Sunday, October 3, 2010
Internet Censorship in the United States
Everyone else seems to be tackling censorship in foreign countries so I figured I'd talk about censorship here. Most of the internet censorship in the United States (yes it exists) revolves around the use of P2P networks and other online sources for circumventing copyrights. In all forms of internet forum one of the main rules involves a zero tolerance policy for discussion of illegal downloads that would interfere with copyright laws. While these are guidelines and not officially enforced there is a continued push for legislation that would take a much stronger approach to websites that are potentially involved in copyright infringement. Another form of censorship applied in the United States involves schools and government institutions. Many schools block a large number of websites to limit content viewable by students. The initial argument for this system was to protect young students from viewing "damaging" materials, however schools took the opportunity to ban almost every website that didn't pertain to the school's curriculum.
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It is obviously ongoing that legislation wants to put more limits on laws against P2P and piracy, but it will be hard to stop it all. There are forums, websites, how-to tutorials and many ither kinds of websites completely dedicated to obtaining illegally downloadable material. I have personally been a member of P2P sites that have been shut down in other countries. Is the US just slow to catch on?
ReplyDeleteIP law isn't the only limit on net access here (some would not consider limits on use of intellectual property as censorship at all, though it can certainly be used that way). Tell us more about schools, child protection efforts that might amount to censorship, efforts to enforce political correctness online...
ReplyDeleteCensorship is about stifling speech, not just blocking the listener. How do we do the former here?