Should There Be Greater Censorship of the Internet - Term Paper Example

Heading: Internet Censoring Your name: Course name: Professors’ name: Date Introduction Internet censorship is a controversial topic in Australia, and in the world at large. The Australian government has made a proposal concerning the need to filter some of the websites from the public through the Australian internet filter. In censoring the internet, the Australian government will block pages upon finding it unacceptable. Nevertheless, the filter gives them the capacity to violate human freedom of speech if it considers the particular speech unacceptable. Explicitly, the proposed filter will cost taxpayers millions of dollars in the process of implementing it, as well as other millions during its maintenance. Therefore, this paper intends to discuss the issue concerning “Should there be greater censorship of the Internet?” It seeks to discuss both sides of the topic; that is the points that support the topic, as well as those that oppose it. Notably, the paper’s stance is to oppose the censoring of internet in Australia. Points against Internet Censorship Steel (2009) indicates that effective filters have the potential to slow the internet. Nevertheless, the benefits of this proposed censorship easily bypass the cost of the filter. It is worth noting that the government’s intention to block the unethical content in the internet will not necessarily yield positive outcomes to the public. It is imperative to consider that the Australian Internet Filter is not the appropriate method of limiting access to acceptable content. This is because it is a waste of money and time effort, and allows the government to greatly influence on the public views. The Australian Government’s proposed Internet Censorship Scheme has a number of costs, which are both direct and indirect in relation to their productive and financial costs. Financial costs entail the net cost incurred by implementing the plan, and extend to variables including the need for constant maintenance and filtering. The Federal Government needs to establish proper ways of funding these intentions. In the present economic times and the predictable future, funding necessary in procurement, implementation, and maintenance of the systems can be hard to achieve, with the probability of these costs to be transmitted to the Internet Service Providers to implement. The planned initial cost for the years of enforcing the Australia Internet Censorship plan was to $44 million, suggested by the Australian labor party’s initial budget upon election (Macnamara 2010). Notably, bigger ISP and filters that are more correct can unavoidably translate to greater costs. The first implementation costs can entail attainment of the necessary software or hardware and their incorporation into the present systems, which could involve system and network configurations. The constant costs vary slightly and more engaged. Therefore, these costs are getting harder to foresee, but include preservation of any obtained software or hardware, filter and blacklist updating and consumer assistance regarding blocking or some websites. The Federal Government does not account for these ongoing costs, and present suggestions are that the expenses would be transmitted to the internet subscribers via ISPs, who might or might not be ready to take up the administrative and extra technical enforcement costs (Langley 2009). Even though the major intention of the suggested internet filter is to safeguard people from this content, implementation of the filter will not achieve this objective due to some problems associated with firewall. To start with, the basic technique utilized in the block content has basic loopholes, authorizing unethical material to pass. Secondly, the filter is inappropriate, as firewall can be bypassed easily. Internet is not the only means of transmitting unacceptable materials to the public, as there are other numerous alternatives. Besides, unethical material may be spread to the people on the internet through other means that cannot be controlled by the proposed filter (Beattie 2009). Moreover, Griffith (2002) advocates that firewall can also use the blacklist technique to block off unacceptable content from reaching the public. Nevertheless, the method faces certain problems. The government should create a list of websites, especially as the internet is wide; there is a high probability that the lists will be missing other sites containing questionable content. In addition, internet is continuously expanding daily with latest websites. If the government decides to blacklist every website containing unethical material, it will require constant and reliable updating. Upon leaking of the ACMA blacklisting of Wikileaks in 2009, it explicit that the ACMA have not managed to reliably blacklist sites containing unethical material. MySpace profiles and YouTube pages were seen in the blacklist among websites containing unacceptable material. It was only upon the leaking and publishing of the blacklist did the Australian government correct it; hence, causing a new list that had over half the previous entries removed (Ringmar 2007). Furthermore, Rowland (2005) says that a comprehensive blacklist, which reliably and constantly updated will not be effective in safeguarding