Censorship in America

Essay by Anonymous UserCollege, UndergraduateA+, January 1996

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A position paper, concerning censorship in America -

The idea of censorship is nothing new to the American people. Censorship has been controversial since I can ever remember. The issue is so delicate because censorship by definition infringes on peoples First Amendment rights. Usually when that phrase is used, controversy follows quite closely. Pornography is another hotly debated issue. Parents have long wanted stricter laws to help prohibit young children getting a hold of magazines, videos and other pornographic materials. With the development of the Internet and the World Wide Web it has become even more of a challenge to prevent children from being exposed to such material. These are some questions that people need to ask them selves and legislators. Should magazine companies, such as Playboy, Penthouse, etc, be prohibited from publishing their magazines on the web when magazines like Time, and Sports Illustrated are allowed? How easy is it to access such magazines? Do people want to have such magazine so accessible to just anyone? What can and is being done and what are the political ramifications?

Anyone with access to a computer that is equipped with on-line services can view such magazines with relative ease.

Although, studies show Internet pornography only represents a small portion of Internet traffic it still is quite effortless. Basically the only thing one needs to do is select any of the search engines and simply type: sex. This will pull up a host of different sites where one can easily click on any of them and view pornography. What many groups are trying to do is make it less accessible to people and especially young people. What is happening is that the term pornography is which a broad word used in many different contexts and is difficult to determine what should...