Google's Internet Censorship

In applying Platonic analysis to Google’s censorship and regulation of public knowledge, it appears probable that Plato would recognize both merit and fault in modern internet censorship and the commodification and ownership of knowledge. Most certain is Plato’s condoning of Google’s censoring of information and media content deemed to be obscene or immoral. Namely, Plato would endorse Google’s censoring of child pornography, the only form of direct internet censorship permissible under the First Amendment (“Free Speech…”), as Socrates’s censorship in the Just City aims to produce virtue such that individuals would “blame and hate the ugly” (Plato 80). Thus, just as Plato—through the character Socrates—censors the “obscene” slandering of the …show more content…
Ultimately, while claiming pervasive power, Google does not retain the necessary moral motivations to justly act as Socrates’s autonomous agent—its economic and political agendas mare its judgments and endeavors. Further, as a company subordinate in legal eminence to the federal government, Google achieves an officious nature of internet censorship—invading veritably every aspect of social functioning from the domicile and academia to the realm of politics and economics—that Plato would feasibly regard as invasive and misguided—an overstepping of political power and a debasing of the merit of knowledge. Platonic review reveals Google as a “ruling entity” that does not “mind its own business” in providing a set service with boundaries and that, in fact, strives for the very opposite (Plato 112). As such, as an alternative, it is possible that Plato may consider Google’s social and political “meddling” as a hallmark of injustice and an injury of “greatest harm” to modern …show more content…
Firstly, it appears apparent that Plato would have very much endorsed a Google monopoly if the company retained the right motivations and the right means to the right ends as per Plato’s own conception of virtue and propriety. However, in the absence of such moral convictions, Google does not fit Plato’s parameters for a just and efficacious ruling entity. Thus, Plato may have reasonably sought to apply an antiquated solution to a modern problem in aiming to rectify Google’s wayward mercenary endeavors by ensuring that only the most virtuous and meritorious members of society are employed to manage the Google company. An extensive screening of potential Google employees—perhaps including rigorous academic testing necessarily involving the discipline of philosophy—would ensure that Google was comprised of the very best of society—the wise and righteous philosopher-kings. Conversely, if efforts to ameliorate Google through virtuous employees proved inevitably infeasible or doomed to failure, Plato would have likely adopted the far opposite remedial extreme and sought to drastically curtail Google’s liberty and social eminence. Setting Google as the decided subordinate to the authority of federal government in a fixed political hierarchy would render Google subject to legislation limiting internet censorship enacted by a higher political power—presumably one

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