Nicholas Barnard
College Writing
Thomasenia Hutchins
Censorship and Information Control: Parallels between The Internet, and Galileo
Historically, censorship is an issue that is revisited with technological innovations. Many people have been criticized by governments for publishing their ideas and sharing them. If they lacked the ability to share their ideas by publishing them, it would not have been possible in most cases to prosecute them. The Internet has given millions of people an easily accessible method to publish their scholarly works, pornography, rants, family pictures, and fan newsletters. The expansion of the number of authors coupled with the accessibility of their products has caused the resurgence of a much repeated censorship debate.
The originating instigation for ideological censorship has changed as time has passed. Assuming that the Catholic Church was a governmental agency in seventeenth century, the locus of the origins of the censorship and information control has shifted from the government to special interest groups in mass society. While in Galileo's time the direction of censorship came from the Pope, today censorship is a complex process. While censorship is actually functionally carried out by the government, it is under the indirect influence of interest groups. The latest wave of censorship attempts have come as a result of actions by politicians to please feminists and individuals of the conservative right.
Certain feminists have argued that ridding society of pornography would reduce sexism and violence against women, but the National Research Council's Panel on Understanding and Preventing Violence concluded that “demonstrated empirical links between pornography and sex crimes in general are weak or absent.” The ACLU also states in its 1994 position statement “Why the ACLU opposes censorship of `Pornography'” that:
Correlation studies are similarly inconclusive, revealing no consistent correlations between the availability of pornography in various communities or countries and sexual offense rates. If anything, studies suggest that a greater availability of pornography seems to correlate with higher indices of sexual equality. Women in Sweden, with its highly permissive attitudes toward sexual expression, are much safer and have more civil rights that women in Singapore, where restrictions on pornography are very tight.
Given this scientific comparison of sexual violence against women in relation to the availability of pornography it is hard to conceive of a logical origin for the continued push for censorship.
This instant push towards a harsh and final solution to censorship was forecasted by Edward Cornish in his essay “The Cyber Future.” He speculated that collective intelligence will decrease and “...we seem actually to be less able to agree on appropriate actions or to delay immediate gratification to achieve long-term goals” (506). The slippery path to a totalitarian government, that regulates all forms of speech, is a short, steep path. Any effort to impose any form of censorship, even a minor form, must be opposed because it opens the door to further censorship.
There have been two major legislative censorship actions, aimed toward the Internet, the Communications Decency Act (CDA) and its successor the CDA II. The first was enacted in 1995 and struck down by the Supreme Court in 1996. The second was enacted later, and is currently disabled by a temporary restraining order until its validity can be challenged in the courts.
Given the judicial system's dislike for these laws it would seem logical for the pro-censorship contingent of our population to admit defeat. Despite their continued vigilance for the control of content by large organizations, these pro-censorship organizations have failed to attack the actual problem: The inability for individuals to deal responsibly with content they deem objectionable, and their inability to act as a parent for their children.
In many minds there lies a belief that the government and mass media should be a third and fourth parent for every child. The most flagrant example of the insistence of this concept came as a result of a working mother allowing her son to watch the MTV cartoon “Beavis and Butthead,” in which the main characters would frequently enjoy saying “Fire.” In any reasonable interpretation, this television show is not for anyone under the age of sixteen, and could even be considered inappropriate for some emotionally impaired young adults. MTV relented imposing self originating censorship of “Beavis and Butthead”. MTV instructed the writers to remove all references to fire and the already produced shows were edited to remove the word “fire” from them.
When an online service/publisher does attempt to provide a safe, clean sanitized environment for children, adults rally against their chosen censorship. In the case of Prodigy, an older online service/publisher, “... there are actually banks of people sitting in front of monitors somewhere, reading postings from Prodigy subscribers, erasing the ones with offensive content" (Rheingold 509). While this level of monitoring does not still exist in the same form, (The Prodigy service described above is now defunct) people have selectively started using mechanisms that ban web sites based on pre-defined exclude lists, and general searches for “nasty” words. These technologies are not perfected. They frequently prohibit access to web sites such as those containing information about Sexton, England because it contains the word “sex.”
