Introduction to Chapter 2

Regulating the Net: Free Expression and Content Controls

Overview

• Internet has increased opportunities for citizens to exercise their free speech rights

• Not all types of speech are welcome in cyberspace– Pornography– Hate speech– Defamation

– Spam

Overview 2

• In U.S. pornography is viewed as a serious problem

• In France and Germany they are more concerned about hate speech

US Attempts to Legislate on Web

• 1996 Communications Decency Act (CDA)

• Criminalized the “knowing” transmission of “obscene or indecent” material over the Net to anyone under the age of eighteen

• ACLU filed a lawsuit claiming CDA violated 1st amendment, one year after passage Supreme Court struck down law

A Second Attempt

• October 1998, Congress tries again passing more precisely written Child Online Protection Act (COPA)

• Immediately challenged by ACLU• Web site operators required to restrict access to

any material deemed to be “harmful to minors”• Supreme Court found that COPA was still

unconstitutional• More details on page 115

A Third Try

• Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) passed in 2000

• Government seeks to use entities like libraries and schools to regulate speech available to minors

• These institutions will be denied subsidies for Internet access unless they install filters to block out pornographic material

• Has this been struck down yet?• Lets move onto our first reading from this chapter