The government of the United States has for a long time made several attempts to regulate the internet content. Although the existing constitution already got critical areas covered like protection against child pornography, the government both federal and local have done little and still need to do more as far as regulation of internet content is concerned. Those opposing the idea of regulating the internet content in the United States argue that any internet regulation would infringe citizens of their rights to access information freely (House, 2016). Also, it would violate their freedom of expression that is given by the constitution thus subverting liberalism and individualism that has so far made the United States prosper.
The idea of the internet was initially geared towards access to information for the academic world. Through the internet, those in the academic world, as well as the general public, would freely do their research on any topic of learning (House, 2016). With time, illicit content like child pornography and sexually explicit sites have found their way into the internet. If this is not regulated correctly, then the society would be doing a lot of injustice to the children. The United States government supports the free flow of information globally all across the international borders.
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As opposed to the other traditional media like radio and television, the internet promises the users an opportunity to protect their children from content they consider to be offensive and inappropriate (House, 2016). The United States government also supports the industry’s independent self-regulation such as adopting of the rating system and the development of technical solutions which are easy to use such as systems used for age verification as well as filtering technologies.
Legislations Regulating the Internet Content
The Children Online, Privacy Protection Act, helps in regulation of the use, the collection and distribution of information that is obtained from the internet from children below the age of thirteen. This act prohibits the dissemination of information identified for an individual through notice or parental consent (MacKinnon et al. 2015). Another example of the children’s act is the protection of children from sexual predators act. This act largely targets the high profiled criminals who come to the internet with the intention of exploiting children sexually. This act also requires that the ISPs should report any exploitation that involves child pornography which occurs through the servers. It also prohibits the ISPs from intentionally transferring obscene materials to children under the age of sixteen. The ISPs are, however, not allowed to monitor the content of their users and are protected from civil liability if they fully comply with this act in good faith (Vaala & Bleakley 2015).
Another example of a regulation is the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. This act tries to govern the liability of online sites and the ISPs for the copyright violation of its users. It provides an opportunity for the copyright owners to force the ISPs and the site owners to remove inappropriate infringing materials. This act has on a large scale tried to regulate the internet pornography as most of the pornographic materials being circulated on the internet is in violation of the original copyright.
In conclusion, the government of the United States has given more importance to individual rights which has in turn translated into stringent constitutional rights preventing the censoring of racial, ethnic and religious content. Furthermore, the freedom of expression has protected most of the internet content from strict censorship (House, 2016). The United States being a nation so familiar with racial, religious and ethnic conflict has not satisfactorily regulated the internet content that touches on these topics. So far only child pornography has been covered extensively in the constitution. The failed attempts in censoring another type of internet content give every individual full right of speech.
References
House, F. (2016). Freedom in the World 2016: The Annual Survey of Political Rights and Civil Liberties . Rowman & Littlefield.
MacKinnon, R., Hickok, E., Bar, A., & Lim, H. I. (2015). Fostering freedom online: The role of internet intermediaries . UNESCO Publishing.
Vaala, S. E., & Bleakley, A. (2015). Monitoring, mediating, and modeling: Parental influence on adolescent computer and Internet use in the United States. Journal of Children and Media , 9 (1), 40-57.
