Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Should Web Sites for Bomb-Making Be Legal?

2004; McFarland & Company; Volume: 13; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.3172/jie.13.1.34

1941-2894

Tony Doyle,

Hate Speech and Cyberbullying Detection

Opponents of censorship are sometimes di[double dagger]dent of taking on hard cases. They shouldn't be. Any defense of free expression worth its salt should be able to respond to the severest tests. Perhaps no case presents a greater challenge to liberals than web sites that provide instructions for explosives. The traditional arguments for free speech-from truth and democracy-cut no ice here: electronic mayhem manuals promote neither truth nor democracy. Nor do they have entertainment to recommend them. It is di[double dagger]cult to imagine even the most ardent defender of free speech celebrating the easy access to this information that the Internet provides. No liberal can seriously contend that this access has made the world a better place. It hasn't. Liberals then should accept the onus. If censorship foes want to defend access to explosive-making sites, they need to show that banning would likely be worse than not banning.One critic of open access to bomb-making sites is Amitai Etzioni (i997).i He suggests that they violate the widely acknowledged clear and present danger restriction on free speech (p. 65). Falsely shouting Fire! in a crowded theater should be unprotected not because it guarantees that people will be killed but because it creates an intolerable risk of death or serious injury with no outweighing benefits. For the time being I will assume that such a restriction is consistent with a liberal position on speech and expression, ignoring the lurking vagueness of intolerable.Etzioni proceeds to distinguish between arguments in favor of banning or restricting pornography on the one hand and those for prohibiting bomb assembly on the other hand. He points out that social scientists di∂er about the total e∂ects of pornography, some claiming that it is cathartic, others that it increases anti-social behavior (p. 65). Where the experts disagree, reason counsels suspension of judgment. Bomb handbooks are totally unlike this: In I cannot find anyone who argues that bomb manuals have safely vented anybody's asocial proclivities (p. 65). He maintains that we are well advised to make it more rather than less di[double dagger]cult to get this information, contrasting seeking information on explosives the old fashioned way with going online to get it. The old way, which generally meant going to a library or a bookstore, was cumbersome. This might be enough to discourage some; still more would be deterred by having to identify themselves to a librarian or salesperson. In contrast, Etzioni continues, making mayhem manuals available to [potential bomb-makers] in their home, day and night, at the flick of a switch, allows them to fashion explosives in complete privacy and with all the comforts of home (p. 65). He concludes, speaking of bomb-making sites in particular: materials that directly endanger lives should be banned from the Internet.... This position is well ensconced in our tradition of realizing that every right, even free speech, needs to be balanced with others, especially the right to live (p. 66).Other things being equal, Etzioni is right that speech that directly threatens lives must be prohibited or at least restricted. Again, free speech absolutism is indefensible: enforcing legal rights has costs that should be weighed against the benefits accruing to their protection. And the costs of unfettered speech doubtless are greater than its benefits. Speech is a kind of action, and where it threatens the same degree of harm as non-verbal action that is rightly forbidden, it too should be illegal. Thus, consistent with a liberal position on speech, do we have laws forbidding libel or communication involving criminal conspiracy. But the sites that Etzioni wants to restrict or ban do not directly threaten lives; only bombs and their makers do. And we already have laws against the unauthorized and setting o∂ of explosives. True enough, these laws do not prevent all such activities, but they have undeniably deterred many a potential bomber. …