Blog #2 Censorship or Safety?

Street-Porter, Janet. "Anti-social truth about these social networkers. " Daily Mail 8 Mar. 2010, ProQuest Newsstand, ProQuest. Web. 27 May. 2010.
http://proquest.umi.com.proxy.ulib.iupui.edu/pqdweb?index=3&did=1977964231&SrchMode=1&sid=5&Fmt=3&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1275010485&clientId=13225


We all know how popular social networking sites, like Facebook, are for young adults in the United States. British youth are just as interested, but internet bullying is becoming an issue that Britain wants to get under control. The big question is where is the line between safety and censorship?

The Daily Mail in Britain discusses the negative aspects of Facebook on their youth. Many instances of teen suicide have been linked to bullying over the internet. Gangs have been known to post threats to other gangs with graphic pictures of artillery. Britain is also worried about the relationship between students and teachers because of the postings of some students, as well as, other ‘perfectly innocent” people being labeled without knowing on social networking sites.

The US has experienced many of the above situations, therefore is in the same predicament as Britain.

So what is the answer? In Italy, Google employees were punished for allowing a video showing bullying to remain viewable for over two months. Google employees believe the punishment of the employees in Italy “poses a grave threat to the freedom of internet users”.

Are Google or other internet employees responsible for what others post? Would removing posts be censorship if it was a video of bullying among children or other law breaking acts? Are internet employees required to report this type of information to officials?

I think I have more questions now than I did before reading this article…

Blog #1 One Case on Censorship

"Intellectual freedom can exist only where two essential conditions are met: first, that all individuals have the right to hold any belief on any subject and to convey their ideas in any form they deem appropriate, and second, that society makes an equal commitment to the right of unrestricted access to information and ideas regardless of the communication medium used, the content of work, and the viewpoints of both the author and the receiver of information."

Intellectual Freedom Manual, 7th edition

This is a topic that has been observed for many, many years. I began looking how intellectual freedom and censorship has occurred in the past and how the issues were handled. I found many interesting articles, but on that caught my attention first was “The Day Obscenity Became Art” by Fred Kaplan in the online version of the New York Times Opinion section. In 1873 Congress outlawed obscenity, which was defined as “works that ‘community standards’ would regard as ‘lustful,’ ‘lewd,’ ‘lascivious’ or ‘prurient.’” Then in 1959 a law suit was filed by a book publisher against the US Postal Service because it was confiscating copies of the novel “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” by DH Lawrence because it was considered “obscene”. Through the court case, both attorneys dissected the First Amendment in order to promote their cases. In the end, it was determined that the First Amendment protected writers and publishers and did not give the US Postal Service the right to confiscate material because of obscenity. This is just one example of how intellectual freedom and censorship is much broader than picking up a book at the library – have you ever thought of how that book got to the library?

The mail…Thank you Barney Rosset from Grove Press for standing up against censorship!!!