The Gatekeepers are Taking Over…

What should be accepted and what should be rejected? This is the ongoing debate in our society right now regarding the Internet. The reason is that some information is considered culturally acceptable while for others it is not. Below I have placed a video clip which gives a good description of what “Net Neutrality” is from John Stewart:



The citizens of the United States should be concerned about their freedoms. Service providers such as AT&T, Verizon, & Comcast are trying to make a monopoly on the Internet community. They want to pay Internet engines a premium for exclusive use.

Freedom of speech is the first amendment to the Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

It was written over a century ago, but no one has the right to change the values upon which we were founded. We all know that within the last decade a lot of laws have been altered or overturned.

We as a nation have the right to free speech and net neutrality has become a hot topic. The idea of Internet censorship has come to the United States due to alarming issues that are occurring across the world. For those who do not know, there are numerous countries that govern and restrict their Internet usage. Some countries are China, Australia, and Iran. Net neutrality on the other side of the world is very different due to their ideas and regulations.

CNN published a story explaining the restrictions about China. China is labeled as the biggest prison for cyber users. China has blocked numerous websites and filtered almost all the servers. Accessing a server in China is completely different than any free access server. According to CNN: “Chinese people trying to access information related to Taiwanese and Tibetan independence, the Dalai Lama, Tienanmen Square, SARS, opposition political parties, and anti-Communist movements will find themselves out of luck.” They restrict information such as the man standing in front the tanks in Tienanmen Square. It almost makes you think of the movies in which they can control the information and therefore control the history and knowledge being pumped into the population. China’s history is essentially being erased or banned. According to Al-Jazeera the Chinese government has over 37,00 Internet police who govern the Internet access and have the ability to make arrests. They even place pictures on restricted sites. (As seen below)


America is not the first place to be attacked with the idea of Internet censorship. Organizations like savetheinternet.com are fighting for our freedoms. I am not going to lie, there needs to be some form of restriction on the Internet, but what I find difficult is appointing someone or a group of people to decide what should be considered appropriate. I feel that placing a chair or committees in charge of the Internet will make our nation no different than China.

Global Integrity did a case study about Internet censorship. They explained that censoring the Internet will not do anything because if you shut one site down another hundred will turn up to replace it. We need to put more emphasis on parental control. Similar to the efforts being made in Australia, we should enable parents to give certain access to their children. We should monitor the information out there and filter out the false information before we start worrying about censoring the entire Internet. That, in my opinion, is what the gatekeepers should be worried about. What do you guys think?

(Picture from globalintegrity.org)