“Throughout history, the development of new media technologies has always altered the way we think about threats to free speech” writes legal scholar and law professor Jeffrey Rosen in a recent article in the New York Times. The article, which discusses censorship of Google,  YouTube, and other sites in various countries, notes the contrast between  Google’s “long term commitment to free expression” and more timely concerns regarding profit and functionality in a wide variety of countries with a wide variety of censorship laws.  Many of the countries cited by Rosen have worked with Google to employ various measures of censorship that comply with that country’s laws; for example, the German version of Google does not list Holocaust denial sites that are listed on the American version of Google, while materials considered demeaning to founder of modern Turkey, Kemal Ataturk,  are not available to YouTube viewers in Turkey.

In a survey last summer, Zogby asked several questions about people’s views on Internet censorship. When asked whether the government should regulate the content of the Internet the same way the government regulates the content of television and radio, most people answered no. However, a generational divide regarding attitudes towards Internet censorship is apparent. Those over 65 are the most likely of any age group to agree that government should regulate content (32.5%), while those 18-29 the least likely of any age group to agree (14.7%), and other age groups fall somewhere in between.

This particular survey question asked about “the Internet” as a whole and found very little support for the type of censorship described in Rosen’s article. Might Americans be more likely to support government regulation of specific aspects or sites on the Internet? Or do you think Americans  are just inherently unlikely to support Internet censorship?

Katy censorship, politics censorship, history, internet, media, summer, television, war, work, zogby