the public from unethical websites. This is because it is easy to bypass the firewall. Besides, the availability of free proxies throughout the web hinders the index-based filters from blocking one from accessing the website on its blacklist. The analysis-based filtering mechanisms will not also effectively prevent unethical content from reaching the public. These methods depend on the ability to view the material in order to analyze and filter it accurately. Nevertheless, unethical content distributors may encrypt the files they spread, making analysis-based filtering ineffective (Steel 2009). Although firewall is intended to block unethical websites, not each unacceptable content is in the websites. This is because such material may be spread via other means, such as, DVDs and portable hard drives that firewall cannot prevent. On the internet, unethical material may be circulated between individuals through pee-to-peer systems in spite of the firewall availability (Macnamara 2010). What is more, Ringmar (2007) asserts that if the Australian government is allowed to do internet censorship, it will be encouraged to hide a lot of vital information from the public, especially the politically fundamental information. In fact, this has been experienced earlier without the citizen’s knowledge. Upon leaking the blacklist on Wikileaks, the ACMA obstructed the public from accessing the two pages of Wikileaks: one with blacklist, while the other one justifying its publishing. This demonstrates the government’s movement away from the human rights and freedom enjoyed today and towards a situation with a great degree of regulation over the people, a totalitarian rule. The government realized something that would change the public view aspect against them, and cause possible essential national unrest. Thus, it resolved to hide it from the populations. It is highly possible that the government has been concealing vital information from the public ever since its conception (Rowland 2005). Another reason against Internet Censorship in Australia is that it violates public’s right to information. Internet censorship gives the government the ability to obstruct the populations from accessing the material containing sensitive information on matters that must not be concealed, such as, abortion. Infringement of this human right is associated to their freedom of speech. If people are denied the freedom to share information and ideas online, then this amounts to muting them. In fact, the Australian constitution has no direct provision, which entitles Australians to speech; hence, the government could lawfully silence the people, should they express contrary opinions from its wishes. Notably, the exclusion of the right from the constitution lawfully enables the government to silence the people without any appropriate reason. As Deibert (2010) maintains, Australians lack the right to express themselves freely, though not under the legislation. The Internet Filter will infringe the right and more, as per the ratified treaty. The country ratified the treaty of International Covenant on Civil Political Rights, and implemented it on November 13, 1980. Article 19 of the treaty advocates for everyone’s freedom to search, obtain, and impart ideas and information of all forms, despite the frontiers, written, verbal, or printed, and via any media. The suggested filter is apparently in violation of freedom of expression, as expressed opinions and ideas can be muted if people protest the government’s ethics. Secondly, it breaches human freedom to search and obtain information of all types, as people can only get information on authorized topics (Biagi 2012). Certainly, Macnamara (2010) says that participating in the treaty enables the country to act like an enlightened nation that cares for the people’s political rights. Nevertheless, in the country, treaties may neither impose responsibilities on people nor make rights in local laws. Therefore, if the treaty does not need the government to maintain the rights given to Australian public, then it should not sign it. In addition, the government’s membership of the treaty makes it appear as if it is part of the globe. It fears that if the people’s views vary from the rest of the globe and they are not members of the treaties, other nations would not be obligated to the rules created by the treaties. Besides, they fear that they will not manage to realize their global objectives without economic and military involvement, locations in which they are weak and vulnerable (Giacomello 2005). Points for internet censorship Despite the negative effects of internet censoring by the Australian government, the practice is worth considering. The government realizes that internet poses a great challenge to the society in relation to the political, commercial, legal, and public interests. To start with, Australian government advocates for internet censoring, as it is critical in safeguarding people against unethical content. The amount of internet content is ever growing and expansive, and thus enhances the accessibility of children to large quantity of unethical material. In fact, the internet is the readily available platform for anyone to post information (Steel 2009). Nonetheless, most people tend to post incorrect, biased, and harmful information that may