Online Censorship

For my Marketplace of Ideas project, I have decided to take a deeper look into a right that Americans take for granted every day. This right deals with the use of the internet which millions and millions of Americans use daily. I started to research internet censorship and how it would affect us as Americans. Through my research, I have learned that there are many people and organizations that want the internet to be censored for certain reasons. Some want it censored for piracy reasons which could prevent illegal downloads of music, movies, and other illegal copyright. Some want to see materials on the internet not be accessible like certain violent games, websites with adult content, or other information that Americans youth should not be able to see.  Each side clearly has an argument in this issue but after looking into this topic, I know where I stand.

According to Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” Our laws and principles of America give us the freedom of speech to post and seek what we want on the internet. The government should stay out of the internet and let it be free just like it has been. This doesn’t mean that I’m for piracy, but I am totally against bills such as SOPA and PIPA. Back in January, the internet was trending with talk about these two bills and what they could do to the Internet. Wikipedia had a blackout of a day where nobody could access content on their website to raise awareness to what these bills could do. Google put a black banner across the logo to protest. Twitter and Facebook had lots of trending posts about SOPA and PIPA. These bills were proposed to stop piracy but the vagueness in the bills could be a foot in the door for the government to keep going and block content that is user made. All three of those sights are user operated and without them, they could no longer be in operation. Not just these sights but many sights across the net would be taken down including Youtube. In today’s economy, many jobs are based online. What would happen if sights were taken down where people’s jobs were on the line? If SOPA and PIPA were passed, they could slowly destroy the internet as well as jobs across the country.