Politically Motivated Censorship and Morally Motivated Censorship - Assignment Example

Name Course Name Course code 7th May, 2012. Introduction Over the past few years, numerous groups as well as individuals have advocated for the government to implement internet censorship for those pages that are deemed unsuitable for children. The swift growth of the internet usage which can be traced back to 1990’s has made more and more people call for legislation of the content that is found on the internet. The justification for internet legislation is largely based on the premise that the internet contains content that is of adult nature and therefore harmful to children who come into contact with the content. Many justify the claim that the internet should be regulated because of its bad language, explicitness in terms of sex content and in other instances, content that is violent and can affect the behavior of the young ones1. Apart from protecting children from harmful internet content, in some instances, governments and politicians may also engage in anti – democratic practices that seek to regulate adults from internet content and thus disguise this in the name of protecting children. Australia’s Broadcasting Services Act 1992, Schedule 7 clearly outlines the content that is prohibited from distribution over the internet as follows; RC which is abbreviation for “refused classification”, X18+, R18+ and MA15+2. Ubiquitous is the fact that many nations have and continue to respond to fears about the content on the internet with legislations that seek to punish those who avail the content that is distasteful on the internet and this protects the citizens from offensive content on the internet, for instance the CDA (America’s Communications Decency Act3) in America and the Broadcasting Services Amendment Act (1999) in Australia. These are some of the measures that have had no grounds when brought to a court of law on the defense that they are unconstitutional and that they are against the freedom of speech and expression which nations like the USA expressly grants to citizens4. However, in as much as there are widespread calls that internet content should be regulated, the question that looms in our mind is whether legislation is the only way to go about it or whether it is the foregone opportunity. Therefore, these questions are the ones forming the back bone of the paper that parental and self selection strategies are the most preferred to censorship or filtering of content that is distributed over the internet which will be done through review of various cases that are to bolster the argument captured throughout the paper. The argument provided in the paper will also serve as a basis that parental and self – selection strategies are the best in providing solution over the content distributed over the internet to censorship or filtering of the content over the internet. Of importance to note is the fact that the paper does not argue against legal regulation of the content on the internet which prevents children from viewing contents such as pornography, but seeks to argue that the regulation is best done through parental and self – selection strategies over the content distributed on the internet. Parental control Parental control is termed as the ability of a large number of parents to take charge of and comprehend the children internet usage trends as well as behaviors thus a parents will have influencing ones child internet usage. In essence some parents have the necessary knowledge and skills and they also have a high level of intimacy with their children. Parents are therefore expected to apply better control of the content that is viewed by their children. Over time the internet is been viewed as an indispensable element for a large number of individuals in the globe and thus children are not excluded from the list. The internet has become a core resource in most schools and thus children are exposed to the new technology. Parental control of internet content can be implemented at various levels of the computer software. The most important strategy would be to use a password requirement to access any computer system that accesses the internet. The password requirement would make sure the parent knows when their children use the internet. Various software systems including operating systems come with various features to enable content restrictions which parents can use to control their children’s access to internet content. Parents are best suited to control what their children access as laws and content filters have been unable to protect children from offensive content5. Undisputed evidence also shows that the internet has potential benefits for children Parental regulation involves positive regulation and negative regulation. Positive regulation involves parents encouraging and facilitating their children in certain activities that are helpful to them thus may include the use of the internet for education purposes6. While the negative regulation involves parents discouraging their children or also barring them from using the internet since the internet is said to have some pornographic materials as well as sites that may erupt the children morals. The internet contains large amounts of information which makes the task of filtering as well as that of censorship a difficult task. In addition, different filters are developed for different purposes and hence technological proficient of filters becomes questionable for instance the increasing use of the search engines. This therefore eliminates the questions of whether filters and filtering technologies are there in existence in regard to content distributed over the internet but of the question of what kinds of filters and filtering systems are to be implemented. Thus the premise that technology itself in regulating the content distributed over the internet is neutral to the values that are promoted or hindered in an individual becomes relevant for different filtering technologies that are designed to achieve different purposes continue to be invented Definition of Internet Censorship Censorship can be defined as an act or activities aimed at controlling the access of individuals to information. These restrictions by Governments and media outlets are aimed at keeping from groups of people communication that is considered detrimental, unpleasant or sensitive to its recipients. Censorship is closely associated with Dictatorship where the ruling forces aim at ensuring communication that is against the oppression of the people they govern is not spread around the territory they rule over. There are three types of censorship: Moral, Military, Political, Religious and Corporate censorship. Rationale for Censorship Moral Censorship is concerned with restriction aimed at protecting populations against obscenities and other morally dubious media content. Pornography controls are applicable to this rationale of Censorship. Censorship against pornography is very common in the World and there is no single country that can be quoted as not having pornography content controls. The degree of Moral Censorship is dependent on the religious affiliation of a particular country or its original cultural practices. Political motivated censorship is one of the types of censorship that complicates application of censorship rules meant to protect children from content on the internet. Activist for press freedom argue that measures meant to restrict internet content to prevent harm to children can be used as excuses by rogue states to curtail press freedom. This type of censorship is used by governments to control flow to of information that is unflattering to those in the leading circles. It is aimed at maintaining dominance over the populace by denying them information that may lead to rebellion against the ruling authority. In China the government has used the excuses of eliminating pornography from its cyberspace to censor political content from the internet. Religious Censorship This is censorship that is based on religious beliefs of a certain group. Censorship informed by religious ideals is of