Many countries, such as China, have laws that control the content of the Interne

Question

Many countries, such as China, have laws that control the content of the Internet and restrict their citizens' access to information. The United States, with the exception of specific areas such as c and child pornography, doesn't currently take steps to restrict its citizens' access to the Internet. Unfortunately, this freedom of information does carry some cost because some information on the web can potentially be dangerous to the general public. Do you think the U.S. government should censor information on the web, such as instructions for making weapons, to protect the general public? Why or why not? If you think there should be some censorship, do you think such a law would violate the First Amendment right to free speech? Explain your answer. Would you be willing to live with a lower level of information access to increase your sense of well-being? What topics do you feel would make you feel more secure if they were censored?

Explanation / Answer

1. Freedom of access to information is a revolutionary as well as risky. Revolutionary in the sense, lets take for example the information regarding making of bomb. This information might help some people to gain freedom by fighting against tyranny. But the same information may help some people to spread tyranny. In both the cases it promotes violence. Violence in no way benefits society. The lesser it is the better. Take for example the case of India. Mahatma Gandhi was able to free India by using peaceful methods. Thus we can assume that Indian society managed to gain freedom even when freedom of access to information on making bomb was restricted. Thus yes societies can be better and happy without access to a certain kind of information. Thus yes US government should censor some specific kind of information which can harm the society in current scenario. But this can be only a short term solution. In the long run goverments should work making the society mature enough to understand what is good and what is wrong. Governments cannot make decisions for sociities forever. Ultimately it will be people and people only who have to make choices and when that time comes they should be mature enough to make the right choice.

2. Yes I can live with the fact that there is a certain kind of information that I dont have the right to access. Though it will feel bad but I gues for a greater good that is a little sacrifice to make. I think I will focus more on the information that I have access of rather than on something that I cannot access.

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