Resolved: that governments should almost never censor political or social dissent on the internet.

Resolved: that governments should almost never censor political or social dissent on the internet. 

Pro 

 Contention 1: Government gets too powerful
The definition that we provided clearly stated that democracy is a system of the government by the whole population of a state, typically through elected representatives. In easier words, democracy is the world where citizens are the owner. However, when government gets too powerful, the government will take over and it turns out to be a dictator society, not a democratic society. According to John Locke, one of the philosophers, stated that the government should be there in order to protect people’s natural rights such as people’s liberty. Freedom of speech, is the one inherent right that are given to each individual. We have to continue following John Locke’s point of view, or else we have to listen to Thomas Hobbes’s point of view where the government can take all of the individual rights from each people in that society. This is going against the democratic principle that we live in. According to townhall.com, there about 54% of US citizens claimed that modern day government gets too powerful. The percentage of citizens who claims are highly increasing each year. This evidence strongly shows several ideas. The first impression we get from this evidence is, the US government is over using their power to censor information over their limits. Limitation of the government provides more harm so therefore supporting a full democratic society will produce less harm. The primary obligations a democratic government is to respect people’s individual rights. The government is not doing their duty if they censor or limit freedom of speech. Therefore, we as the pro team strongly affirm with the resolution.

  Contention 2: Lowers Productivity 
Not only it can limit the knowledge and creativity due to censorship, but there is another huge problem that needs to be considered which is lowering the productivity. According to “The Economic Cost of Internet Censorship in Australia”, it found some several important facts that everyone needs to keep note of. Filters are required in order to censor or limit freedom of speech. Filters turned out to slow the Internet by 2% to 75% depending the amount of censorship in a country. Since it would decline the Internet speed we can see that it is already losing productivity right there but we have to see more heavy analysis. According from the same source, people would complain about the lack of speed in the Internet, and the government needs to ask for additional cost in order to increase the speed of the Internet and it has shown that it would cost 2.169 billion dollars. If there is high speed Internet, it would increase the GDP of 12 to 30 billion dollars but this would not be gained due to the censorship and limitation on freedom of speech. Competitiveness between countries would be a primary concern because if a country has low productive due to the less speedy Internet, then of course that country will lose that credibility and will have less exports. This eventually will increase the high unemployment rate which will endanger the national security. So it is necessary not to censor or limit freedom of speech.

  Contention 3: Misinform people 
If censorship comes into play, not only does it hinder education, but it is also going to hurt the citizens directly in a short run as well. Censorship is the suppression of speech or other forms of public communication. This not only limits the environment in which we can learn, but the government has the power to give and direct what information we learn, which does not sound like a democratic society. Also, no matter what the situation is, limiting free speech for any reason is not the answer to fix any problem, because it is one of the fundamental rights that are given to each individual. According to Jeffrey Miron, one of the senior lecturers and director of undergraduate studies in the economic department at Harvard University and senior fellow at the Cato Institute, believes that limiting free speech is not one of the options that the government can choose. After several issues related with free speech such as in January 8th, Jared Loughner killed six people and wounded 13 in order to express his feelings, one member of the Congress named Brady suggested that federal law should limit inflammatory speech. Yet, the argument of free speech does not assume that free speech has no negatives, much less that freedom of speech is always “civil”. Moreover, harms from government restrictions on speech are worse than the harms from free speech itself. If the government can determine what constitutes acceptable speech, it will use that power to restrict speech in inappropriate ways. Also, to keep in mind, political speech deserves the highest protection since this speech is key to all other freedoms. So if we are restricting freedom of speech, we are also restricting other rights such as right to choice.

  Contention 4: Clear and Present Danger Test 
In U.S. history, federal and state governments have passed sedition laws to prevent people from speaking against the government. Sedition laws were designed to foster respect for the government and to prevent people from starting a violent revolution. In Schenck v. United States (1919) case, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to whether the federal Sedition Act of 1918 violated freedom of speech. Passed during World War 1, the Sedition Act made it a crime to say anything to cause disrespect for the U.S. government. Schenck, the secretary of the Socialist Party in America, was convicted under the Sedition Act for distributing pamphlets urging people to resist the military draft. The Supreme Court ruled that Schenck's conviction did not violate freedom of speech. In the Court's decision, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., made a famous observation about freedom of speech. He said free speech is not absolute because a person is not allowed to shout "fire" in a crowded theater when there is no fire. In other words, the government may punish words that create a "clear and present danger" of causing evils the government has a right to prevent. Because Congress had a right to stop people from avoiding the military draft, punishing Schenck for encouraging such conduct did not violate the First Amendment. It is important to realize that sedition laws usually are enacted during times of great national stress, such as war. Generally, the First Amendment says government may not prevent people from speaking against war. Moving onto the sixth argument which is “lowers productivity”.

