Internet Censorship - Benefits and Detriments - Essay Example

Internet censorship Name: Course: Institution: Instructor Date Introduction The internet has been hailed as one of man’s greatest achievements in the 20th century. The internet has been viewed as a cure to all society’s problems in terms of communication, creation of employment solving economic problems among others. On the other hand, the internet has is perceived as a root of all social evil in the sense that it promotes intellectual piracy, promotes under age pornography, discourages face to face interactions and is a hub for terror groups. As a communication channel, there have been arguments that the internet should be controlled. On the other hand, proponents of human rights argue that controlling or censoring the internet amounts to violation on the right to free speech which are protected under the UN declaration. The benefits and detriments to each side of the argument are many and numerous papers and reports have been published on the subject. This paper presents an extensive discussion on how Censorship can work in some instances but in others it can be a detriment to society using an array of current published literature. Problem background The internet should be censored or should not be censored are the two sides of this debate, but what is internet censorship? Bidgoli (2011) defines internet censorship as the suppression of publishing of information on the internet by an overseeing body. But who has a right to censor information given that no one organization or government has exclusive control of the internet? It is for this reason that Hunter (2012) notes that there are different on internet censorship with the four main ones being home internet censorship, organizational internet censorship, national internet censorship and international internet censorship. There are various types of software programs in the market that are used to automatically filter out certain websites. These programs all track internet use and websites visited without detection by the user. At the family level, internet censorship is very helpful as it prevents young children from accessing offensive websites and materials on the internet. Such censorship is controlled by parents or adults in the family. Organizational censorship as the name suggests applies to organizations only. Such censorship implies that all computers and other devices that can access the internet and are connected to an organization’s internet access point cannot access certain websites as set by the organization. National internet censorship occurs where countries pass stipulations prohibiting access to certain websites. For this to happen, all ISP providers in such a country must be involved. Common examples include Iran, Saudi Arabia, China and Burma. International censorship on the other hand occurs at an international level where access to information and various websites is censored across national boundaries (Lor & Britz, 2007; Bidgoli 2011). From whatever level of censorship, the action has benefits and detriments. Another common classification of internet censoring recognises three categories namely government monopolization, prepublication review and licensing and registration. A good example of government monopolization is Saudi Arabia where all internet content in the country is closely controlled from a central point. The censorship in Saudi Arabia and a number of other Arab countries is based on the idea of preserving their moral values against an immoral western culture. China on the other hand applies both prepublication review and licensing and registration. The Communist government of China is very sensitive to negative criticism and hence registration and licensing is a requirement to minimize cases of anonymous reporting mostly in criticism of the government (Bauml 2006). The prepublication review as a form of censorship involves the perusal of internet content by a third party, usually the government before the material is posted on the internet and made accessible to the public. This means that information that depicts the government negatively will never be published in some certain countries. Developed countries such as the UK, the US and Australia have voiced their concerns about the need for democratic space on the internet. Benefits Internets censorship allows the setting of limits in information flow, a necessary component of a stable society. In a workshop discussion held in Gateshead Civic Centre, Bill Thompson, one the founder of the giant think tank, Nexus, indicated that there is need to censor the internet (Hewett 2002). The broadcaster thinks that in the same manner that there is a limit to freedom of expression in writing in television and print media, there is need to cap the internet as a media. He argued that free speech is acceptable in principle but not in reality. For instance, the law on freedom of speech is curtailed by antiracism laws. Therefore, exempting the internet from such censorship would be catastrophic to society as it allows for the disregard of the constitutional and moral law (Brenkert 2009). To Thompson, the internet has no overseeing body that provides a codes of ethics for which the players should abide by. Therefore, censorship in essence serves to fill the vacuum resulting from the absence of a comprehensive law that can guide internet content publishers. Internet censorship protects and helps preserve the moral fabric of a society in terms of protecting young children from accessing pornographic content on the internet (Brenkert 2009). Jacobs (2013) and Newton (2009) write children are very tempted to practice what they see on the internet especially pornographic content which they may have not experienced elsewhere. With pornography being termed highly addictive, children as young as five might get addicted which not only affects their academic performance and health, but also their moral standing. This has been the main argument by the US governments in regards to internet censorship. The government position has been that the internet if not closely controlled can be a haven for paedophiles too who often lure young children into sexual relationships by posting content that will appeal to children. Parents have thus been warned that they should be wary of presumably innocent key words such as ‘plaything’ and ‘toys’ on their children search engines as they can lead their