Censorship Essay
Shinyra Harris
Professor Payne
English 990.1
30 October 2014
Internet Censorship
Censorship refers to any action taken by a society to control access to ideas and information. I have two different perspectives on how I perceive internet censorship. I am for internet censoring to protect children from viewing material they should not see. I also think the internet should not have censorship on its websites because there my be certain information you may need to retrieve, but if that particular site is blocked then there would not be any other way to access that information from any network. The same thing that is seen on the internet movie stars and producers are exposing it on television. I understand that censoring the internet can protect our younger generations from being exposed to many things too early, but watching television today does not make the situation much better. Censorship should be needed only for children and young teens because they should not be getting exposed to explicit material at such a young age.
Throughout history, societies practiced various forms of censorship in the belief that the community, as represented by the government, was responsible for molding the individual. The world began wrestling with issues of censorship in the seventeenth century. For example, John Milton argued in favor of the right to publish, free from government restraint. John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell. When a U.S. government agency attempts to prohibit speech or writing, whoever is being censored frequently raises the First Amendment rights. Such cases usually involve communication that the government perceives as harmful to itself or the public. Restricting the access of information is something that can provide benefits to society. For example, pornography is not censored on the internet; however, anyone may go out on the websites and access it. If
Professor Payne
English 990.1
30 October 2014
Internet Censorship
Censorship refers to any action taken by a society to control access to ideas and information. I have two different perspectives on how I perceive internet censorship. I am for internet censoring to protect children from viewing material they should not see. I also think the internet should not have censorship on its websites because there my be certain information you may need to retrieve, but if that particular site is blocked then there would not be any other way to access that information from any network. The same thing that is seen on the internet movie stars and producers are exposing it on television. I understand that censoring the internet can protect our younger generations from being exposed to many things too early, but watching television today does not make the situation much better. Censorship should be needed only for children and young teens because they should not be getting exposed to explicit material at such a young age.
Throughout history, societies practiced various forms of censorship in the belief that the community, as represented by the government, was responsible for molding the individual. The world began wrestling with issues of censorship in the seventeenth century. For example, John Milton argued in favor of the right to publish, free from government restraint. John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell. When a U.S. government agency attempts to prohibit speech or writing, whoever is being censored frequently raises the First Amendment rights. Such cases usually involve communication that the government perceives as harmful to itself or the public. Restricting the access of information is something that can provide benefits to society. For example, pornography is not censored on the internet; however, anyone may go out on the websites and access it. If