Table of Contents
In this modernist world, everyone knows what the internet is. Internet involves in human’s daily task list as the world has developed. All of us needs internet to browse what’s happening around the world, to connect with our family and friends, to use social media for fun etc. Everything we want to know can be searched on the internet by one click.
To be able to live in a peaceful world, every country supplies rules and regulations for their citizens. As there are a lot of laws and restrictions people follow, there should be rules and laws over the internet to protect from conflicts on the internet. Internet censorship can be defined as blocking access to certain websites by the users without the cooperation of the content provider. It intentionally avoids the information flowing on a system connected to the system (Giuseppe Aceto, Antonio Pescapé,2014, ‘Internet Censorship detection: A survey’).
Even though the internet is very useful, our human society is facing different kinds of challenges such as morality, religion, politics, and economics, especially people discuss these topics on the internet and spreading the hates unnecessarily. Nowadays, the children are using internet widely as well. Therefore, organizations and government need to take part in giving access to the website or censoring the bad pictures and words in order to reduce violating over the internet, preventing the children from viewing illegal websites.
Sex and Pornography
The internet is an area that helps sharing and spreading inappropriate things more easily. When we browse the internet, we could see that the pornography is one of the biggest spams. Despite the use of the social media networking has increased, ten percent of pornography searches is still recorded which is down from twenty percent a decade ago. (A Gillies, 2012, ‘Internet Regulation and Censorship’).
As I have mentioned, children have become one of the main internet users in this developing world, so anything we imagine or want the internet to be, certainly it is a medium for the children. The policymakers generally assumed that the internet’s users are the adults (Abhilash Nair, 2019, ‘The Regulation of Internet Pornography’). The internet is one of the areas which had the bad press of pornography (A Gillies, 2012, ‘Internet Regulation and Censorship’). It is very crucial to censor as the protection from experiences which are likely to harm the children’s development on their way towards adulthood (Abhilash Nair, 2019, ‘The Regulation of Internet Pornography’). Furthermore, we could see child pornography on the internet as well. Production and possession of the child pornography may be legal in a society, however, spreading over the internet become immoral and unethical.
However, there are some solutions to prevent from accessing the inappropriate websites such as purchasing a specific software pornography (A Gillies, 2012, ‘Internet Regulation and Censorship’). This software should be used by the parents and teachers to provide children with a safe source of information and safe online areas to interact with their friends around the world. Thus, it will not breach upon the security or freedom of the speech of the adults (Geoffrey Shiff, 1975, ‘Internet Censorship in Australia’).
Censorship in China
The internet censorship in China is severe
Censorship involves control over the internet access, functionality and contents (Eriksson and Giacomello, 2009, ‘International Relations and Security in Digital Age’). There are a lot of reasons for the internet censorship that includes human rights activists, comments insulting to the states, religious control, protection of intellectual property, restriction on illegal downloaded movies and music etc (Warf, Barney, 2011, ‘Geographies of Global Internet Censorship’). At times, the information expressed through Web pages and emails and social media networking sites is perceived to be a wildly unregulated environment.
For example, the internet could be implied to encourage people to commit crimes. Spam emails are designed to extract the personal details in order to facilitate identity theft (A Gillies, 2012, ‘Internet Regulation and Censorship’). Internet censorship is that is why essential for human’s safety. However, there are varieties of ways to control the flow of digital information, keywords-based content filtering, chatroom monitoring, hacking into opposition websites and spreading viruses (Warf, Barney, 2011, ‘Geographies of Global Internet Censorship’).
Refutation
In some countries, dividing the line between the regulation and censorship become unclear. The regulation become the censorship when it controls the activity which is beneficial or not harming the people. Different countries have different ways to regulating the internet and some can be regarded as the internet censorship (A Gillies, 2012, ‘Internet Regulation and Censorship’).
Some of the odd internet censorship reflects the complicated intersection between the growth of cyberspace and a local political and culture context (Warf, Barney, 2011, ‘Geographies of Global Internet Censorship’). In countries such as China, Burma and Iran, the internet censorship become interferences and so pronounced (Duffy, J, 2000, Toothless tiger, sleeping dragon: implied freedoms, internet filters and the growing culture of internet censorship in Australia). The regulation of the internet access redirects the decentralization of the political control and cultural attitudes.
For instance, the countries looking forward to the improvement of the information technology, international export services and tourisms can be concerned about the internet censorship which could make the declines of the revenues (A Gillies, 2012, ‘Internet Regulation and Censorship’). Sometimes, the internet censorship by the government could lead to the problems with the foreign investors (Hachigian, 2002, The Internet and Power in One Party).