  Contention 5: Freedom of Speech 
According to Oxford Online Dictionary, freedom of speech means the power or right to speak, or think as one wants. So basically by looking at this definition that the Oxford Online Dictionary provided us, we have to ask several questions in order to clarify. Does the definition ever state that citizens can do say whatever they want, or that the government can come by and restrict what we can say? It clearly did not say that the government can step in at any time and start censoring us. Everyone has freedom and the fundamental right to speak. Moreover, according to the UN declaration of Human Rights, it provides for freedom of expression in Article 11, which states that “The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every citizens have right to speak, write and print with freedom, but will be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by law”. Would any feel comfortable without the freedom of speech? Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 19 states that “everyone has the right to the freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers”. So in other words, it clearly states that no one can interfere with each individual, including the government by censoring what they have said in public. Not only it lowers productivity of the business, but there censorship is really related with the GDP.

  Contention 6: Internet is a free domain 
Due to the Internet existence here today, it led to another revolution called the Information revolution. Internet was made just for the sake of people’s freedom of speech. If the Internet is limited, it destroys the whole purpose of it’s own existence. The Internet has earned its own reputation by endorsing promotion of great quantities of information in a short amount of time, which is a great link to education. If we limit what we can say on the Internet, we are also at the same time, limiting the educational information that one can access. The first one which is the threat to the democratic nature of education happens because of restriction to freedom of speech through books. The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) argues that the censorship threatens the democratic nature of the educational system in the United States. The supreme court agreed in 1967 when it ruled in favor of a New York teacher with suspected communist affiliation keeping his job by arguing “the classroom is peculiarly the marketplace of ideas”. The goal of the educational system according to NCAC is to produce thinking citizens, with rights to freedom to read or speech/expression under the First Amendment are endangered by the censorship of reading material whether in print or on the Internet. Also, the second category is missed opportunity for critical thinking. Reading challenging materials teaches students critical thinking skills they need to flourish for any kind of citizen. Without reading a wide variety of materials representing diverse range of beliefs and ideas, students will lose out on the opportunities to judge ideas that may oppose what they believe or have been taught to believe. The last category is the suppression of ideas that challenge the status quo. Censorship will lead to no independent media and high education. For an example, North Korea and other heavily censored countries, citizens have no access to information from outside their country and are forbidden to criticize the government. Many people from these censored countries live isolated and ignorant of alternative ways of life and thinking. If our brightest and most capable young adults can not be trusted to think for themselves, who can? And if our greatest people won’t protect their words, who will? The answer is clear.

  Contention 7: Economic Argument
According to inquisitor.com, the internet censorship in Australia is currently harming the economic cost of Australia. The Australian government is filtering the information that is provided on internet for their citizens which leads to slower internet speeds. At the end of June 2008, there were about 7.23 million internet users in Australia. An increase in costs of only $10 per month would immediately cost internet users $867.6 million a year in direct cost. $25 increase for internet access would result in an additional $2.169 billion in direct costs. Australia has an average internet speed of 1.7 mphs, which put them into 26th out of 27 developed countries. Slower speeds meant it takes longer to do business, and which could negatively effect on productivity. Also, slower speeds refers to low competitiveness. For example when Korea is trying to trade with Australia and China, there is more of a chance that Korea will not choose Australia as their trading partner because of their slow internet speeds. Slow internet speeds can occur slow response, more expensive price compared to others and less information about goods. Slower internet speed can damage economic GDP. The current GDP of Australia is $1520.6 billion.
CON

  Contention 1: Economical Progress
 According to inquisitr.com authoritarianism helps countries grow in economy because of long term predictability and social stability through censoring social dissent. Censorship helps the economy because censorship is a form of authoritarianism and has long predictability with social stability, which is essential for economic development especially for developing countries. For example, China currently has been growing rapidly, their GDP grew after using the Great Firewall of China. According to China Daily, the firewall project started in 2003. After the firewall was enabled, China’s GDP grew significantly. China’s GDP in 2003 hit 1.414 trillion US dollars, 9.1 percent over the previous year. This clearly shows that censorship actually helps economies to develop. According to a contributor of Forbes, China blocks out sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google, Flickr, and Youtube and redirects them to their own sites. For example, Google is redirected to Baidu and Youtube is redirected to Youku. This redirection helps China develop and flourish because these are the companies made by China. For example, Youku is the the second largest video sharing site on the internet, but also a substitute for Youtube in China.However Chinese citizen’s are not the only people using Youku, many other people use this site to watch videos that are not on Youtube. This proves that Youku and Baidu is a way China’s economy can grow. Also, other countries can follow China because of their economy growth.

