Internet Censorship

The Internet, or the World Wide Web, is a great means of obtaining anything that is in almost any part of the world. An easy way to think about this is just “millions of computers that can talk and share information” (Clark 1). The web broadcasts more information than any other medium in the world right now. There are several problems that have emerged with the startup of the Internet, “Almost as soon as the public began to use the Internet, people began to express concern about its use” (Clark 1). Several groups feel that the World Wide Web is dangerous because of it’s open accessibility, whereas other groups see that the Internet is something that is good and can be used to spread and increase knowledge worldwide. Due to it’s beneficial wealth the Internet should not be censored because censorship would restrict Americans’ first amendment rights; regulations have been tried and have failed in the past, and there are better methods of education and protection than censorship.


The rights put forth by the first amendment protect the Internet. The first amendment states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” (Wallace). In layman’s terms, this means that the government does not have the right to take away freedoms that involve speech or the press of the American people. The Internet’s lack of censorship encompasses Americans’ freedom because of the first amendment.


The World Wide Web started as an idea that focused around the government’s need to communicate if there was a real war. In 1964 the Cold War was at its peak, the Advanced Researched Projects Agency, or ARPA began researching and developing a way to get computers to “communicate with each other,” this is how it all started (The Internet\'s History and...