Who needs government regulation of the internet…

I dont know im not particularly opposed to government interference with the internet if im honest .

Clearly there has to be some regulation of what appears on the internet .
For example I couldn't walk down the street chanting racist songs id be arrested and prevented from doing so . Same with the internet why should you be able to open up a website preaching hate and racism . I also think every rational person would agree that there have to be rules and regulations to prevent the spread of child pornography .

Everyone seems to think they have this absolute right to a "free internet" however i believe 2 things need considering with that with rights come responsibilities and additionally there is not unqualified right to anything . Your right to a free internet needs to be qualified by protecting the interests of others .

With regards to the measures to prevent piracy . I along with many others know that whatever advances record companies et al come up with to prevent piracy the pirates will become more and more advanced . Government regulation will never be able to fully stamp out piracy however I do think something needs to be done . I think both sides need to give a little . The entertainment industry needs to explore alternative means of distributing their material but those benefiting and using means and methods of piracy also need to realize that in some cases you are actually hurting the individual holders of rights over their intellectual property . I as many others on this forum have pirated products . However wherever I can I will buy some of the material I can afford to as well .There are some people though who seem to believe that they have an absolutely unqualified right to trounce all over the intellectual property of others in a manner which they would not find acceptable if it was physical tangible property .
 
I'm in disagreement about the racist songs because on the street, it's a public matter while on the internet, it's not a get in your face situation because you would have to seek it out. With the child pornography example, I'm in agreement.
 
but the internet is a public place and anybody including impressionable children could inadvertently access racist material hosted on there just as you hear reports of people inadvertently accessing other inappropriate material and arrising the suspicion of the authorities such as explosive making manuals or child pornography .
and social networking has made some parts of the internet "get in your face" look at twitter , there was a person who got in trouble in the UK for making a racist twitter feed about an ill footballer . I completely agree that people using social media for purposes like that need to be dealt with .

Just because someone has to seek it out doesn't mean that the material should be exempt from regulation . I would argue that racist material in the 21st century is that widely condemned that there should be no market for its production or hostig on the internet . I couldn't produce a magazine devoted to promoting racial hatred by employing the argument that someone has to go and look for it in the shop in order to buy it .

Given your views on the regulation of racist views on the internet what do you make of bomb making manuals being on the internet ? your logic would suggest they are okay as someone has to search for them to find them ?
 
I say it's on a case-by-case basis. It's a question as to how far do you want government to control. With children, it helps to set parental controls on the computer. With bomb making materials, I think there's still freedom of speech and even if you were 100%
in banning them on tbe internet, there are ways of getting around it.
 
I think the question is not so much whether the government should control the Internet, but how. The idea of a government and the way it functions is prepared for something with national boundaries, where the units involved (persons, families, etc.) have physical locations. It is not prepared for the Internet. So when the government attempts to exert control, the control often appears as unsophisticated and unsuitable at best.
 
I say it's on a case-by-case basis. It's a question as to how far do you want government to control. With children, it helps to set parental controls on the computer. With bomb making materials, I think there's still freedom of speech and even if you were 100%
in banning them on tbe internet, there are ways of getting around it.

The problem with judging things on a case by case basis are that it takes an incredible amount of resources both in terms of time and money and can lead to arbitrary decisions . whereas with hard and fast rules about what is and what is not acceptable material enforcing the rules is relatively simple and can be done by almost anyone . When you have hard and fast rules you can have exemptions to these rules in particularly compelling situations but as a whole you dont need much thought to go into it .

Whilst it does help to set parental controls I dont think that means you should give up on regulating the internet of these types of materials . its like there is parental control to stop underage drinking but i dont think that means that shops selling alcohol should stop asking for ID

Whilst I accept that there is freedom of speech to be protected I would argue that freedom of speech is one of those rights that comes with a great deal of responsibility and is one of those rights that quite often can be contravened in the interests of protecting others rights . I would argue that with things like bomb making manuals and racism there is no legitimate use for this type of material and it is simply used to infringe upon the rights of others so we should make all possible efforts to rid the internet of it .

I agree that even if it was completely removed from the internet this type of material would still be distributed however that to me is not a compelling argument to try and prevent its distribution on the internet . That is like saying depite reducing the murder rate to 0 in neghbourhood A there are still murders in neghbourhood B so the police shouldnt even bother with their efforts in neghbourhood A . I think the harder you make it for material like that to be shared the better
 
One has to keep in mind too that government regulation can have undesirable effects, e.g. Prohibition. So you have to weigh the pros and cons and I hope that government doesn't go overboard.
 
One has to keep in mind too that government regulation can have undesirable effects, e.g. Prohibition. So you have to weigh the pros and cons and I hope that government doesn't go overboard.

should there not be prohibition of some things though . Like you agreed child porn should be completely prohibited .

I agree though that sometimes governments can go to far with regulation , however you have to keep in mind that with stuff like freedom of speech whilst you have the right to say what you want that has to be limited by the rights of others and there I would rather have overly restrictive regulation that prevent some legitimate things from being said than next to no regulation allowing a lot of illegitimate and offensive things to be said .

Its a bit like if you look at how criminal procedure is tipped in the facour of the presumption of innocence and blackstones ratio that says it is better for ten guilty men to go free than one innocent man be punished . I would rather have rules that where tipped in the favor of protecting people from the freedom of speech of others

The problem with the internet is it is international and so I believe some kind of international treaty and agreement has to be reached over what is and is not acceptable on the internet .
 
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