  Contention: 2 Minorities
According to Kang Hyun-kyung’s article written on May 2, 2013 Hwang Min-U or better known as “Little Psy” was bullied. People wrote harsh words and racial slurs because of his multiracial background. Hwang Min-U had read some of the messages. In order to keep minorities safe from the racial slurs, the government should limit the information that the internet provides.According from the same source, Choi Young il, executive director of the non profit group Borderless Village, which helps migrant workers, said some Koreans hold inexplicable grudges against migrants and people with multiracial backgrounds. It was explained from his quote “Some blue collar workers such as laborers and temporary workers feel that foreign workers have stolen jobs. Some experienced steep cuts in wages because employers are trying to take advantage of undocumented workers”. Some society just like Korea are very racist and very cruel to the foreigners. “There is another group of people who consider themselves the victims of interracial marriages after their relationships with foreign spouses went wrong. I think these people are the main sources of the backlash against multiculturalism.”

  Contention 3: Hate Speech
 There are many victims of hate speech because of simple race, skin colour, and thought. However, these victims do not tell and start to get problems. According to the Michingan Law Review, victims of hate propaganda experience physiological symptoms, emotional distress, suicide, difficulty in breathing and rapid pulse rates.In order to avoid receiving hate messages victims quit jobs and education, leave home, avoid places , curtail their own exercise of speech rights, and modify their behavior and demeanor. One professor called the blow of racist messages “spirit murderer.” Also, victims have no support because the government disagrees with them.The government says hate speech is freedom of speech and allow their citizens to write hate messages. In the end the victims are helpless and cannot do anything except grow problems. Judges please think about the victims of the hate speech, is this not enough struggle for the victims to get censorship, then what is?

  Contention 4: Social Contract
According to Scottish socialist John Maclean’s article “When is Censorship Justified”, social contract is an implicit agreement among the members of a society to cooperate for social benefits. In other words, some people give up some of their rights or have limitations in order to gain benefits. One of the things that the citizens give up is the absolute freedom of speech, instead, they received limitations as a return. Citizens give up a little bit of tax, liberty, and freedom in order to receive freedom to live and protection. .As the Con team, we strongly believe that freedom of speech should be restricted when it impedes on other rights. What everyone needs to understand is that people can not use their right to speech in order to harm another individual’s rights. Governments should protect their own citizens, since they have the primary obligations to aid them due to the social contract that is established between them. In this sense, it is vital that government should be censoring information that may potentially harm people’s rights.

  Contention 5: Holocaust Denial
Freedom of speech with no restrictions leads to physical acts. Thus pornography, hate speech, and political polemic are causally linked to rape, hate crimes, and insurrection. Both scientific creationism and Holocaust denial have been serious and dangerous, hidden agendas. Deniers of the Nanjing Massacre believe that the Japanese did nothing wrong in the Second World War and continue to claim that it was a war of liberation against Western colonialism- feeding Japanese militarism today. Holocaust deniers, in claiming that a Jewish conspiracy is responsible for the widespread belief that six million Jews were murdered by the Nazis, who are closely allied to anti- Semitism and neo- Nazism. We should not allow such views the legitimacy which being debated gives them.

  Contention 6: Cyber Bullying 
Cyber bullying is a concern that the government should censor. Regular people, celebrities, and even minors are getting cyber bullied everyday. For the protection of all humans, governments should censor the internet. Celebrities are getting cyber bullied because regular people are jealous of their popularity. Also, minors like Hwang Min-U gets cyber bullied because of his multiracial background. Also moreover, John Locke, one of the well respected philosophers stated that the government exist because they have to protect people’s natural rights. So what the government should do is to censor information in order to help out people that are suffering from cyber bullying. According to the cyberbullying research center, it stated that the cyber bullying suicide rates starting from 2003 compared with 2012 increased by 4.32%. Something that is more alarming than this is according to the global news, Dr.John Leblanc, an associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Dalhousie University stated “The terrible thing about cyberbullying is that one can never escape it. If you are a youth, you want to be involved in social media. It is a very important way to stay connected, which means that you can not escape it. You go home, it is there. You are at school, it is there”. It sounds like according to Dr.John Leblanc, not using Internet can not be one of the viable option since it everywhere. This can only force the government to censor some acts so that it can prevent much more further deaths. The government can not be responsible for more deaths than right now so censorship is necessary considering the factors of social and political dissent.