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News flash: A 12 year old kills a 6 year old by practicing wrestling moves on her he learned from WWF Smack Down. A 13 -year old boy shoots and kills a classmate with a gun he ordered from the Internet. As we can see in these disturbing incidents, violence amongst youngsters is on the rise. One of the forces driving our youth to violence is the media, such as TV and the Internet, to which children have easy access. To prevent violence, adults must take responsibility and take action. Censoring the media is one method.
However, censoring the media would infringe the rights of adults. Rather than censoring the Internet and television, we should develop technologies that make it easier for parents to restrict their childrens access to offensive materials on TV and the Internet. The government should not have authority to restrict the access of adults to any kind of material. If the government is allowed to restrict adults basic rights and freedoms, then a domino effect will begin and more of our rights will be taken away.
They may start restricting all kinds of things like newspaper articles and everyday clothing. We American adults didnt do anything to deserve having our rights taken away. These types of rights were given to us in the Constitution. Adults may regulate the lives of their children, but we adults are not the children of the government.
Therefore, we shouldnt be regulated. Furthermore, censoring the Internet is almost impossible. Regardless of first amendment rights, the Internet has gotten too large to control. The worldwide web, as its called, is just that, worldwide.
Even if all U. S. sites are regulated, America still cannot censor sites from overseas. The best compromise would probably be to create a rating system for U. S. sites similar to television today and create software to censor sites with a certain rating.
This would allow parents to censor the Internet for their children but still leave the Internet free of regulation for the most part. The problem would arise when a site from another country was downloaded that doesnt have a rating. How would someone censor that? This problem is where the impossibility comes to play. With new sites created all the time, trying to keep up with programs to censor them would cost a fortune taxpayers would be very reluctant to pay. Ultimately, parents (rather than the government) must decide what their children see on television and the Internet.
Since children technically belong to their parents until the age of 18, parents must bear the responsibility for controlling what their children watch. Parents should not put TV sets or computers in their childrens rooms. They must supervise and monitor their childrens Internet use. However, because there are so many programs on television and sites on the Internet that are inappropriate for children to watch, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, for parents to monitor their childrens viewing. In order for the parent (s) to responsibly monitor what their children are viewing, there must be technology that provides the tools to do so. The technology that is needed would offer p reprogramming options for parents to provide (monitor) viewing discretion in their absence.
In order for companies in the entertainment industry to provide the parent with the necessary tools for supervision over the airwaves, the public must not only demand these conveniences but also provide the manufacturers of these systems with the appropriate funding. The search for a solution to monitor what our children see and hear is a daunting task not only for parents but for PC and TV makers. So what can we resort to? The only solution is to require ISPs (Internet Service Providers) and Cable Operators to include an easy-interface parental feature in their entertainment apparatuses.
Parents can then enable parental locks that restrict what their children watch and hear. For instance, AOL, the premiere Internet provider, provides their customers with a user-friendly feature that enables the subscriber to enable parental locks on the net. Also, TCI cable offers a set top box that includes a feature that locks out certain programs that are not suitable for children.
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Research essay sample on Censoring The Internet Children Watch