Thursday, February 8, 2007
A Completely Uncensored Internet?
In her book Virtually Obscene, Amy E. White makes the case for an unregulated Internet using pornography as a specific example in the wider argument of Internet censorship. She claims, among other things, that censorship defies the Constitution and breaks the 1st Amendment right for people to post and view such material. She believes that pornography on the Internet does not corrupt children and even makes the argument that it can be educational and therefore should be viewed as a positive thing. White lays blame on the parents of children who view inappropriate material because, as she notes in her book, that "computers do not connect to the Internet themselves" and the underage child had to have a computer plus Internet access to view the material so it's not like it was so easy to get a hold of. These are her main arguments and she feels strongly about her position, whether you agree with her or not is a different story.
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5 comments:
While I don't necessarily agree that porn is not harmful to young children, I have to agree with her that we should have an uncensored internet. And I don't think using porn to argue for censorship is really fair- parental blocks are hard neither to buy or to use, and all the internet censorship in the world won't protect a child from its parents' statistically probable porn collection stashed somewhere in the house.
The internet should obviously be uncensored. Our constitution aside, it extends across the world and any enactment of an international censorship of this magnitude would be a little too close to Big Brother for me.
As we talked about in the last class, we are a puritanical country. Sex ed in more liberal countries often uses pornographic films as visual aids. The children there can often be found falling asleep. It's simply a part of life there - much like the tolerated consumption of alcohol by children. Through this comparison, the idea of porn as an educational tool does not seem that ludicrous.
Although some may see pornography as "educational" for young children, i feel that it is wrong to allow children to view it. Although some of these issues do violate the constitution, it is in some cases necessary. Put yourself in a parent's shoes, if you walked into your 10 year old childs room and saw them looking at porn, how would you react? i doubt many people would say, "wow, thats just great, my child is watching and learning about sex."
I believe that the internet should be uncensored simply for the fact that trying to lay any type of censorship on it at this point would not only violate the constitution but become an internation disaster. There is no international law at this point in time therefore no pretext to say that we can censor something that is international.
You have the main argument wrong. I never claim that pornography is educational for children or even should be viewed by them. Read this section over! The claim made is that they are not harmed by an occasional view (many, many studies have shown this), Given that the only reason to censor something should be harm to others, the "harm to children" argument goes not justify censorship.
Amy White
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