by Gary Chapman

About the author: Gary Chapman is director of the 21st Century Project at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of a biweekly column for the Los Angeles Times entitled “Digital Nation.”

The tragedy . . . in Littleton, Colorado, is still on the minds of Americans, polls show, no doubt reinforced by [the May 1999] school shootings in Georgia. Events such as these could bring widespread censorship to the Internet, at least in the United States, and also, possibly, restraints on video and computer games.

The Search for a Scapegoat

Vice President Al Gore called a news conference shortly after the Colorado killings to announce support for parental controls on children’s use of the Internet. The Federal Communications Commission is reportedly mulling...