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Knowledge is power. This important statement is at the heart of what Google means when it asserted that censorship is the same as international trade barriers. Access to information is vital in today's modern era. Being able to know facts such as the difficulties oil companies face in Nigeria, or the latest information concerning accounting practices of a company with possibly inflated stock, is what helps today's investor make money, and the person who knows the information quicker will be able to react to it faster and in doing so make more money.
This also spreads to the availability of ideas on the internet. Just a Google is referring the ideal of a free market system where goods and services compete against each other, where the best goods rise to the top, while inferior products and services perform poorly, there is a marketplace of ideas. In this marketplace of ideas different theories compete against each other, allowing the individual to compare ideas and choose the idea that he or she agrees with, or even propose a new idea. The internet has brought the marketplace of ideas to a whole new level. Opposing viewpoints can be quickly accessed and compared side by side. Forums gives people the opportunity to debate and fine tune their theories. Disputed facts can be analyzed by people across the country, giving the common man access to a multitude of different expert opinions, instead of just one opinion from some man in a suit on the nightly news. This system provides access to a multitude of ideas and allows the best ideas to be refined and float to the top, while less favorable ideas are held by fewer and fewer people.

But in order for the marketplace of ideas to work, all ideas must be allowed. From the National Holocaust Museum to Holocaust deniers, from mainstream political parties to anarchists and communists, they all must be allowed to express their ideas on the internet. With regards to child pornography, those who advocate for child pornography and relationships between children and adults should be allowed to have websites that advocate such things. But displaying pornographic pictures of children should be one area where they should not be allowed to go. Creating a website advocating such things does not violate the rights of any other person, but posting child pornography violates the rights of the children involved, and so it should be illegal.
On a slightly divergent subject, I find it interesting that Google has made this claim, which I support, given their cooperation with the People's Republic of China and their censorship efforts. For more information see here. I find it deplorable that Google will speak out of both sides of their mouth, rightly advocating a free internet here in the United States, while conspiring with Communist China to keep an entire nation ignorant of what is going on in their own country and around the world, denying these people access to the marketplace of ideas.

Learn more about this author, Michael Vidrine.
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