There was great outrage when google.com provided a special edition of their powerful search engine to the Chinese government. The Chinese government was vilified for infringing upon people's basic rights to search unfettered. google.com was framed as a company that was perpetuating the oppressive regime's goal of complete dominance and control over the minutiae of everyday life. We all agreed that filtering the Internet created large disparities and opportunities. We all agreed that a government had no right to adopt measures that adversely affected individuals access and right to information.
Yet, our society, our very own government blocks valuable information provided by the internet every single day. We tout the internet as the great equalizer. Finally we have relatively cheaply a way to access information that is innumerable in variety. Our government with the passing of the Children's Internet Protection Act, mandated that all institutions that received federal funding for internet connections must use some form of Internet filtering.
At first glance this policy seems to protect children from potentially harmful material that can be found on the internet. It would be ideal to block all pornographic material from children as it is deemed to be psychologically damaging. Yet with imprecise technology, inadequate training and the very purpose of libraries, Internet filtering which starts out as a good concept for the protection of our nation's children ends up limiting access to important information and creating unfair privileges to information that the internet was supposed to eliminate.
It is true that not all Internet filters are created equal, but overwhelmingly studies have shown that Internet filtering is and incomplete and clumsy endeavor. The internet is vast, thousands of websites are created each day, it is therefore impossible that each site can be reviewed and evaluated effectively. Many internet filters rely upon technologies that simply look for phrases, or even words to block a site under designated categories. The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU school of Law is dedicated to the "pursuit of a vision of inclusive and effective democracy" along with the Free Expression Policy project published Internet Filters: A Public Policy Report, an 87 page document on the issue of Internet Filtering. They summarize;
The conclusion of the revised and updated Internet Filters: A Public Policy Report is that the widespread use of filters presents a serious threat to our most fundamental free expression values. There are much more effective ways to address concerns about offensive Internet content. Filters provide a false sense of security, while blocking large amounts of important information in an often irrational or biased way. Although some may say that the debate is over and that filters are now a fact of life, it is never too late to rethink bad policy choices.
Some of the reports more compelling evidence for discontinuing the use of Internet filters has little to dow with the inadequacy of Internet filtering technology but the disparities that arise when Internet filtering is used in places like libraries. It is hard to ignore the case that those who have more money not only have access to an unfiltered internet and therefore have a greater access to quality information but they also have the benefit of having the ability to make sure that their websites are not subjected to all to familiar blanket blocking of free internet hosting sites.
Stop Internet Filtering!
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Nicole raises an interesting issue with the discussion of internet filtering. While most would agree that it is an honorable and decent intention to filter the internet so that children are not exposed to such things as pornography, in practice it has not worked out as has been intended. While the intensions behind internet filtering in the United States are much different than the intentions behind the Chinese Government’s filtering, both can effectively prevent people from accessing desired information. The most striking point raised by Nicole, in my opinion, is that the lower classes of people are the ones who are the most effected by the filtering of internet sites. If the only computers available to them are ones at public libraries, they have no means by which they can access all of the information that a person can access while sitting at home on their own personal computer. While the intentions behind the censoring is are good, the lack of a high quality filtering system has become a huge problem. Enormous amounts of information are caught by the filters, and as of yet there is no mechanism to determine whether or not this information was rightfully filtered. Until a filtering system can be created that can assure everyone equal access to legitimate desired information, filters should be lifted. It does raise the risk that children may encounter pornography on the internet, but in my opinion, it is more important that everyone have access to the same materials, regardless of class standing, race, or where they access the internet.
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