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Kaitlyn ONeill
Adam Padgett
English 102
7 February 2016
Should the Federal Government be allowed to Regulate Information on the Internet?
The topic of the federal government censoring the Internet is an interesting topic because
it is not a topic that people think about each day. Tons of people use the Internet on a daily basis,
and it does not even occur to a lot of them that the government is regulating information because
not everyone knows that this is happening. This topic interests me because I would like to know
the reason for why and what kind of information the government regulates. The question,
Should the federal government be allowed to regulate information on the Internet? affects me
only slightly in the way that I am an Internet user, and knowing that there are things on the
Internet that the government is censoring from the public in a way violates Internet freedoms. At
the same time, this question does not affect me because I do not even know what it is that is
being regulated, so it must not be that important to my life. I do not have much personal
experience regarding this topic. I have yet to come across a topic that I would like to know more
about and for some reason cannot find anything about it. I am qualified to write about this topic
because like I mentioned before, I am an Internet user, and the government regulating
information on the Internet is like taking away Internet freedoms.
A source pertaining to the question, Should the federal government be allowed to
regulate information on the Internet? is taken from Hilary Clintons words at the Internet
Freedom Conference. This article is about how the government censoring the Internet violates

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the rights of people. If someone writes something bad about the government or something that
the government does not want others to see, then that thing will be censored. When an item on
the Internet is censored, it means that no one would be able to access that content anymore. The
article also talks about how people need to step up and fight for their Internet freedoms. The
people on the Internet that blog and write their opinions need to be protected and kept from being
arrested based on what they post or blog. In the article it mentions a blogger named Anas
Maarawi and how he got arrested in Syria for voicing his opinions on the Internet. It shows that
at times, even if it has yet to happen to oneself or anyone one may know, the government
actually is taking action and this issue actually is occurring. As mentioned previously in this
paragraph, this source is from Hilary Clintons speech at the Internet Freedom Conference. Just
like the opening of the article said, Hilary Clinton is a former First Lady, US senator, and US
secretary of state (Clinton); the irony here is that Hilary Clinton is a part of the government, yet
in this article she is on the side opposing the government. With the fact that she is part of the
government, she can see both sides to this issue, but at the same time everyone is going to be at
least somewhat bias. When one reads this specific article, one can tell that she leans toward the
side of the government not being able to regulate information on the Internet.
A second source pertaining to my question is entitled Indecent Proposals: How Each
Branch of the Federal Government Overstepped Its Institutional Authority in the Development of
Internet Obscenity Law. This article is about the government regulating information on the
Internet and establishing Obscenity Laws. It talked about how there is a line between what they
can but have to be careful to do because of the first amendment to the Constitution. In the article
it mentioned why things involving obscenity or dirty things on the Internet should be censored
because that is not something that people, especially the younger generations, should have to see.

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This brings us to a value that is at stake for the article, which is the fact that even though it would
be violating Internet freedoms, it is not necessarily a negative thing for the government to censor
the obscenity on the Internet, and that is kind of what this article is trying to convey. With the
first amendment, the government is at stake for breaking a constitutional right because the
Internet classifies as a form of speech. This source is written by Sean J. Petrie, and is published
by the Stanford Law Review. This article seemed to be more like part of a legal document that
lawyers tend to read or write up. The author of this source works with legal writings and deals
with law, and because of this, it increases the credibility of this article.
A third source pertaining to the question is called Just Doing Business or Doing Just
Business: Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! And the Business of Censoring Chinas Internet. This
article is about companies that have selected to do online business in China, and they have to
agree to Chinas governments rules. For this article, an interest at stake is the Internet companies
that are doing business in China because if they violate Chinas governments rules, then the
government will censor it. The article mentions examples of situations where people got arrested
for placing their views and opinions on the Internet for others to read, and a lot of the time it is
for criticizing the government online. This is a primary source, which makes it more credible
than if it were a secondary source. Not much information can be found on the authors, Elijah
Dann and Neil Haddow, of this article, so one cannot really analyze the credibility of the authors
for this article.
In conclusion, the question, Should the federal government be allowed to regulate
information on the Internet? is arguable because there are two sides. Within the three articles
that I analyzed on this topic within this paper, one can see views from both sides of the argument.
Some agreements among the sources that I have found are that with the government regulating or

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censoring information on the Internet, the government has to be careful not to violate the first
amendment of the Constitution because it lingers in that territory. Some disagreements among
the sources that I have found are that people do get arrested for voicing their opinions, which is
pretty wrong. There are also things on the Internet that involve obscenity, which are what people
should get arrested for instead of voicing views. The different perspectives of the sources help
me to be able to see both sides to this questions. They affected my own perspective in the way
that I am still more against the government regulating information, but with some things on the
Internet, I understand why it should be censored. I do not think that this research question really
needs to be revised because it is structured in the way that there are two sides to it, but by the end
one will be leaning more toward a specific side.

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Works Cited
Clinton, Hillary. "Internet Censorship by Governments Is a Human Rights Violation." Internet
Censorship. Ed. Margaret Haerens and Lynn M. Zott. Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven,
2014. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. of "Remarks at the Conference on Internet Freedom."
N.p.: n.p., 2011. N. pag. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 3 Feb. 2016.
Dann, Elijah, and Neil Haddow. "Proxy Login - University Libraries - USC." Proxy Login University Libraries - USC. Springer International Publishing, 30 Mar. 2007. Web. 08
Feb. 2016.
Petrie, Sean J. Indecent Proposals: How Each Branch of the Federal Government Overstepped
Its Institutional Authority in the Development of Internet Obscenity Law. Stanford Law
Review 49.3 (1997): 637665. Web. 8 Feb. 2016.