Hewett The Great Debate

Casper Hewett’s article “The Great Debate: Should We Censor the Internet?” makes a good argument with four speakers from different fields on censorship of internet. This article was published in the book named, “The Well Crafted Argument.” It is very well organized and the discussion on topic is to the point.

The first speaker of this article was Bill Thompson, who is very well known freelance journalist, writer, consultant and also a founder member of Nexus (The Virtual Think Tank). Thomppson’s main claim in his argument was “we do not need to treat censorship of the net differently to any other media, in which he means that internet should be regulated as other medias are being regulated. He also uses logical appeal that, “…free society should be able to set limits.” To support his claim and appeal he also gave supporting evidence. He discusses the censorship of Google on behalf of China government in China. In the end of Thompson’s argument he emphasized on the fact that, the internet does creates problem.

In her argument she discusses the both, positive and negative, sides of the internet and she supports the regulation of internet. In her argument she was going back and forth to the merits and demerits of the topic. She didn’t take any position and discussed with both point of views. But in her argument she uses logical appeal to regulate internet by discussing the misuse of internet. Her appeal was, “the rule of law should upheld and where the law is broken it needs to be enforced.” To support her appeal she doesn’t provide any evidence but mentions her point of view that internet could be used as a criminal or harmful