Chapter: Censorship, the Internet, and the Child Pornography Law of 1996: A Critique

Quote:

These features of an amendment law represent only a few of the elements of a more comprehensive and more just approach to dealing with the problems presented by child pornography and more generally, by the prurient. Naturally, the features are not without problems, and a great deal of work remains to be done. IT should be clear; however, that in the age of the internet, the problem of child pornography, like so many others arising in a visual medium, must be construed among the most basic of the harms we should seek to prevent. It is therefore surprising that in the zealous rush to stamp out prurience (by appeal to the notion of material harmful to minors), privacy violations have not given any consideration.

What I expect to learn:

How such content filtering software implementations are necessary

Review:

I often wonder why people are doing porn, not just watching, but actually contributing to the dirty industry of online pornography.

Honestly, I don’t think I have the right to be one-sided on the whole stop-the-pornography-because-it-harms-children-as-well issue but I have to speak for those who can’t speak right? It’s wrong! Yes, it is but what can we do about it really? Like the old saying, “If you can’t stop them, filter them” okay, I changed it a little bit but I modified it in a good way, for aid my explanation that porn, on my point of view, definitely allow women in particular to be objectified by no-gooders but what can we do really? We can’t stop this wide spread porn frenzy so to help us try and be careful with it for children or people who need not view pornography, blocking and filtering software are ready for activation even in browsers present at our very homes so being protected and clean, all we have to do is activate it. It may be a simple action because a few clicks won’t impale anyone but it will save a kid from this mental harm it might cause. Some people find porn educational but honestly speaking, it is not for children. It is something I strongly believe in because I wouldn’t want my younger sister seeing a pop up that contains explicit content for her eyes to see. It is not something to be open up for everyone in all ages which is why I am thankful that laws such as child pornography prevention act is implemented. Although it does not completely clean out the internet from porn, porn and more porn, it still helps even just a little.

What I learned:

·         Definitions

·         Scope

·         Child pornography prevention act

·         Argument 1: CPPA Violates the First Amendment

·         Argument 2: CPPA’s protective are inadequate

·         Argument 3: CPPA can harm our children

Integrative Questions:

1.    What do you mean by censorship?

2.    What do you mean by pornography?

3.    Do you think pornography should continue to be hosted online? Why?

4.    What is child pornography?

5.    What is stated in the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996?