FREE ESSAY ON INTERNET CENSORSHIP

INTERNET CENSORSHIP

Mr. Speaker, distinguished members of the house,
The opposition concedes that proctecting children and to enable adults to avoid material
which offends their personal & community standards should be one of the goals of the
government. Having said that, we must find realistic and practical solutions in order to
address this issue. Is regulating the internet the answer? Before answering this
question, there are many factors to be considered.
As the member of the opposition has stated, no single set of standards is appropriate to
all users, how can we regulate and deem what's appropriate for one, everyone is
different. What one may find offensive on the net, others may not. By restricting the
flow of information on the internet, the public will not be able to obtain every possible
information which is available to them. Although there will always be certain sites which
emits offensive material, it gives us a true balance of our society. By making the
internet a perfect world will mislead the public's perception of our true society.
Mr. Speaker, the public should have the right to choose which kind of information he or
she would like to view. The users should be given the responsibility of private
censorship. Like in other cases, adults must provide children with a safe and supportive
environment in which to play and learn in. This can be done by subscribing to a filtered
Internet Service Provider or by installing a filtering software, it should not be
required as the Honorable Prime Minister is proposing. Self-censorship should be decided
by the users themselves and not regulated by the government.
The Prime Minister has also maintained that there needs to be a rating authority for
websites on the internet. Mr. Speaker, although this may seem appropriate, it would be
almost impossible to implement. We must remember that unlike print media, one of the
advantages of having the internet is to let individuals who have no access or who cannot
afford a publisher, the opportunity to be heard. With the amount of information uploaded
every second onto the internet, it would be very hard for a rating authority to anaylize
these uploads. If a suitable rating must be given before any information is to be
displayed on the internet, webmasters would have to wait a considerable amount of time
before their work can be viewed over the internet.
Mr. Speaker, as my member of opposition as stated, by banning or blocking out certain
websites will result in a high social cost, this can be controlled locally, but not on a
global scale. The effect would be minimal if not noticeable, and the cost of implementing
this would be very high. There are no practical ways of restricting the users, in an era
of extreme information fluidity in which every barrier to information can be by passed in
several ways will make it very hard for the government to make such a restriction on the
internet. Any knowledgeable user can log online and use a different proxy server to by
pass these barriers.
The Minister of the Crown has expressed there are harmful informations available on the
internet which should be regulated. Getting information, such as instructions to build a
bomb can certainly cause harm to the public if it is in the wrong hands. However we must
realize that by taking such information off the internet will not be the answer. These
harmful information can be obtained through many other mediums. Mr. Speaker, information
of how to build a bomb can be obtained at your local library, banning certain information
on the internet will not be the solution. Stopping and capturing individuals who present
harm to the society should be the issue, it would be ignorant to name the Internet as the
scapegoat.
As for regulating copyright materials on the internet, the government has not proposed
any practical and realistic ways to go about this. Problems for the protection of the
rights of the different industries, be it music, print and so on, should be addressed.
But once again, The Crown presents a false image to the public, regulating the internet
to uphold copyright will not solve the problem at hand. Mr. Speaker, the internet
presents a minicul porportion of illegal reproductions. The problem of illegal
reproduction and distribution has been an issue since Cassette recorders, Video recorders
and photocopiers have been available to the public. The internet is not a new medium but
an extension of the old. Owners of cassetter recorders and video recorders far outweight
the owners of computers with internet access. The is a need to address this issue as a
whole, and pointing directly to the internet is misleading.
The Minister of the Crown has also brought up an interesting problem of Online gambling.
She has maintained that this would result in a new generation of gamblers. Once again,
the Crown has used the internet as a scapegoat. Gambling problems which our society faces
today can be more attributed to recently barrages of Casino openings. Mr. Speaker, have
you noticed how many Casinos have been built in Ontario lately? How can we address the
issue of gambling problems when the government is creating them by building Casinos?
The Crown has also proposed a taxing internet commerce. The opposition concedes that tax
revenue may be lowered due to online purchases, but we must look at the bigger picture.
Online sales or E-Commerce has a great deal of upside for our economy, it creates more
jobs and it gives small companies the opportunity to reach the global market. By imposing
a tax on the internet would hurt the growth of E-Commerce and perhaps hurt the internet
and the economy. "Sales of merchandise on the web could plummet if consumers were forced
to pay sales taxes" According to Dr. Goolsbee an economic professor at University of
Chicago. Many of the companies that engage in commerce over the Internet do not have to
be physically located in the United States. If we impose taxes that reduce their
business, companies will move to locations that do not tax them. Given the huge growth of
Internet-related jobs that we are projected to see in the next few years, any measure
that would cause a loss of these jobs would hurt the entire economy.
We must remember that the internet is not a broadcast or mass media, it is a
bidrectional, point to point, global communications network. Unlike the television, or
print, offensive material will not just pop up on the screen, the user has to make the
attempt of searching for these materials before they are to be displayed on the screen.
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