Internet Censorship: Dead or Just Dormant?

In a little noticed action in late January, the Supreme Court put an end to the government's quixotic and wasteful ten-year effort to impose censorship on the Internet via a piece of misguided legislation dubbed, "The Children's Online Protection Act," or "COPA." The law placed severe restrictions on a wide range of legal, socially valuable speech, including content relating to sexual identity, health and art. Such content was covered by the law's definition of "harmful to minors" and criminalized any site that allowed minors access to that type of material.

But the law was never enforced because it was immediately challenged in the courts as a violation of the First Amendment. Yet the government stubbornly pressed on in a tortured and expensive procedural odyssey that took the case up to the Supreme Court and down to the trial court, over and over again.

Meanwhile the world changed. Web 2.0 was born. The blogosphere exploded. YouTube made us all content creators, and rather than surfing the web to view static content, social networking changed the way young people interact and share content online.