These acts-SOPA and PIPA-could have punished sites “simply for not doing enough (and the bill does not yet specify just what "enough" would be) to police their site, even if the owner didn't post anything illegal themselves” (Jones 1). Tumblr users regularly post about TV shows and movie and sharing clips and photos from them. This would be going against the SOPA and PIPA bills if they had passed. The two friends both thought that this was not fair and did not want these bills to affect their experiences on Tumblr. Censorship bills are being taken into consideration and threatening the Internet experience for many users like Ali and Rose. Rose and Ali, along with other Internet users, went against these, and many other, acts of censorship. Should the American Government be allowed to censor different Internet sites?
People believe that media censorship will be used to filter out inappropriate subjects and images, yet many people argue that it is inconvenient and the Internet should not need censoring. The Internet can be filled with subjects and images deemed inappropriate for the public. With media censorship, certain websites and images will not be shown. Sex, drugs, profanity, and violence would be restricted. Some see this as a necessity for our present-day and future generations. They do not think that young people should be exposed to these taboo subjects and the best way to avoid them is to not allow them on websites and TV shows. However, media censorship is also seen as a form of government control and silencing of opinions. Political conflicts consist of the accusation of government control and over powering the voice of the people. Media censorship might be seen as trying to ignore and avoid subjects that the government does not want to approach. Also it might be seen as an unnecessary tool to stop all these things from touching the populous of America.
Media Censorship violates the First Amendment. The First Amendment, from the United States Constitution, Bill of Rights states:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Freedom of speech is allowing individuals to express their voice in all forms. All Americans deserve this right and not allowing them to have it, is unconstitutional. Censoring the media is just suggesting that the opinions someone might have are not correct, or moral, enough to be on the Internet. Many as their voice, use the Internet. Take YouTube for example, many YouTube users use YouTube to post videos of themselves or others doing things they enjoy and talking about whatever they like. Let’s say a YouTube user decides to post a video of themselves singing a popular song on the radio. With an act of media censorship, the record label of the artist could think that the video “might very well look like an instance of piracy” (Topolsky 1) and be pulled off YouTube “and indeed, major labels have had content pulled off YouTube for similar "violations"” (Topolsky 1). How is this allowing Freedom of Speech?
Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, presented her first major speech at the Newseum. She spoke about Internet Freedom and said: “First, that the universal human rights to freedom of expression, assembly and association apply online as they do offline; and second, that promoting those rights online must be a U.S. foreign policy priority” (Posner 1). Not allowing an individual to post whatever they want is unjust and a violation of human rights. Many people use the Internet correctly and responsibly enough to know how they want to use the freedom of speech to post whatever they like. Also this applies to acting and TV, if an actor or actress were to do a show that was seen as inappropriate for the TV public then the show would not be shown or it would be possibly be