children to pornographic sites. Therefore, for the US government, closer control is required in terms of censorship to protect future generations. The internet provides a fertile ground for intellectual property theft hence its control allows for protection of intellectual properties. Bidgoli (2011) notes that copyrighted material including music, books and journal publications have suffered greatly since the invention of the internet. In a bid to attract high traffic of internet users to their websites, some websites specialise in making accessible copyrighted materials to the public without the necessary permission. For this result, book publishers and artists loose a lot in revenue as their contents is distributed over their internet without their consent. Consequently, such intellectual property rights holders loose their edge and even interest in their respect professions which can eventually kill their careers. For this reason, it is only right that such websites that literally steal and supply other peoples’ properties at a fee or for free without authorisation should be closed down and where possible individuals operating such sites prosecuted in a court of law. In the same length, the government also stands to loose in revenue through taxes when such illegal sales are made over the internet or sales foregone as content is made freely available on the internet. For this reason, there is need to closely monitor the internet and even block and shut down such websites conducting illegal business activity. Censorship facilitates protection of patents, a cornerstone of innovation in the modern world. Organizations or individuals are allowed to own exclusive rights to certain processes and innovations. In so doing their, they are able to retain their competitive advantage and shield off competition. The recent cases of patents rights infringement between Apple and Samsung in two of respective their products heightened the important of patent protection. While such cases point to the larger cases, there are minor cases involving small players especially SME’s. This is very common in the software development and mobile phone applications industry where some cyber criminals have been able to access proprietary digital information from unsuspecting players (Khsetri 2010). These criminals end up filing for patent rights before the original developers have done so. For such young talent, the internet is a real threat and censorship is just one way of protecting them. Internet censorship can actively fight cyber crime. The growth of e-commerce has opened a new avenue for crime. Many online shoppers have been duped into giving out their personal details through internet based scams which in the process siphon their money. Various governments around the world have made efforts to curb cyber crime with little success. One of the best ways that such crime can be tackled is pulling down such websites which have been linked with stealing from unsuspecting internet users. As of 2010, the industry was estimated to be worth US$1 trillion (Khsetri 2010). This point to the need to develop more comprehensive censorship measures to tackle the problem. Detriments Internet censorship could have serious economic ramifications for involved countries. Ryan (2007) indicates that internet usage and broadband uptake in countries and regions that have implemented censorship could be very slow. At an age where the developed world and more so, the European Union is moving towards digital convergence, the idea of internet censorship is derogatory in itself. The reduction in internet usage will not only affect the blocked websites but there will be fear and scepticism in e-commerce at a time when e-commerce is growing tremendously. Another negative impact on censorship could affect another group of stakeholders entirely, internet service providers. This installation of filtering programs by the internet service providers (ISP) imply additional costs which are likely to be passed on to consumers. With high costs of internet connectivity, internet uptake will be slower especially among the socio-economically challenged. This has a negative impact on any given economy bearing in mind that internet connectivity is one of the key indicators of economic growth. There is no universally recognised body that legislates on internet content. Bauml (2006) says that various governments laws are contradictory hence hard for abide by. In Australia, the Australian Communications and Media Authority faces an uphill battle against the public and technology giants over its attempts to censor the internet in the country on morality grounds. In 2010, the government invited the government proposed a censorship program that would see a number of websites blacklisted which would be reviewed regularly. Due to public outcry, the government invited the public to make submissions on the proposed censorship. There were thousands of submissions opposing the censorship move with the general view being that the policy would not protect children and that the scope for blocked content was too broad. It was noted that content from mass consumer websites such as Twitter and Wikipedia would render such legitimate sites inaccessible (Moses, 2010). This not only denies such sites revenue but also denies the public freedom of choice in terms of content they consume. Censorship denies the public a chance to interact with the world on a level platform (Lor & Britz, 2007). One of the many criticisms of Australia government’s attempts to filter internet content was that the country would not interact freely with the rest of the world. This led to some people saying that Australia was bound to become the ‘village idiot of the internet world.’ Ever since the introduction of the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Online service) Act 1999, a number of court cases have come up to challenge some of the provisions of the law. Much of the debate surrounded the fact majority of the internet content that could potentially be blocked originated outside Australia. Therefore, some arguments were based on the fact that such content did not fall under the jurisdiction of the Australian law. Denying access to such foreign information vital to the development of the people was deemed as isolation from the global society. Some critics thus likened the Australian government to communist China where the people were “protected” from liberalization of the mind through stringent control of information (Penfold 2001). Though the claims by the government of protecting the people were appealing, the risks of government control of information are too high. The detriments of such law s greatly outweigh the benefits. The internet is a tool for social activism hence its censorship contravenes democratic policies. The internet, through social media and blogs is a robust avenue through which activities, both social and political have employed to voice their concerns and criticisms towards various bodies. A European Commission expert, Ben Hammersly, indicated that “by design and fundamental architecture of the internet, it is impossible to censor content online and still remain a democracy” (Pilot 2012) In the recent past, the Arab uprising in Egypt and across the Arab world was largely attributed to social activism over the internet. While censorship mechanisms are available, the government can use the censorship platform to block and pull down websites criticising it or those mobilising people against the government. This is undeniably a contravention on the human freedoms of speech and association and contravention of any democratic rights. However, with Australia having no constitutional protection of the freedom of speech, opposition to internet censorship has no solid foundation (Beattie 2009). Governments have no moral obligation to control what the public can access and cannot access. One of the renowned philosophers, Immanuel Kant discussed in length his opposition to censorship on various levels. He believed that human beings were naturally rational and can decide what is good for them and what is not. Himself, a victim of censorship in the early days, his views on censorship are that it destroys a society by denying people the chance to reason and choose between what is good and what is bad. Bidgoli (2011) also bases his argument on Kant’s views to say that governments have no moral obligation to censor the internet. Bidogli (2011) argues that organizations and parents have the moral authority to censure but not governments. For this reason, he proposes a number of programs that parents can use to protect their children in the belief that their rationality has not developed hence needs to be guided. Unfortunately, parents cannot forever control their children hence their obligation is to give their children a strong moral foundation that develops their rationalism in internet usage and access (Jacobs 2008). Current efforts and technology employed in internet censoring is a waste of resources. Internet censorship can be easily circumvented in an increasing techno-savvy modern world (Jacobs 2008). While governments have no moral obligations to censor internet content, there are various ways that users can circumvent set out programs and technologies. Jacobs notes that there are various programs already in the market that assist various users to circumvent censorship. On another level, some governments have failed in taking down or blocking some websites courtesy of their countries’ of origin laws. Take for instance the popular pirates bay website whose servers are located in Switzerland. US lawmakers have tried in vain to apply the same intellectual rights law on the website but have failed. This emanates from the ability of such websites to use proxy URL’s that are hard to block. Therefore, unless such websites voluntarily choose to filter their content, censorship will remain high impractical and any attempts to do will lead to more harm to the society. Conclusion All in all, the discussion on censorship will not be ending soon as more technologies are unveiled on effecting censorship and circumventing the same. The fact that no single body can claim exclusive rights to ownership of the internet, censorship will hard to effectively implement. As shown in the discussion above, there are merits that come along with censorship and demerits. There are some instances where the merits outweigh the demerits and vice versa. For countries whose polices are strongly hinged on democracy, censorship is highly discouraged while for countries which thrive on stringent control of information, effecting internet censorship will have comparatively minimal impact on society. Nonetheless, it must be acknowledged that free flow of information is vital for the development of any society References Bauml, J. (2006). It’s a mad, mad internet: globalization and the challenges presented by internet censorship. Federal Communications Law Journal (63). Pp. 697-732. Beattie, S. (2009). Community, Space and Online Censorship: Regulating Pornotopia. London: Ashgate Publishing. Bidgoli, H. (2011). Management information systems. London: Cengage Learning. Brenkert, G. (2009). Google, Human Rights, and Moral Compromise. Journal of Business Ethics, 85(4), pp 453-478. Hewett, I.(2002). The Great Debate: Should we censor the Internet? Accessed from, http://www.thegreatdebate.org.uk/GDIntFreeProc.html Hunter, N. (2012). Internet safety. London: Raintree. Jacobs, C. (2008). Internet censorship. Nice idea, just not practical. Accessed from, http://www.crikey.com.au/2008/11/21/internet-censorship-nice-idea-just-not-practical/ Kshetri, S. (2010). The Global Cybercrime Industry: Economic, Institutional and Strategic Perspectives. New York: Springer. Lor, P. & Britz, J. (2007). Is a knowledge society possible without freedom of access to information? Journal of Information Science, 33 (4) 2007, pp. 387–397. Moses, A. (March 23rd 2010). Conroy's internet censorship agenda slammed by tech giants. Sydney Morning herald. Accessed from, http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/conroys-internet-censorship-agenda-slammed-by-tech-giants-20100323-qt83.html Newton, M. (2009). Internet censorship. ABC news. Accessed from, http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/31248.html Penfold, C. (2001). Nazis, porn and politics: Asserting control over internet content. Journal of Information, Law and Technology (2). Pilot, S. (2012). Internet censorship is never justified, says European Commission expert. The Times of India. Accessed from, http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-11-03/goa/34892598_1_internet-censorship-objectionable-content-sachin-pilot Ryan, J. (2007). Countering Militant Islamist Radicalisation on the Internet: A User Driven Strategy to Recover the Web. London: IIEA Read More