Should governments censor material on the internet? [ENDS 27/06/2010]

[HotelUser]

No filters at all. Go after those that break the law.

I agree with this, although it would be fun sneaking behind the law to speak freely!

[MrPinkPanther]

The government should have no role in interfering in what is intended to be a free platform unless the material puts people at risk. For example I don't think any of us believe that Child Pornography should be freely distributed or material that insights racial hatred. I do however believe that all but highly illegal material should not be filtered. The Internet has thrived as a community with no international boundaries, separate from the nation state, we should keep it that way otherwise it will be put at risk. I'd also like to note the difficulty in censoring the Internet, it's not as straightforward as people think and it can prove very costly. It is because by nature it is worldwide that it proves hard to censor, the primary way of dealing with it would be through a firewall (like the great firewall of China) however firewalls can be avoided by going through a proxy server. In China many people do just that and so have free access to the whole Internet. I therefore believe it is not only wrong to censor the Internet but logistically its virtually impossible anyway.

[Mark]

Is that not the job of some firewalls? Rather than censor material censor the website? My school has a very high firewall that blocks out innapropriate websites

[Petite$]

Of course, censoring things would help with a lot of issues, I feel like the internet would feel too controlled and strict. I think the following should be censored;
Anything related to terrorism that can lead to an actual attack i.e 'terrorist communities'
Child Pornography
Illegal downloads (although I'm unsure about this because it would affect me too but then after all it is illegal)

But then again, it would be really hard to stop ALL activities like the ones above and people would still slip by. It would feel like such a breach of privacy too. A bit like how CCTV cameras can be used to protect you but there are so many, it feels like Big Brother on the high streets.

[Sharon]

I think they should, although I don't see the point as they can still view inappropriate things in other ways and they couldn't possibly censor everything and some things could still be viewing one way or another.

[Sameer!]

No way. This will just waste money when we just managed to climb out of the recession.