Essay on Internet Censorship - 1038 Words

Internet Censorship You are at work and the phone rings. It is the school principal from the high school your daughter attends. He politely tells you that your daughter is being suspended from school and asks that you please come pick her up. After digging a little deeper, you find out that she is being punished for posting to the internet, a book report based writings of James Joyce. The reason for the suspension is not because the material was plagiarized, but because the content of the material was considered objectionable or indecent according to new standards mandated by the government. The above story could have easily happened under the 1996 Communication Decency Act (CDA), whose objective was, according to class notes,†¦show more content†¦Each of these clauses--indecent, depicting or describing, patently offensive, and contemporary community standards--hides a landmine threatening the future of freedom of speech in this country. How could this law cause such a problem? The issue is with the words themselves. Depending on where a person is from, how they were raise, what their religious beliefs were, as well as other factors, different people have very different views on what they think is meant by each clause. The reason is that each term is ambituous and vague. Also, according to Spectable.org, the CDA does not differentiate or contain any exceptions for speech with scientific, literary, artistic or political value. Under the 1996 CDA, many books considered to be important literary works, including the Bible, would be banned, but only if posted on line ! What about the community standards wording? Well, according to this law, community standard means that any material placed on the Internet, anywhere, must be able to pass the same ambiguous standards for all communities that have Internet access, anywhere in the United States. What this boils down to is that the standards of the most conservative community would apply. There are two issues that I have with the community standards wording. First, the Internet has no borders and is accessible by people all over the world, with many countries having standards that are very different from ours. Under the CDA all of those websites would be bannedShow MoreRelatedCensorship And Censorship Of The Internet985 Words   |  4 Pagesissue of Censorship of the Internet in America has become a trending topic. The internet has been commonly censored to comply with the Digital Millennium Rights Act, but in recent times our government has been requesting more aggressive censorship in order to provid e a safer cyberspace. If the American government began to censor the internet, the restriction will result in suppression of freedom of the press, hindering freedom of speech, and reduce the plethora of information on the internet. 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