Informative Essay: Government Interruption Of Free Speech

In order to find truth to anything, one must make multiple suggestions, ask many questions, and sometimes ponder the unspeakable. Without doing so, there would be no process of elimination; therefore, truth would be virtually unattainable. Now, in our attempts to either find truth, express our beliefs and opinions, or generally use the rights we are given constitutionally, we are often being criticized and even reprimanded. Our freedom to voice our opinion(s) is being challenged, as critics of free speech are taking offense to what seems like anything and everything merely controversial and arguably prejudice. As people continue to strive for a nation free of prejudice and discrimination, where everyone is equal, safe and

In a world of ever evolving technology, it has become increasingly difficult for many leaders to censor and control the flow of information. The development of the Internet throughout the nineties has created a cosmopolitan world in which people from across the earth can communicate and share ideas and information. The development of Internet technology and social media web platforms have led to an increased desire for democracy in many areas of the world; however, some nations have worked to curtail the freedom of information flow by developing complex Internet censorship programs. While Internet censorship is a highly relevant topic in today’s society, it is mainly viewed as a problem in non-democratic countries. While at there is merit to this viewpoint, censorship is a much more universal obstacle than most people realize.

These days the internet has become an essential part to living for almost everyone but one of the controversial topics that people bring up is that whether or not the government should regulate information on the internet. Both sides have valid points which form a reasonable argument. Some people would say that they need to because of the dangers lurking around in the cyber world but the reasons for why the government shouldn’t regulate the Internet outnumber the reasons for why they should. The federal government should not regulate or censor information on the internet because doing so violates the first amendment and citizen’s right to privacy, degrades the educational value of the web, prevents the promotion and facilitation of

Now, someone really is watching your internet actions and limiting your ability to get free, unbiased information. If an internet service provider wishes to, they can block certain sites that they deem ‘wrong’ or ‘controversial.’ “Companies might want to interfere with speech that makes them look bad, block applications that compete with their own, degrade or block access to union sites during a labor conflict, or increase their profit by forcing developers to pay more to avoid having their data blocked or slowed down” (ACLU). This is a violation of the freedom of speech. If those viable opinions or facts are unable to be heard or seen, then the whole world loses out on valuable knowledge and viewpoints. Sadly, this reality is a real possibility now. The government not only has the duty to stay out of private internet usage, but also to ensure that all other interested parties do to. The government must protect the rights and freedoms of its

In a country that has a long history of upholding the freedom of speech and advanced technologies, people in the United States have enjoyed the internet to the largest scale for many decades. The internet made it possible to spread information worldwide, and thus it would not be strange for most of the people to hear the phrase “Internet Censorship”. Many people are familiar with this phrase, and are aware that this kind of censorship is in almost every country. However, to what extent, and for what purpose, Internet censorship is used, is still a general obscurity with the public. In this paper, I would like to explore how this technology is used and its impact on the three strictest countries regarding freedom of Internet access to information:

With the advent of the World Wide Web in 1989, people across the world gained access to an ever-increasing well of information. Access to this information could be at risk, however, with increasing amounts of censorship arising in nations across the world. Internet censorship is when groups attempt to prevent users from accessing certain information that they decided is unnecessary or wrong to view. The censorship users are subject to is important to acknowledge as it can affect access to content and the amount of content created, as well as potentially preventing discussion, even for non-controversial topics. There are several ways you could approach the topic of internet censorship, all of which have differing degrees of success in their methods of attack and lasting effects on the internet ecosystem. The best solution is to take more of a laissez-faire approach and scale back the amount of censorship currently present, allowing users to govern themselves, instead of trying to enforce rules put in place by a governing entity or private company, or trying to reach a middle ground on what should or should not be censored.

America is founded on the rights to life, liberty, and property and as a part of our liberty (as well as the first amendment) we are promised the freedom of speech. However, as Ben Shapiro stated in his article, free speech has decreased throughout the years and has since become desolate in American society. The government has done everything in their power to reduce the amount of freedom for American citizens, therefore we truly don't have the ability to openly criticize any decisions made by any governmental branch. On the other hand, David Shariatmadari brings up the point that anybody can practice their freedom of speech through social media or books. While this is true, posts do get flagged and removed if they do not follow the terms and

