| Description |
The rapid rise in the popularity of the Internet has caused concern among governments around the world because of the influx of unregulated information into their countries. Although countries such as Iraq, China and Singapore have imposed strict regulations on the Internet, most western constitutional democracies, such as the United States and Germany, have struggled to keep illegal content for entering their country via the Internet and at the same time preserve free speech rights. In 1996, Congress passed the Communications Decency Act which sought to limit the availability of online obscenity to minors. However, the law was found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court because, among many reasons, the potential chilling effect it would have on speech. Germany fell into the international spotlight when it began to prosecute Internet service providers for allowing illegal content to enter its country. Soon after Germany passed the Information an Communications Services Act which banned accessing neo-Nazi propaganda and other illegal materials on the Internet. Although Germany's Internet content law passed constitutional muster, it still faces the same problems that all legislation designed to regulate the Internet does. First, such legislation often violates rights guaranteed in constitutions or other laws; second, these laws are troublesome because the people violating the laws are often out of the country and therefore outside the laws' jurisdiction; and third, technology allows devious Internet users to reroute material and hide its origin. Therefore, instead of legislation, a more feasible way to regulate the Internet is through a combination of ratings systems and filtering software. PICS, a ratings system at the forefront of such technology, provides a template for web sites that dictates where and in what format a rating should be placed so that filtering software designed by groups as diverse as the Christian Coalition and NAACP can filter content based upon their own specific values. Web sites can be self-rated, rated by a third party, or in the case of illegal material, a supplemental rating by the government would be added. Ratings systems and filtering software provide the best solution to the dilemma of Internet content regulation because they allow a baseline of free speech to exist online while simultaneously allowing parents and consumers to keep offensive material from appearing on their computers. Protecting online speech is necessary so that the most democratic forum presently available can be preserved as such. |
