The Importance Of Censorship On The Internet

Ellsworth, J. E. (1988). Censorship in secondary school newspapers: Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier. BYU Journal of Public Law, 2, 291–306.

In this case, the Principal of Hazelwood east high, Principal Reynolds, reviewed the school paper before it was published. He thought two articles were inappropriate for school, one on some of the student’s pregnancies and experiences while pregnant, and one person’s experiences through her parent’s divorce. ("Facts and Case Summary: Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier."1 ) Even though all of the names were changed, the principal was worried that the students may be identified. Also, the father in the divorce article was not reached for comment, so the article had not been unbiased, as should be expected in a newspaper.("Landmark Cases of the U.S. Supreme Court: Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier"1) The principal removed these articles, causing the paper to miss a

(pg. 200) Jefferson once said,“Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.” (2.) Once you try to restrict people in what they say, you won’t be able to restrict everybody because there are too many people. Even when people are in their home, you won’t be able to control them. If you cannot control everyone, there is no point of having the rule.

The First Amendment has its flaws; it does not protect against all forms speech and articles with negative intent. In each of the cases, newspaper organizations were tried for using their freedom of press. Time, place and manner regulation treats all acts of speech the same. Under this guideline, people may socialize freely in public, but may not talk at a time or place that would cause major traffic blockage, because it’s affecting the rights of other individuals. The Court developed the time, place, and manner regulation to decide if federal jurisdictions of free speech were legal under the Constitution. In this rule, limitations on free speech are solely constitutional if the speech’s content is neutral. The right’s granted under the First

The history of the Near case began in Minnesota in 1925 with the passing of the Minnesota gag law which allowed a judge to stop the publication of any publication they found obscene or malicious. (Press, Law, Publication, and Gag) In addition to this if the material continued to be published the creator would receive a heavy fine as well as time in jail. Designed in order to combat the rampant spread of yellow journalism, which was sensational news stories centered around the conduct of politicians and local community leaders, the first application was aimed at a weekly newsletter known as the Saturday Post published in Minneapolis by the controversial J.M. Near. (West’s Encyclopedia of American Law) While containing anti-semitic, anti-labor, and anti-catholic sentiments the paper also provided accurate stories about the corruption in the city. This angered the mayor and chief of police as they were the primary features of the

Decision of the court: The Supreme Court ruled 5-3 in favor of the school, it reversed the decision of the Eight Circuit Court stating that the principal’s actions regarding the publication did not violate the students’ First Amendment right.

Carlos: Under the First Amendment, did Alpine High School offend the Constitution when it prevented Petitioner’s potentially disruptive and divisive opinion article for publication in the school sponsored newspaper?

An important provision of the Bill of Rights is the protection of freedom to publish, as provided by the First Amendment. This protection applies to all kinds of publications, even those that print unpopular opinions. In most censorship cases, every attempt is made to suppress the written word after publication, not before. Minnesota passed a law in 1925 that sought to prevent newspapers, magazines, and other publications from printing obscene, malicious, scandalous and defamatory material. This law was called the Minnesota Gag Law . This law allowed private citizens and/or public prosecutors to request a court injunction to shut down any publication that was known as a public nuisance. Publishers of newspapers had to show that they had good motives for anything they were going to print before they printed it.

Throughout the years of US jurisprudence, the Supreme Court has interpreted the First Amendment to allow latitude to speech of the press and of the people. However, the restrictions on speech the Court determined to fall outside the limits of permitted speech and therefore considered “unprotected speech” include fighting words, incitement to imminent lawless action, defamation, solicitations to commit crimes, child pornography, blackmail, perjury, obscenity, and false & misleading commercial speech. To look back at recorded foundations of the first amendment regarding speech – words used to incite imminent lawless action, can be seen in Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969). The U.S. Supreme Court held that “the constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.” That is to say, a state can’t stop free speech unless there is imminent danger of inciting violence.

•Regarding Near and Guilford's defense of freedom of the press under article 1, section 3 of the Minnesota Constitution, the State Supreme Court did not believe that the right was intended to protect the publishing of scandalous material, but that it only provided a shield for the honest, careful and conscientious press, not the defamer and the scandalmonger.

In the Supreme Court case of the New York Times Co. vs. United States there is a power struggle. This struggle includes the entities of the individual freedoms against the interests of federal government. It is well known that the first amendment protects the freedom of speech, but to what extent does this freedom exist. There have been instances in which speech has been limited; Schenck vs. United States(1919) was the landmark case which instituted such limitations due to circumstances of “clear and present danger”. Many have noted that the press serves as an overseer which both apprehends and guides national agenda. However, if the federal government possessed the ability to censor the press would the government restrain itself? In the

This again reverts back to the First and Fourteenth Amendments, and a violation of non-bias objective judgement. This most certainly is a content based restriction, as the stat of Illinois was claiming that the clerk violated a state criminal statute prohibiting the sale of “obscene” magazines. This case would be considered a valid restriction of speech under Illinois state law because they claim it unnecessary and of no interest for the general public, or community standard, to perches the magazines. The irony in it all is that the Supreme Court overturned the initial ruling that the community standard was inappropriate for determining whether a work had “value”. Another twist is that this is considered symbolic speech as the clerks are expressing their political opinions of freedom of speech by selling what would be considered obscene

In 1925, Minnesota passed the Public Nuisance Law, which gave the state the right to suppress newspapers that published scandalous and defamatory material. After the law 's passing, Jay Near published a spread in The Saturday Press in which he criticized and vilified local officials. Under the Public Nuisance Law, an injunction was obtained by local officials to prevent Near from continuing to publish in the newspaper. The case was eventually

Censorship may be protection from inappropriate materials, but it also limits free speech. For the limitation of free speech, it is reasonable why people are emphatically against censorship. It is understood that there is a need to filter some of the materials released in today’s society, but too much is being done by people who have no right meddling with everyone’s rights. Civilization has always been plagued by a never ending battle being fought over what is deemed right and wrong. In today’s culture, censorship oppresses everything in the media. From movies and music to television and even news stories, most of the content viewed today has been filtered one way or another. Restrictions have been in place since early societies have been

As always, there are those individuals that oppose the power to censor. There are members of society that believe in the freedom to speak publicly and to publish. This is a basic belief in the freedom of expression and is to be protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution. On the eve of the bicentennial of the Bill of Rights, the first wave of a nationwide survey, comprising more than 1500 citizens was conducted. Through this survey it was found that American rate free speech as their second most precious First Amendment right and regard a free press highly in the abstract. Although there are strong cases made for and against censorship, the rising trend calling for censorship can threaten our basic rights to free expression and the right to be informed. At the center of the debate is the First Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees our right to read, speak, write, and communicate freely. The government at the state or federal level cannot