The Concerns of Internet Censorship Essays - 4130 Words

The Concerns of Internet Censorship As a professional Internet publisher and avid user of the Internet, I have become concerned with laws like the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA) that censor free speech on the Internet. By approving the CDA, Congress has established a precedent which condones censorship regulations for the Internet similar to those that exist for traditional broadcast media. Treating the Internet like broadcast media is a grave mistake because the Internet is unlike any information medium that has been created. My concerns about Internet censorship prompted me to write Internet Censorship is Absurd and Unconstitutional. In the essay, I outline why I believe that the Internet should not be censored in any†¦show more content†¦Though the laws that Congress are proposing to regulate the Internet are well intentioned, I strongly believe that the Internet should not be censored because any law encroaching on the people’s right to free speech is a obvious breach of First Amendment rights and because laws limiting Internet speech are too broad and unenforceable on this global medium. To understand why legislators are attempting to censor the Internet despite the fact that it is absurd and Unconstitutional, one must first understand how the Internet came to be and how it conceptually works. According to Internet historian Dave Kristula, the first inklings of the Internet began in the United States in 1969 as a network of four servers called the APRANET. ARPA (the Advanced Research Projects Agency), a division of the Department of Defense, created the ARPANET for military research so that the information on the network would be decentralized and could survive a nuclear strike. The network continued to grow in size and speed as technology increased over the next two decades. Standards began to set in such as the TCP/IP protocol for network transmission of data. By 1990 the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) had been created to standardize the way in which Internet documents are sent and received (Kristula). By 1994, the APRANET was disbanded, and the Internet became a public network connecting more than 3,000,000 computers together worldwide. CommercialShow MoreRelatedThe Invention Of The World Wide Web1674 Words   |  7 Pagesconstantly brought up wondering how safe the internet is for the users. 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This quotation expresses his viewpoint on this subject of censorship. Censorship has always been an issue in the world. What exactly is censorship? A censor is one who is authorized to examine books, films, orRead MoreBehind the Stop Online Piracy Act Bill (SOPA): Copyright, Censorhip, and Free Speech1539 Words   |  7 PagesBehind SOPA: Copyright, Censorship and Free speech At the beginning of 2012, a series of coordinated protests occurred online and offline against Stop Online Piracy Act Bill (SOPA) that expands U.S. law enforcement’s ability to combat online copyright infringement. As this protest involved many influential websites like Google and Wikipedia, it certainly draws national attention on SOPA. Whether censorship should be used online against online materials infringing property rights, as included inRead MoreCensorship Of The World Wide Web1326 Words   |  6 Pagesmany concerns for government authorities. 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