compromise peace, unity, and morals of the society. If children cannot just be allowed to use the internet, since several information sites are questionable. For instance, innocent searches in the internet, such as, sleeping beauty, could lead to pornographic images shown on the internet. Therefore, the move by the government to censor internet is commendable (Cetti 2011). Secondly, censoring the internet by the Australian government is highly beneficial in the achievement of social cohesion. This is because internet censorship tends to address certain concerns including pornographic material, bomb-making instructions, and hate speech among others that cause social disintegration in the country. The practice is also valuable since it helps to safeguard children and women from pornographic material, as well as sexual harassment. There are several cases involving girls and women who have been harassed online through sexual networks, such as, Facebook. Thus, internet censorship is imperative in protecting individuals from such concerns (Steel 2009). Thirdly, internet censoring is vital in the Australian society, because it facilitates the protection against email spam. Internet spam entails unsolicited email, and it comprises of various types. For instance, an email spam might consist of a malware that is activated by merely opening a mail message. To protect against spyware and viruses, it is crucial to avoid opening any suspicious mails. Phishing schemes also attempt to steal one’s identity by requesting for personal details. These always seem to be financial firms requesting one to verify his account number and passwords. Thus, the government’s decision to censor the internet is beneficial in protecting the people’s vital information from fraudsters (Cetti 2011). Fourthly, Delta (2009) says that internet censorship is significant in Australia, as it is among the appropriate ways of checking theft on intellectual property. Although businesses find it suitable to market and distribute their products via digital networks, they experience copyright violations, as well as stealing of intellectual property. There is a serious concern that upon digitizing and placing information on distribution networks, it can be easily duplicate and distributed; hence, it believed that censorship could greatly aid the situation. Recommendation Explicitly, there is a great controversy on the issue of internet censoring in Australia. The practice has both negative and positive sides. In order to maximize the effects of internet censoring in the country, the government should adjust its internet censorship policy to accommodate generational changes, as well as to protect its citizens from unethical material. Conclusion Without doubt, the regulation of internet is a controversial argument. The major purpose of the Australian Internet Censorship is to safeguard the unethical material, sexual abuse on children and women, copyright violations, protection of intellectual property, as well as protection of personal information. It is worth noting that the filters do certainly obstruct unethical content. Nevertheless, government recent and reports incidents have demonstrated that the planned enforcement does not obtain these ideas. Additionally, the use of internet filters by the government is likely to slow down the internet. Moreover, leaking of the blacklist designed by the government for filtering sites that contain unethical material had been selected for filtering. This indicates that the government cannot be relied on reliably obstruct unethical content. In Australia, there is no freedom of speech, and with filtering, the government will have more power to confiscate politically vital information or views from the public perspective. Therefore, the government’s decision to censor internet is highly indispensable. References Beattie, S 2009, Community, space and online censorship regulating pornotopia, Ashgate, Surrey, England Burlington, VT. Pp. 1-25. Biagi, S 2012, Media/impact: an introduction to mass media, Wadsworth Cengage Learning, Australia Boston. Pp. 1-25. Cetti, R 2011, Offensive to a Reasonable Adult: Film Censorship in 'Secular' Australia, Wider Screenings TM, New York. Pp. 1-30. Deibert, RJ 2010, Access controlled: the shaping of power, rights, and rule in cyberspace, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. Pp. 1-20. Delta, G 2009, Law of the Internet, Aspen Publishers, Frederick, MD. Pp. 5-30. Giacomello, G 2005, National governments and control of the Internet: a digital challenge, Routledge, New York. Pp.1-15. Griffith, G 2002, Censorship in Australia: regulating the Internet and other recent developments, New South Wales Parliamentary Library Research Service, Sydney. Pp.1- 20. Langley, A 2009, Tiananmen Square: Massacre Crushes China’s Democracy Movement. Snapshots in History. Pp. 1-15. Macnamara, J 2010, The 21st century media (r) evolution: emergent communication practices, Peter Lang, New York. Pp. 180-200. Ringmar, E 2007, A blogger's manifesto: free speech and censorship in the age of the Internet. London New York: Anthem Press. Pp. 60-80 Rowland, D 2005, Information technology law, London Portland, Or: Cavendish Pub, Pp. 450- 480. Steel, CMS 2009, ‘Child pornography in peer-to-peer networks’, ScienceDirect, vol. 33, no. 8, pp. 560–568. Read More