspectives in many instances. Many use the Internet as a scapegoat, saying that it is the fault of the Internet that their children are violent due to violent images seen by way of the Internet. However it is not the Internet that provokes people to do things that are looked at with distaste, and it is the responsibility of the parent to censor the sites that t!
heir children are looking at.
The largest problem with even beginning to try to censor the Internet is the question of who would do the censoring and what would be censored. Considering the amount of people and places that are involved with the Internet, it is almost impossible to agree on a set of standards that everyone would approve of. This is true because of the vast differences there are between cultures and even individuals. What may be legal in one country is illegal in another and even what is considered descent for clothing is different among cultures. For example, codes for women’s dress in Islamic countries are very different than those of the United States. So it would be very difficult to find a common denominator that everyone could agree upon. It is less agreeable to control by governments and its potential audience is huge. So whoever had the censoring ability would have...