Censorship and the like

United States
June 19, 2009 8:44pm CST
I recently read an article that discussed two things. First, that censoring the internet violates free speech and secondly that the Children's Internet Protection Act is unconstitutional. Since the two often intertwine, the questions were posed in one article. Now I have never agreed with censorship in anyway but instead believe that it is up to the parents to be aware of what their children are reading, watching, and doing. At the same time I understand that parents (being one myself) can't always be where their children are. It is impossible to be looking over their shoulder 24 hours a day. Which is why I applaud all the tools at our disposal now that try to help us keep our children from seeing things that we don't want them to. There are parental controls on everything now. The only thing unfortunate about them is that kids seem to find a way around them as soon as we install them. But they do help parents do their job a lot. As for the CIPA, I guess that I really don't see the problem with schools and libraries blocking certain sites. From what I understand, most of what they block are things that children shouldn't be seeing anyway. Now I also understand that it might create a hassle for people who are old enough to choose what it is that they want to look at. But based on the guidelines of what is being blocked, people probably shouldn't be looking at those kinds of things in libraries anyway. Getting to the point however, what do you all think about this? Is censoring the internet a violation of free speech? Why or why not? Do you think CIPA is unconstitutional? Why or why not?
2 responses
@Poison_Girl (4150)
• United States
21 Jun 09
I absolutely do NOT agree with censorship. I agree that parents or guardians need to keep an eye on their own children. Too many parents are getting lazy these days. If you can't handle the responsibility, then don't have kids! But anyway, the computers should be kept out in a room that has a lot of traffic and this will make it a little easier to keep an eye on the kids while they're online. Don't let them keep a computer in their room. It should be fine as long as the computer can't get online, but definitely not a good idea if it can. Also, it's not good to rely on the programs out there that are supposed to block them from certain sites. Like you said, they can get around it and quite easily, too because it's just software. Just like a hacker can disable any software firewall. That's why it's best to use a hardware firewall such as a router.
1 person likes this
• United States
21 Jun 09
Censorship of any kind is absolutely wrong! Who is to decide what is right for others? If there are things parents want to keep from their kids, they can handle that in a mature and educational way. Most kids won't try to get around parental controls if they understand them, and if they know that they will get old enough to decide for themselves later on. But if anyone other than a parent is to practice censorship, they are violating our free speech rights and disrespecting our intellectual individuality.