Since its conception, the Internet and its providers have done wonderful things for America - giving us access to a whole world of information and allowing enhanced contact with friends and family. But as of late, issues have risen concerning the way providers (specifically, AT&T) have begun to censor "which Web sites its customers can access." AMERICAblog news writer John Aravosis posted an article on this subject just today, plainly titled "Is AT&T censoring the Net."
Aravosis, an author on a left-leaning, liberal blog (with a similarly thinking audience), is asking his readers to think about AT&T's actions for themselves. In his short article he posts links to other articles with firmly negative stances, saying the Internet "would not be the same without" some of the websites being censored. The writer himself does not outright state his definitive opinion on the subject (as he is seemingly more concerned with sparking debate among his readers). His word choice, however (particularly the accusatory "censor"), leaves little to the imagination.
Aside from his summary of the problem, Aravosis does raise some interesting questions. Among others, he asks, "What if the [censored] sites are calling for the murder of specific abortion doctors, or calling for people to hurt you?" Logically thinking, however, we will always have that danger as long as we have the Web. It would be nearly impossible for an Internet provider to track down and censor every single site with offensive or violent content. This could lead to lawsuits and childish arguments consisting of phrases such as, "If my website is blocked, why isn't his?" Not to mention that allowing the providers to carry on like this could mean censorship to the point of invading our freedoms in the future. If we don't take a stand against this problem now, it could get out of hand - maybe in five years all left leaning blogs (AMERICAblog among them) would be censored, forcing the public to read the right-leaning. Censorship is ultimately wrong in this scenario, and should be stopped.
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