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| A WEB OF VIOLENCE? | |
 May 1999 
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According
to news reports, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris used the Internet to learn
how to make the bombs and plan the attack that killed 15 in Littleton,
CO. The incident has sparked debate over whether access to such information
on the Web may pose a threat to society and should be regulated.
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A recent Gallup poll indicated that 82 percent of those surveyed said the Internet was at least partially to blame for the Columbine High School attack -- compared with 60 percent who thought easy access to guns was to blame. The attack has sparked a new round of debates between cyber rights activists and those children's advocates who supported the 1996 Communications Decency Act. The Littleton shootings have prompted some national leaders to wonder if publications like The Anarchist Cookbook are too easily accessed on the Internet. "[W]e're looking for ways to try to at least help parents deal with what their children can get off the Internet, and a way to use ordinary law enforcement tactics effectively against people who are trying to do illegal things over the Internet," President Clinton told a group of high school students just after the shootings. "But it's very difficult." Free speech advocates and Internet groups worry the recent violence and its ties to the Web may precipitate new regulations. "This week's Internet finger-pointing was directed not just at the information out there, but the medium that transmitted it," Declan McCullagh wrote in Wired. "Whether it's bomb-making instructions, pornography, or violent movies, linking the [Internet] to mayhem has become a popular American pastime." Many family groups were quick to question the Internet's free speech defense. "To argue that the strength of the Internet is chaos or that our liberty depends upon chaos is to misunderstand not only the Internet, but also the fundamental nature of our liberty," Cathy Cleaver of the Family Research Council recently said. "It's an illusion to claim social or moral neutrality in the application of technology, even if its development may be neutral." So what do you think? Is the Internet at least partly responsible for the shootings? Should local or federal governments try to get involved? Is is simply blaming the medium? Your questions will be answered by a panel of new technology and content experts. |
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