Freedom of Speech & Censorship on the Internet With more and more frequency our nations newspapers are reporting instances of school children distributing disks of pornographic images that have been downloaded from the internet. On November 11, an Associated Press release reported that Carnegie Mellon University had decided to block its users from accessing sexually explicit materials through the Internet: the university's president feared that the university could be prosecuted under state pornography laws if it did not control the access (Phillips,1994). Pornographic material is not the only material to be found on the net which can raise questions of censorship and control: discussion of racial, political, religious and sexual topics all run the risk of offending someone, somewhere, leading to demands for control of the Internet. The question of censorship may also be raised in some unexpected places: one newsgroup is the rec.humor list, which is a collection of jokes submitted to subscribers. There are straightforwardly rude jokes but others are politically incorrect, focusing on sexual stereotypes, mothers-in-law, women and so on. It has been suggested (Interpersonal Computing and Technology, 1994) that discretionary warning labels could be attached to potentially offensive material. Warning labels involve some sort of judging and then the question is raised as to who shall be the judge. The material on the Internet, which is grossly offensive by any standards, such as pedophile material, is extremely difficult to find because of its small amounts. Of the 976 obscenity cases handled between 1991 and 1993 only 11 involved computer files, while 0.3% of the obscene material seized by Customs staff in 1992-93 were computer items (Cornwall, 1994). To understand how the Internet originated is important. The internet grew out of developments in packet switching and distributed computer networks designed to be secure in time of ...
