by `Unbearable-Lightness


When people get online, they seem to forget the Bill of Rights specifies limitations on freedom of speech and expression.  The first amendment was never intended to give a free ride to physically, verbally, or emotionally abuse another person.

Internet users feel they are not accountable for what they do online even though the first amendment in the Bill of Rights may hold individuals responsible for bullying, cyberstalking, child pornography and well-maintained and available records of the age of human subjects.

It is crucial to understand that an individual's right to freedom of speech and expression cannot conflict with other rights.  The purpose of the first amendment was to allow political debate in a democracy.

The first amendment regards Freedom of Speech, of the press, and of assembly; and the right to petition.  

The U.S. founding fathers intended this amendment to protect the political right to communicate one's opinions and ideas via speech. The term freedom of expression differs from freedom of speech in that it includes any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used. In practice, the right to freedom of speech is not absolute in any country and the right is commonly subject to limitations, such as libel, slander, obscenity, and incitement to commit a crime.

    "The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins."

    ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

In the United States, federal and state governments have long been permitted to limit obscenity or pornography;  a Supreme Court ruling generally refused to give obscenity any protection under the First Amendment.  The fine art community may itself condemn pornography but has historically tended to defend the freedom of expression rights of pornographers.  This seems logical in that no legal definition or general societal consensus on a definitive difference between fine art and pornography seems to exist.

On the other hand, I think there is a great misconception about what constitutes censorship in the computer-dominated Information Age.  For example, child pornography is not protected by the first amendment to the Bill of Rights and is, in fact, illegal in almost every country in the world today.

Those of us who reside in the democracies of the free world apparently do not realize what online censorship means as it exists in cyberspace.  The first amendment was meant to protect political debate, and that is exactly what is being censored in some parts of our global village.  An example of online censorship would be the highly publicized "Great Wall of China," the name given to a network firewall in place in the People's Republic of China:

    The system blocks content by preventing IP addresses from being routed through and consists of standard firewall and proxy servers at the Internet gateways. The government does not appear to be systematically examining Internet content, as this appears to be technically impractical.  Censorship in the People's Republic of China is conducted under a wide variety of laws and administrative regulations that have been vigorously implemented.

That's online censorship.

No one is being deprived of any inalienable right if they are prosecuted for child pornography, libel, slander, obscenity, or inciting a crime.  People who consider their rights absolute but walk all over the rights of others need to get over it.

Full Story at [link]