Against Freedom of Speech Online

I was asked to reflect on some reasons why we may not want complete freedom of speech online.

Negative position against freedom of speech online.

Purpose:

The Internet was never really meant to be a vehicle for freedom of speech. The Internet was initially devised to be a communication tool for institutions of higher learning and government agencies. The growth of the use of the Internet has been phenomenal, true. The Internet is a fascinating place that has become a rich culture where people of all beliefs have found a space to express themselves, share ideas and knowledge and communicate with the rest of the world, true. The Internet is a safe haven for freedom of speech and expression and is a God Given right where I can say whatever I want and do whatever I want online, I don't think so.

In 1974, ARPANET had 62 computers attached to it and all of them were at research institutions. The intent was to allow for free communication for academic purposes.

Freedoms and Rights:

The constitution of the United States does afford the freedom of speech in it's amendments, However, we also recognize the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. We may support the free speech of adults, but we have a greater responsibility to children. Simply put, children, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, need special safeguards and care and we must encourage the development of appropriate guidelines for the protection of the child from information and material injurious to his or her well-being.

And the fact is also there that the Internet contains a great deal of harmful content.

Internet Content:

It had been argued that perhaps only 5% of Internet content is offensive for children. Let's look at that number. The Online Computer Literacy Center estimated that there were approximately 3.11 million web sites on the World Wide Wed. Some researchers suggest that as much as 85% of this is offensive content including seditious speech, threats to the peace, hate speech, defamation, obscenity, and child pornography. All of which we are supposedly protected from in the First Amendment.

But even if we only look at adult pornography sites and drop the number to 5%, that is still over 155,000.

I don't want my child walking around a bookstore with 155,000 hard core adult pornography magazines lying on the floor.

And the Internet is very much like our public library, or our local bookstore. And this analogy is even more applicable when we look at the Internet being used in our public schools.

We know that our children must use the Internet in school. Either for research or for communication, the original purposes of the Internet. We want our children to be able to safely use the Internet for the intended purposes.

We read the Acceptable Use Policies from our children's schools and we should be very disturbed by what we read. Either our children are expected to stay away from offensive sites, or the schools use filters to block the offensive sites.

I am not happy with either solution. Why should my child be held accountable for the content that other people put on the Internet? It isn't my child's fault that the whitehouse.com is a porn site. It isn't my child's fault that 14point.org is a useful site about the Holocaust and 14point.com is a hate site aimed at Jews. It's the same as going to the school library and picking up a copy Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. I know that my child isn't going to come home with book about a young girl having premarital relations with a commune of midgets. Why can't I feel that safe with the Internet. It is my right for my child to be safe.

Why should my child be restricted at school from learning about breast cancer, or the AIDS virus? Why should my child not be able to see a photo of Michalangelo's David? Internet filters will stop my child from learning about these things. Without a filter, my child could get into a great deal of trouble for researching his interest in antique jugs.

Also, why should my tax dollars go to paying for software to filter out offensive material at school? That money would be better used buying educational programs, or paying for better teacher's salaries so my child can receive a better education. We expect our schools to be safe and secure learning environments. We need regulations to ensure this for the sake of our children.

Precedents:

It isn't that we don't have any guidelines to follow. The Internet needs only be looked at as the same as any other form of media. Printed media and television and film all have their regulations. It is lawful to write or say anything you want, but it isn't your right to make someone else read it.

The Internet is like walking through your local mall. There are places where you can shop, you can go to the movies, you can browse through books and magazines, you can watch your local musician put on a free concert. If someone comes into the mall and starts to threaten you or carries a poster that defames an individual or particular group, security will remove that person. If you go to the bookstore to buy an adult magazine you will find it in it's own special area in a plastic bag behind a barrier on the top shelf where young children are not going to find it by accident. Surely we can ask for the same considerations for the Internet.

Ironically, many netizens who are proponents of free speech are also the ones going to great lengths to stop SPAM and and argue that cookies are an invasion of privacy. Can we really expect to have the best of both worlds: protect my rights but stop everyone else's?

Proposal:

Create a new community online that is self-regulatory. All adult and offensive content can be pointed there using the domain .adult. Anyone who placed offensive material on a dotcom or dotnet or dotedu site would be prosecuted through the courts.

Closing comments

The preamble to the Constitution of the United States – please reflect.

The Constitution of the United States is one of the most important historical and political documents in history. It embodies the beliefs of free people who have toppled dictatorships and fought in world wars to protect and ensure the rights of people world wide. It encouraged the New Colonies to break away from England during the American Revolution. The beliefs it embodied swept across Europe with the French Revolution and the fall of anarchy around the world. Even Ho Chi Minh used it to try to win freedom for the Vietnamese people from France.

It is important that we do not let the new technological revolution sweep away all that has been won in the name of freedom. Do we really believe that our children need to be able to find pictures of people having sex with animals? Do they need to be able to find the recipe for a homemade bomb? Do they need to access a web site that declares that Hitler was right in killing the Jews or that the whole Holocaust story is a myth that never really happened? Do any of us need this information? No. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom to lie, or freedom to threaten or freedom to entice minors to have sex: freedom to be stupid.

In allowing this to continue we allow the Internet to become no more an instrument for learning, research and communication than the wall in the men's bathroom at the local truck stop.

The cry for freedom of speech on the Internet is actually an attempt to take away our true freedom to communicate and seek knowledge in a free, safe and secure environment. It is a mistake to believe that regulating the Internet is the same as censorship. No, it is simply an effort to insure domestic tranquility and promote the general welfare.

Make the Internet safe, develop regulations that can protect our children from offensive material, stop the propagation of hate and racism and bigotry. Without control and guidelines we are threatened with anarchy. If we do not make efforts to regulate the Internet today, we may not have an Internet tomorrow. Act now, before it is too late.