On March 9 of this year, Gov-. Gary Johnson of New Mexico signed into law an Internet censorship bill for his state. The bill makes it a crime to disseminate by computer material “harmful to minors,” when that material, “in whole or in part, depicts actual or simulated nudity, sexual intercourse or any other sexual conduct.” The bill was aimed at protecting children from Internet pornographers and child molesters, but the bill does much more than that. According to ACLU national staff attorney Ann Beeson, under New Mexico’s law anything from an image of Michelangelo’s David to speech about prison rape, abortion, safer sex practices, and other sexually related topics would be criminalized. The Internet is a revolutionary network of computers that allows millions of computer owners to communicate. While some see the net as the beginnings of a cultural revolution, others see it as a network of child molesters and scam artists. Our government is definately leaning toward the image of the Internet as a danger to children and something that needs to be regulated. In 1996, Congress passed the Communications Decency Act, which made it a crime to distribute sexually explicit material online. The ban was struck down by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional, but states have continued to try to pass their own censorship laws. Over the past three years, 25 states have either considered or passed Internet censorship laws — six states have introduced such laws since January 1. State and federal governments assume that parents and are not responsible enough to keep pornography and other “indecent” material from children’s eyes. The nature of the Internet is such that any sort of government censorship would kill it. Part of the reason the Net is so popular because there are no limits to what can be published. This lack of limits forces us to wade through the pages devoted to such things as “My Dog Sparky and his Imaginary Friends” or “home.microsoft.com.” However, the net also allows high quality pages like suck.com (an Internet-related editorial site) or hacker.com to exist and to gain national distribution, which may not have been possible using a traditional media. The lack of limitation on web publishing also allows net users to post material that some would find offensive. Yet, instead of holding children themselves responsible for their own actions, many parents are demanding that the government regulate the net instead. Congress wants a more “child-friendly” Internet — yet they ignore the fact that the Internet has traditionally been used by teenagers and adults, not children. Most pages on the web are geared toward adults and teens. To sanitize the Internet for the sake of children isn’t the answer. Parents who are concerned about their children using the Internet should be responsible for their own children. Let kids and parents regulate themselves. Government intervention in the Net will eventually reach the point where the independent spirit of the Net will die. The Net isn’t a thing to be feared — but government intervention in the Internet is. |