Galileo found himself under a form of censorship similar to that of the Prodigy Online Service. According to Jerome J. Langford in his essay “The Trial of Galileo,” Galileo had to submit his manuscript to “The Master, of the Sacred Palace and the Inquisitors who gave him permission to print the Dialogue knew about that decree,” which prevented him from defending or holding Copernican doctrine, that the earth revolved around the sun (475). Galileo's assertion of his beliefs were controlled and kept from the public eye by a basic censorship tool, controlling the press, just as some online services do today.
People tend to be ingenious in their actions to circumvent ideological barriers. Giorgio de Santillana touches on Galileo's circumvention of the Catholic Church's censorship in his essay “Galileo's Crime.” “Within a month of [Galileo] leaving Rome, a copy of the Dialogue was on its way to .... Strasbourg, through trusted intermediaries, so that a Latin translation was ready for the European public in 1637” (488). Galileo's Dialogue was a work that was intended to be shared. Those who knew this either stifled it, or risked, as in the case of the intermediaries, persecution by those who wanted to stifle it, specifically the Catholic Church.
Why people risked torture, or maybe even their lives to allow a manuscript to be published is indicative of the power of information. Bruce Sterling insightfully points out in the electronic introduction to The Hackers Crackdown that “Information wants to be free.” In a very unselfish manner he allowed The Hackers Crackdown a book about attempts to keep private information private and protected from hackers and computer criminals with the drive to free information, to be published for free electronically. In releasing The Hackers Crackdown he states that: “This electronic book is now literary freeware. It now belongs to the emergent realm of alternative information economics. You have no right to make this electronic book part of the conventional flow of commerce. Let it be part of the flow of knowledge: there's a difference.” Sterling's feelings towards information, that it should be free and become “...part of the flow of knowledge...” are not unique on the Internet. The Open Source initiatives exemplified by the Linux Operating System are growing at a tremendous rate. People are beginning to realize that information is power, and free information makes all who use it more powerful than if each entity that would have used the information creates or must pay for that information.
Information is not necessarily truth. We must not treat it as such. It may be truth but is not specifically truth. But in many cases information may be truth, thus restricting any information may suppress future truths. This is exemplified in James B. Reston, Jr.'s essay “Galileo Reconsidered” in which he states:
Galileo had been condemned because he insisted on treating his Copernican theory as truth rather than hypothesis, and he could not prove it. This position deflected attention from a simple fact: The Copernican theory was true, and the church has used extreme and rigorous methods to crush that truth and protect its falsehood. (493-4)
Ideas must be allowed to exist and commingle on paper, on hard drives, and in brains. To prevent the melding of many ideas would be prohibitive to progress.
Information has been restricted through the ages although it undecidely demands freedom. Information in a very literal sense equals power. By providing people with information they have the ability to become informed and enrich themselves. Curtailing access to information prohibits societal and personal growth of its occupants. Censorship can only hurt people in the long run. Information will demand that it be accessible. Censorship is a slippery slope. This is best stated by a fictional character of the twenty-fourth century. Captain Picard stated in a rousing speech concerning ideas that “When the first link of a chain is forged, the first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irreparably.” (Taylor)
Works Cited
ACLU Dept. of Public Education. Why the ACLU Opposes Censorship of “Pornography.” 11 DEC 1994. 17 NOV 1999 <http://www.eff.org/pub/Censorship/aclu_opposes_porno_censorship.article>
Cornish, Edward. “The Cyber Future.” Reading Our Histories Understanding Our Cultures. Ed. Kathleen McCormick. 1st ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1999. 496-506.
De Santillana, Giorgio. “Galileo's Crime.” Reading Our Histories Understanding Our Cultures. Ed. Kathleen McCormick. 1st ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1999. 486-490.
Langford, Jerome J. “The Trial of Galileo.” Reading Our Histories Understanding Our Cultures. Ed. Kathleen McCormick. 1st ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1999. 472-484.
Reston, JR., James B. “Galileo Reconsidered.” Reading Our Histories Understanding Our Cultures. Ed. Kathleen McCormick. 1st ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1999. 491-494.
Rheingold, Howard E. “Will We Live Well and Prosper in the Age of Networks?.” Reading Our Histories Understanding Our Cultures. Ed. Kathleen McCormick. 1st ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1999. 508-513.
Sterling, Bruce. The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier. New York: Bantam, 1994. JUL 1998. 17 NOV 1999 <http://www.lysator.liu.se/etexts/hacker/preface.html>
Taylor, Jeri. “The Drumhead.” Star Trek: The Next Generation. Paramount. Syndicated. First Aired: 29 APR 1991