The Effects Censorship Has on the Internet

Moresi 1

Samuel Moresi

English 1001, Sec.10

Annotated Bibliography

June 27, y

The Effects Censorship Has On The Internet.

Principio, John. “Internet Censorship”. The Impact news.com. Mercy College, December

13, 2012. November 24, 2014.

In this article Principio states that many Americans take our free use of the internet for

granted. He mentions that the United States is not totally free from censorship, but

the government does try to keep it to a minimum mostly censoring websites

considered illegal by legislation such as child pornography and sites thought to be

threats to our national security.

Principio also mentation an Organization based out of Paris called “Reporters without

Borders” whose mission is to protect and advocate for the freedom of the press

and the spread of information worldwide. They see Censorship as a threat to

liberty and basic human rights The organization sight’s countries such as “Iran,

Belarus, Saudi Arabia, China and North Korea” for using censorship to wash non-

government approved opinions on things like governmental policies all the way to

LGBT Rights even “political satire websites” are not safe. Moresi 2

“What are the reasons for internet censorship?”Arabipcentre.com n.p. n.d November 25,

Arab IP Centre Gives a very informative look at the underlying reasons why

governmental entities depend so heavily on internet censorship IP clams there are

three different reasons for governmental entities use to use censorship. The first

and most “controversial” of these being political not all governments have free

and fair elections like ours here in America and order to keep their power they

must suppress the views of any minority group that “contradict what the

government has told people”.

The next reason is the protection of “social norms” examples include “laws against child

pornography or hate speech” these social norms vary from location so sometimes

traditional social norms may be hindering free speech homosexuality was the

example used because in some areas of the world its widely accepted but in others

it’s still a huge taboo the same can be said about different religious groups. The

third reason is national security some information can harmful reach in the wrong

hands as a society we need to define a fine line between necessary censorship for

our protection and censorship that can lead to oppression.