1. Chapter 3.1 - 3.2 Jacob Niedermier Keith Miller

2. 3.1- Changing Communications Paradigms The Internet gave us many more chances to voice our opinions. It connected us to people of different languages, different countries, different opinions. Now, who gets to decide that an opinion is to vulgar for an audience? Government Parents Businesses/Organizations Universities

3. Regulating Communications Media The Internet lets us all be publishers. Any business, organization, or individual can set up an website. The Internet is a whole new ballgame for lawmakers. Unlike television stations or newspapers the Internet is the first many-to-many medium to provide information that can be posted by anybody Now the First Amendment protection of freedom of the press extends to every single American and not just Fox News or the Detroit Free Press. People have been taking advantage of those rights, YouTube had 83.4 millions videos as of April 2008, but even with our First Amendment protections our government could very well end up censoring what we can get out of the Internet.

4. Regulating Communications Media Regulating the internet As law professor Eric M. Freedman put it “Each new medium is viewed first by governments as uniquely threatening, because it is uniquely influential, and therefore a uniquely appropriate target of censorship.”

5. Regulating Communications Media Print Media (newspapers, books, magazines, pamphlets) Print media has the strongest First Amendment protection. Broadcast Media (television, radio) Television has some regulations to follow. The government looks at the content of programs and structure of the entire industry.  Take cigarette ads for example, they are allowed in magazines, but banned from radio and television. Common Carriers (telephone, telegraph, and the postal system) Provide a medium of communication  Must make their service available to everyone. In some cases, the government requires them to provide “universal access” (i.e., to subsidize service for people with low incomes)

6. Regulating the Internet In 1996 the main parts of the first major Internet censorship law, the Communications Decency Act (CDA), were ruled unconstitutional.  A federal judge commented that “as the most participatory form of mass speech yet developed, the Internet deserves the highest protections from government intrusion.” The law left a chilling effect (gray areas of law where a person is unsure what is legal or illegal) It made any the transmission of materials that were "obscene or indecent" to persons known to be under 18 illegal. People were worried that might make dirty words or text of printed novels illegal to be posted on the Internet.

7. Regulating the Internet Another Internet censorship law is the Childern's Internet Protection Act It requires schools and other government subsidized organizations to have internet filters installed. The First Amendment is a restriction on the power of government, not individuals or private businesses. Businesses still have the power to dictate what is displayed on their website.  You wont find explicit advertising on CNN's homepage.

8. 3.2 - Offensive speech: What is it? What is illegal? There are different things that can be considered “offensive” that are on the web. Such as: political or religious speech, pornography, racial or sexual slurs, Nazis materials, abortion information, etc.

9. What is it? What is illegal? There have been some attempts to censor what goes on the Internet. For example: The state of Georgia tried to ban pictures of marijuana, The Chinese government restricts reporting of emergencies (such as major accidents or disasters) and how the government handles them, And the French government approved a law banning anyone from recording or disturbing video of acts of violence.

10. What was already illegal? In 1973 the Supreme Court established 3 guidelines determining whether material is obscene under the law. The guidelines are: (1) Things that depict sexual acts whose depiction is specifically prohibited by state law, (2) it acts in a patently offensive manner, appealing to a negative interest as judged by a reasonable person using community standards, (3) it has no serious literary, artistic, social, political or scientific value. The second point, was a compromise intended to avoid the problem of setting a national standard of obscenity in so large and diverse a country.

11. Can you think of some things that are offensive on the Internet?????

12. How technology created new threats to children It’s easier for them to see violence, racism, or pornography Child molesters can easily get in contact with them When children are at the playground they can be watched, when most are never supervised on the internet In 1998 the Child Online Protection Act was passed, which made it a federal crime for commercial Websites to make “harmful to minors” material available for minors

13. Alternatives to censorship Software filters: they work in a variety of ways, they can block sites with specific words, phrases, or images. They can block sites according to various rating systems; they can contain long lists of blocked sties that parents can set up to make the internet safer for their children.

14. Alternatives to censorship There is now new software that filters and blocks access to inappropriate material, this kind of software which once cost is quickly becoming free and is available for download on the internet at no charge. Wireless carriers, such as Verizon and At&t set strict “decency” standards for companies content for their network, theirs rules are detailed and stricter than what the government can prohibit, they do this mostly so that they can still maintain their image as good wireless service providers

15. SPAM Spam is unsolicited bulk e-mail. Has been around since the mid-1990's Some businesses build e-mail lists by using automated software that surfs the Web and collects anything that looks like an e-mail address In 1996 half the e-mail received at AOL was spam, and a lot of it came from an advertising service called Cyber Promotions. AOL installed filters to block mail from Cyber Promotions, and of course Cyber Promotions sued, saying that AOL violated their First Amendment rights AOL WON!

16. SPAM Why did AOL have the right to block incoming spam? The spam used AOL's hard drives, imposing a cost on AOL. AOL's property rights allow it to decide what it accepts on its systems. Other companies got worried that AOL can choose to block any mail it wants. They argued that AOL is large, it is a lot like the post office, and it should not be allowed to block any e-mail. Filters do not violate a spammer's freedom of speech, but does an order not to send the mail violate your freedom of speech?

17. Posting and selling sensitive material: Ethical and Social concerns Some big companies and search engines received a lot of heat for the content on their websites, some also have for the things that they once provided on their site and no longer do. A few years ago, Yahoo expanded its online store for adult material and many users complained. Critics objected that because Yahoo is a large, mainstream, company, its action gave acceptability to pornography. It also gave adult-material sellers easy access to Yahoo’s large customer base. Yahoo quickly reversed the policy and removed ads for adult material. This brought complaints from other people that Yahoo “caved in” to the pressure from its mainstream advertisers and users.

18. Ethical and Social concerns There has been many attempts to stop consumption of R-rated material to minors and to block unwanted things on the internet, but can we honestly do this and say that these people don’t have the freedom of speech? Or is it just implied to a certain extent???