Should The Internet Be Censored??

Introduction

The question of censorship has been raised throughout all forms of media and speech. Time has proven that censorship has been one of the most controversial topics that can ever be discussed or reviewed. Without the issue of censorship in terms of religious views, the Pilgrims may not have founded the colonies so many years ago. And with any controversial topic there will always be two opposing sides present. Recently, two terms have become synonymous with controversial--cyber-porn and hacking. In 1998, Dworkin and MacKinnon defined pornography as the "graphic sexually explicit subordination of women, men, children, or transsexuals through pictures and/or words..." and the fact that it is viewable on the Internet is where the 'cyber' prefix comes into play (p. 36). Hacking is an act in which computer users get unauthorized access to other computers possibly causing damage to the system.

Cyberporn

Some researchers have found that pornography is directly related to crime especially organized crime.

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In the Final Report of the Attorney General's Commission on Pornography, the US Dept. of Justice concluded the direct correlation between crime and pornography by interviewing witnesses, law enforcement personnel, and consulting a variety of transcripts and sources. Despite the 1970's Commission on Pornography's view, this latest report suggests "that significant parts of the pornography industry are controlled by organized crime" (1986, p. 294). This could certainly indict negative viewpoints on cyber-porn, as certain members of the porn industry are currently online. The simple fact that the Internet is becoming more prevalent in our daily lives suggests that more people have access to this form of media.

The question of whether pornography is harmful is one main motivator for censorship of the Internet in regards to cyber-porn. In using the word 'harmful', it is understood that this is not necessarily physical...