Internet Censorship in the United Arab Emirates - Essay Example

 Internet censorship in the United Arab Emirates Internet Censorship is the suppression or the control of publishing and accessing of certain information within the Internet. The concept aims at blocking users from the access of information typically viewed as a form of infringement and harmful on copyright. The concept aims at discouraging and outlawing publishers from producing certain information and content deemed as violation or hurtful in relation to copyright laws. Internet censorship also allows the control of ideas and information within the Internet, some countries such as those within the United Arab Emirates does control the information over some of the internet connected computers. It is a form of “total internet censorship,” the concept is however difficult to implement due to the improvement and the continuous distribution of internet technology. Generally the concept of internet censorship involves the limiting of information that can be accessed in the Internet for a particular set of reasons; the concept involves the suppression of assessing and publishing content online [Sch]. This in turn means that censorship involves blocking the information at the time of publishing the information or controlling sites designed to inhibit the access of the online information. The concept at times involves a form of deceitful techniques, in these instances the government blocks the information and at the same time lead the public into believing that the concept is not applied. In most cases the application of the concept involves issuing fake ISP which provides a “not found” error message when the internet user requests to access the page. In most cases people tend to ignore the administrative control of online information, however in the concept of internet censorship the administrative body (the government) possesses the power to block the reception of specific information and the reception of certain sites. Some of the most prominent countries which adapt to the concept include North Korea, Vietnam, China, Burma and Saudi Arabia (as per the Paris government organization), however even with the known countries, other countries adapt to the concept with the believe that the concept is beneficial to the whole country [Wal10]. Internet censorship acts as a regulatory necessity which aims at ‘protecting’ against larger issues within the society, those that oppose the concept believe that the authoritative control within the concept imposes the basic rights and also infringes the freedom of press. The United Arab Emirates holds on to the believe that the concept helps protect the cultural values of the society. In the United Arab Emirates after the introduction of the internet in 1995, the user kept increasing giving the governments and incentive control and limits the exchange of information within the Internet. From the increase in number of users of the Internet, the United Arab Emirates established a filter system which included the institution of an “internet filtering system based on the smart filter.” In these the government established control over almost 60% of the Etisalat Company which is the main provider of Internet within the United Arab Emirates. Research conducted in the United Arab Emirates show that the government filters over 27% of the overall sited within the countries. Some of these websites include VOIP websites and Skype under which the governments, this is a disadvantage to the immigration workers who pay high prices in order to make international calls [Wal10]. The United Arab Emirates possesses a multicultural and diverse society; its major religion is the Islam who possesses a lot of cultural beliefs. The government on the other hand has a zero-tolerance policy for other religions; it is illegal to spread information about any religion apart from Islam through any form of media which includes the internet. Etiquette and respect is one of the most important culture and tradition within the United Arab Emirates, it is a norm and an expectation to show respect and courtesy especially to the elders. Within the United Arab emirates sex segregation is among the most important cultural values in everyday social life, honour is protected at all costs, anything viewed to break the culture within the Islam is illegal (all medias including the Internet). The cultural values of the society dictate the ways of the United Arab Emirates including the content featured in the internet. The emirate society honours all their cultural norms and values, even with the tolerance they have on other social customs of the different ethnic groups in the United Arab Emirates. The government's hold on to the believe that internet censorship has some cultural benefits within the society, some of the cultural values originating from Internet censorship include, decrease in illegal activities that affect the society, protects the vulnerable populations within the society, helps in the decrease of intellectual property theft and also decreases identity theft within the society. the most important cultural benefit originating from the concept is the fact the internet censorship within the United Arab emirates help in protecting the vulnerable population from harm, for example children. When a government employs the concept, then child predation is lower and also limits the child’s ability to access the inappropriate and the confusing information for their age, this information includes the access to pornographic content. Also internet censorship benefits the prison populations, mentally disabled and all the special groups within the society. This is among the main reasons as to why many people favour the concept of internet censorship; the United Arab Emirates believes that it is their role to clean up any content that pollutes the society. Another cultural value as to why the United Arab Emirates promotes the concept of internet filtering is the fact that it decreases the intellectual property theft. With an open and free internet, the society believes that it is easier stealing the intellectual property. Through the provision of internet censorship, then the government can protect the intellectual property rights against those that would steal it [Hae10]. However even with the cultural benefits internet censorship does limit the freedom of the press and those of speech, the concept also dramatically reduces progress and innovation. Usually the society views internet censorship as an oppression method which limits the transparency of the government. In internet censorship the society loses the voice which makes it more challenging to report what bothers them in the society. On the other hand it makes the government easier to control the population which is a form of oppression to them. The internet acts as a confluence of opinions, ideas, technologies, logic and information, when controls and censored it limits the people’s ability to access certain information. This in turn dramatically reduces technological and innovation progress in the name of safeguarding information deemed more important. In the United Arab Emirates, the government filters a lot of information usually as prescribed by Islam, in most cases the government filters the pornographic and the sexual materials, also the websites with the pornographic materials are blocked. This preserves the cultural beliefs within the Islam religion which term it as an abomination. Within the cultural values the governments also filters contents from the sites that have conversation ranging from Christianity to Arab Muslims. It also filters the content with the information about occultism and those that critique the Islam religion. These results from their cultural believe about other religion and the beliefs they possess towards the Islam religion. Internet censorship within the United Arab Emirates results to very illicit and diverse opinions; however from the information about internet censorship in the UAE, internet censorship does protect and preserve their cultural values. This is because the concept of internet censorship protects the Islam Society from the pollution from some of the bad contents from the internet[Wal10]. Bibliography Sch: , (Schell, n.d.), Wal10: , (Walske, 2010), Hae10: , (Haerens, 2010), Wal10: , (Walske, 2010), Read More