Censorship and the Internet

Internet Censorship

Although freedom of speech enjoys heightened protection from the government , this protection is not really absolute . The Supreme Court imposes some very narrow restrictions which are deemed not fully protected under the First Amendment which includes illegal conduct defamation , obscenity , and misrepresentation . In any of these categories , the speech should be suppressed because of its harmful content (Wang , page 1

Freedom of speech is equally a dangerous right because with it goes the freedom to deviate against established rules and norms or to go against the status quo

and advocate change . As such , all over the world , it is also the most threatened right . Many in the United States today , that include several citizens groups with specific advocacies , are pushing for censorship of the freedom of speech which interestingly finds expression in many varied forms . The internet is one arena that has lately been the target of these efforts as it provides practically everyone with the ability to communicate their ideas to wide audiences and conveniently escapes the ability of the state to control it

The issue of censorship versus free speech has been , since time immemorial , a hotly contested subject . With the dawn of the electronic age , the birth and progress of the internet and the increasing use of electronic media for the dissemination of information , new questions over First Amendment rights are being raised . A lot of issues and concerns have been raised that bs around Web access to pornographic materials by minors , gambling on the...