Censorship of information has become a largely publicized debate that currently has no resolution in sight. The amount of material generated by this debate alone is huge, but the addition of the worldwide network known as the Internet only makes it grow. During the past several years the Internet has expanded the abilities of the common person to gain information on a global scale. As the Internet industry expands almost daily, new issues of censorship and freedom of expression arise. Recently many countries are trying to pass laws on censoring some of the material that is available on the Internet. I believe that Internet censorship is un-necessary for the following two reasons. First of all, any type of censorship on the net is inefficient and would prove to be technically impossible due to anomity. Secondly, censorship would damage the atmosphere of the freedom to express ideas on the Internet; therefore governments should not encourage censorship. Many people say the advantage of censorship is that children and teenagers can be kept away from unsuitable material although it leads to the blocking of legitimate sites.
According to the American Library Association, censorship is "the change in the access status of material, made by a governing authority or its representatives. Such changes include: exclusion, restriction, remove, or age/grade level changes." .
The first major downfall of censorship is due to the Internet being full of anonymity. Since text is the standard form of communication on the Internet it becomes difficult to determine the identity and age of a specific person. Nothing is known for certain about a person accessing content. There are no signatures or photo-ids on the Internet therefore it is difficult to certify that illegal activities (regarding minors accessing restricted data) are taking place. Take for example a conversation in a chat room. Two people could be talking to one another, but all that they see is text.
