Freedom of speech in cyberspace chapter five: GoF

In chapter five A Gift of Fire, Sarah Baase tells us how the First Amendment protects our right to express his or her views on any topic. But some American citizens tend to take advantage of the Web; this problem brings up a very controversial topic. What should be illegal to put on the Web? That question depends on the individuals views. Pornography for one is illegal because it displays sexual behaviors that have no social, political, or artistic value. Should these Web pages be allowed on the web?
http://www.whywehatebush.com/
http://www.iratecitizens.org/Dumbya/102Reasons.html

http://www.ak13.com/article.php?id=274

Freedom of Speech in Cyberspace

Chapter five in A Gift of Fire talked about internet censorship. This topic has been around since the internet was released to the public. What should be done about it? The answer depends on who you are; and whether or not you agree. As a parent, you might not want your kid looking at political or religious speech, pornography, sexual or racial slurs, Nazi materials, abortion information, drugs, violence, and how to build a bomb. So how do you protect them? Maybe as a parent you put the computer in a place where you can watch your child surf the web; or even use internet filters. The problem is if you the parent are not home, how do you know what your child is looking at? There is really no way to tell what your child is looking at unless you view the history, because even with internet filters, they're ways to get around filters. The government for one is trying to put laws in place to help censor the internet, but it is a violation to the first amendment. If the United States censors certain websites, it doesn't mean that the whole world has to do the same thing. How can we stop people from spamming things on the web that is unwanted information?

Music Business Still Groping for a Digital-Age Plan

The NPR Radio cast by Neda Ulaby had people wondering what state the music industry was in; but also, the question facing musicians and their labels. These questions came up because of the mid year music sales report, and it's not good. CD sales from January to July have suffered a nine percent drop compared to last year, and a seven percent drop for all of last year. People buy music online but ten times that amount gets downloaded for free. The artist Ne-Yo sold over two million tracks online, but he says he is just "Trying to create a piece of art." It's great that the musicians do not care about what they make on their music, but the record companies do. The music industry needs to entice consumers back to physical goods, like high definition CD's, dual disks, and the new technology of interactive disks. Experts predict that in ten years physical merchandise will still make up sixty percent of music sales. But who knows what will actually happen, when more and more people will be downloading music for free?