Censorship of the internet keeps people from important knowledge thereby believing that everything on the internet is true. A study was conducted to look into a handful of billionaires who run tech companies in 24 hours and found “more than 137 examples of Silicon Valley companies brazenly banning users, censoring content and manipulating search results to undermine the democratization of information on the web.” (PR Newswire). The people with money abuse internet censorship in order to further their own agenda with the support of the greedy. They completely ignore that the internet is supposed to be a resource for everyone. Internet censorship makes countries rot because “When you have strict censorship of the internet, young students cannot receive a full education. Their view of the world is imbalanced. There can be no true discussion of the issues.” (Ai WeiWei). The Futures of countries become full of ignorance to the reality of the world. The only truly successful internet censorship is China’s system and while it is impressive to maintain it “China employs 2 million to monitor websites” (YaleGlobal Online). This is an unreasonable amount to employ for any country, while feasible for the US it would cost us one of the biggest resources in the world. This lack of free will causes citizens to have an unhealthy amount of patriotism because of the lack of any knowledge of major screw ups as a country.

  Abstract:  The issue of free speech has been around since the founding fathers first ratified the constitution of the United States.  With the emergence of new technology, especially the Internet, freedom of speech has been redefined and its limits tested.  What are the limitations of free speech on the Internet, and how can they be enforced?  These are the constitutional questions for the digital age.

There was an article saying that in 2007, the government subpoenaed amazon.com to obtain book purchasing records of amazons customers. Judge Stephen Crocker said that, “ the subpoena is troubling because it permits the government to peek into the reading habits of specific individuals with out their knowledge or permission. It is an unsettling and un-American scenario to envision federal agents nosing through the reading lists of law-abiding citizens while hunting for evidence against somebody else.” This article brings into question the constitutional rights of the 4th and 9th amendments, of warrants and privacy of citizens: should the government be able to look into private records showing purchases and other private businesses of

The First Amendment of the Constitution distinguishes Americans from other citizens in the world. The right to free speech, press, and religion is at the core of the Americanvalue system. As a result, when thesefreedoms are challenged people tend to react strongly. However, at times government officials and theirconstituents would argue that censorship, or other violations of Constitutionalrights, are legitimate. With the advent of new technologies, politicians createnew policies to gain control over these technologies. This attempt to exertcontrol appears in the legislation geared towards the Internet. Currently free speech thrives on theInternet. A very large variety ofopinions are expressed on

70% of Americans agree that people should have the right to free speech, even if their words are highly offensive, like on social media, the government, and terrorism. I think that we should have free speech, but we need to examine what we say before we say it. What we say will reflect a reputation on us, what kind of reputation do you want?

In recent times, the topic of freedom of speech has become a blurred line between absolutism and ethics and morals. Published in the The Atlantic, Garret Epp’s Free Speech Isn’t Free argues the legitimacy of the claims that many other writers speak of the First Amendment, in that free speech, despite the good it brings, can cause damage to those in the U.S. Epps also argues that on the other side, defenders of the “absolute” free speech – in which you either have full free speech or not – don’t realize that “repressing speech has costs, but so does allowing it” (Epps 20). Epps takes a sort of neutral stance in this argument, stating that both sides of free speech fail to recognize something, in that free speech is a balance of whether it can provide social good – in terms of rights – or social bad, referring to hate speech and the like. In essence, Epps speaks of treating free speech as a debate in which both sides of the issue can properly defend themselves and their views, specifically saying that “Free speech can’t be reaffirmed by drowning out its critics” (94). Much of what Epps says is certainly solid. Epps includes views from both sides of the argument and eloquently discusses them in a way that it is hard to disagree with.

Internet censorship has been a growing issue in America. Many bills like The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) are trying to be passed that are trying to control the internet. If the internet is censored and controlled by the government we will be losing our freedom of speech across the world-wide web. This is huge issue in other countries where people are jailed and prosecuted for thoughts and opinions published on the web. If nothing is done to stop internet censorship in America, this could be a reality for us as well.

Censorship is a prevalent form of concealing fundamental information to the public, and has been imposed by governments throughout history. The effectiveness of censorship is called to question when one discerns that there is crucial information missing. Individuals want to know about what is going on in the world - they want to know the truth. In today’s technologically advanced society, censorship on the Internet is a difficult task to perform due to the complexities of IP banning, Internet relations with the government, and constant opposition to censorship. Censorship has been a prevalent factor throughout history, which have been used to impede the spread of information. Some such censorships include wartime censorship and Internet censorship. Although censorship is imposed to prevent certain information from being exposed to the public, it is often an inappropriate tactic used by governments to conceal confidential information that the public has a right and obligation to know. This censorship often backfires on the imposer, as individuals find methods of opposing censorship and exposing the government’s efforts to conceal information through leaks to various websites. Thus, governments should impose boundaries upon their use of censorship, especially when not in times of war.