sorship. House Speaker Newt Gingrich has spoken out against a proposed government ban on sexually explicit material on the Internet, calling it "clearly a violation of free speech and... a violation of the rights of adults to communicate with each other." Even with Gingrich's support for free speech there was an overwhelming vote in early June, the Senate amended a telecommunications bill to make it a criminal offense to place "indecent" material on-line anywhere children might view it. After the Oklahoma City bombing, a prominent Jewish group called for the monitoring of hate groups on the Internet (O'Connor, 1995). Currently, such a move is strongly opposed by most of the Internet users because that would ruin the whole anarchic nature of the net where information is exchanged freely and without undue obstacles. A major consideration should be the balance of control and freedom of expression and information.Currently, there are not any absolute solutions. There are, however, some suggestions: - Parents can teach children safe behavior on the Internet just as they teach them to deal with the dangers present in the real world. - Schools should develop acceptable use policies, which establish clear guidelines for acceptable and unacceptable behavior. - We should teach all new users to use common courtesy whenever they participate in networking activities. - All concerned networks need to act responsibly and encourage their peers to do likewise. - Inappropriate activities should be dealt with in a manner which respects the privacy, intellectual freedom and human rights of all concerned. - Concerned parents should purchase and use blocking software to control sites and material they don't want their children to access. There is also various types of Internet control software like Surfwatch and CyberSitter which are available by email from Classroom Connect (Voicenet,1995).The best idea is to strengthen the freedom of information, which ...
