A Brief Overview of Anti-Censorship Arguments

Internet censorship is often excused and justified for social reasons or political reasons. We should keep in mind though; do the ends justify the means?  There is an interesting philosophical debate about this that deals with rules in the virtual world v rules in the real world.  We created rules for the virtual world because we do not think that the real world rules will work in the virtual world. Therefore it is reasonable to create new rules that would never fly in the real world because the virtual world is an entirely new place untouched by the real world. How real can the virtual world possibly be? Proponents of censorship argue that because these rules are happening in a virtual space there is no real harm being done. How can you really infringe on someone’s rights of there is no physical place for this to happen. It is impossible to regulate speech in the real world, like profanity, whereas it only takes a few lines of code to prevent someone from saying certain things online.

Another argument against censorship is that the problem is not solved. It is merely swept away and put out of sight. While censorship does protect prying eyes from obscene content, it does not stop that content from being created. Allowing certain things online may actually help stop them form being produced. IP addresses and GPS can track down a poster and stop him from ever creating more illegal content.

            Censorship limits freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of expression. Everyone is entitled to free access of information and by limiting that we are encouraging people to be ignorant. People can then use this mass ignorance to abuse their power because citizens are more likely to be easily controlled. Censorship abuse is also a problem to consider. History has shown dictators to use censorship to make their image and their message more accepted by the public. The government should not be the end-all rule maker of what we are allowed to access and see, it should ultimately be decided by the people. This leads into the age-old question, who watches the watchers? Dictating what is and what is not allowed can make some people or groups have too much power, which leads back into censorship abuse.  

            The amount of money our government spends on surveying the Internet could be better spent on things we can physically see the result to, such as hospitals or better road care. Censoring the Internet is an exercise in futility, people can and will get around any blockages in their way. Therefore it could be argued that censorship is a needless drain on our resources. We could instead catch the people who make such content and stop them from posting more. Educating people on what is and is not appropriate may help led to a decline of illegal or immoral things being posted online anyway. We should stop sweeping away the problem by blocking it and instead address it to stop it completely.