a stricter nature than censorship based on other rationale. Religious leadership is biased against other religions sometimes meaning it’s illegal to access Christina religious messages in Muslim countries. If censorship meant to protect children was founded on religious ideals it may be too strict to allow even access of educational materials crucial in a child’s development. Some religious leader in their narrow perspective of life would not even allow playing of music videos. History of Internet Laws and Content restrictions Australia does not have a specific bill of rights guaranteeing individual’s freedom of expression; however decisions in the High Court of Australia have pointed to an implied freedom of political communication in the Commonwealth Constitution7. This principle was first established in Australian Capital Television Pty Ltd v Commonwealth of Australia op cit. In 1994, the opportunity to apply this principle arose for the first time in the case of Theophanous v Herald & Weekly Times Ltd (1994) 182 CLR 104. In the case the High court established that Australians have a right to discuss or publish matters pertaining to government and politics, performance of members of parliament and the suitability of candidates of political offices8. However in 1999 the High court ruled that the ruling did not constitute a binding statement of constitutional principle. In 1997, the question of the constitutional applicability of the principle was reconsidered in Lange v ABC (1997) 145 ALR 96. In the Lange the court held that citizens are free to discuss, comment and publish matters pertaining to governance and politics especially issues touching on the performance of members of parliament and the suitability of candidates of parliamentary elections9. The court explained that the Australian constitution was intended to provide checks and balances to ensure its institutions are responsible. The ruling confirmed that the Australian legal system recognizes individual’s right to free communication to enable voters make the right decision at the time of election. However, the court maintained that the other laws on communication including those meant to protect children from harmful content must be conformed with. Any content filtering system may interfere with this In July 1996, a committee on censorship introduced new more stringent rules meant to restrict the content of Films and Videos. The films and videos would be classified by using codes to signify the type of content each contained. In year 1997, the Australian government showed intent of banning videos with sexual content depicting adult sexual content. The intended restrictions were met with bitterly voiced complaints by the Australian citizenry. In 1998, two film were banned (Salo and I spit on Your Grave), Salo for a second time after its prior ban several years before. Both films were banned because of having extremely violent content. In March the same year, in the case of Michael Brown & Ors v Members of the Classification Review Board of the Office of Film and Literature [1998] FCA 31910; four editors of a university publication (Rabelais) were denied appeal in a case of banning of an article that had politically satiric content. Later, the case was dropped by the Victorian Director of Public prosecution after coming under sustained pressure from media freedom activists. This case shows that Australia authorities have the potential to censor media content based on its political relevance. In June 1999, the Australian Government passed the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Online Services) Act 1999 (BSA Act) 11to govern the content on internet in order to protect children. This law enables the Australian government to pull down sites in Australia that have content that can harm children. This law came into effect on 1st January 2000 making Australia the only nation among the developed world to allow regulatory bodies to shut down websites. This form of censorship is open to abuse as seen above in Rabelius case which was dropped without explanation. This law also saw the implementation of tighter content restriction on books and magazines including inline ones. In January 2000, Public outcry led to the Dropping of the Ban on the Film Romance. Nine months later the Federal government enacted rules that led to the Ban of non violent erotica (NVE) previously acceptable under classification ‘X’ for Videos. In 2001, the censorship trend got worse with the introduction of Internet restriction rules by both the Government of New South Wales and South Australia. It became a criminal offense in both states to avail obscene content to adults if the material so availed is considered inappropriate for Children. This law significantly interferes with a citizen’s right to receive any information as they have the right to discern what is good and bad for them. This raises a major issue concerning the extent that individuals are ready to allow the government to deny them their rights. Later, NSW dropped the law after numerous complaints from citizens while the SA one was implemented in 2002. In July 2003, the film Ken Park was prohibited from screening in Australia. However’ the public protested against the ban, and downloaded the film over the internet then screened it illegally in Sydney. These protests show how hard it is to implement censorship over the free will of individuals. In 2007, The Communications Legislation Amendment (Content Services) Act 2007 (Cth) expanded the Australian legal framework meant to counter availability of adult content to underage individuals. The Act requires all providers of content on the internet in Australia to make sure any material of adult nature is not accessible to underage individuals12. The law came into effect on 20th January 2008 and included all content provided on modern information platforms. The law requires various age qualifications for access to adult quantity. The age of any person is verified by provision of personal details such as sex, full name, credit card numbers or Digital signatures. The act gives regulatory bodies powers to pull down sites that do not adhere to its regulation. Various states to have enacted various laws to deal with internet content that may harm minors. These laws include the 1995 Queensland Classification of Computer Games & Images Act (CCGI)13; this censorship laws is very strict including text in the definition of offensive content. However the legal framework and regulations outlined above are still unable to eliminate access of children to offensive content. Law makers and governments react to this inability of laws to control access to content by making more stringent regulations against content providers. The increase in restriction interferes with the any potential benefits of internet usage for children and the freedom of expression for Australian citizens sometimes blocking educational and politically enlightening content. Arguments for Parental and Self – Selection Strategies Negative effects of unrestricted internet usage All over the world there is an increasing level of concern among parents as well as educators in relation to the negative effects brought about by the usage of the internet by children. The effects are grouped into various categories such as physical effects such as information fatigue syndrome, another group is the cognitive effects such children inability to distinguish between the real world as well as cyber world and the negative social development such as identity confusion aspects which are grouped in this category includes the damage to the correct social development among children in respect to this certain children skills as well as the patience they have are altered in such a way that they are unable to engage in real world social relations14. The most serious problem in relation to a child’s social development is the explosion and ease of access of negative internet content such as pornography materials , violence movies, hate speech, gambling and sexual solicitation. When observed clearly it is easily recognizable to see the negative effects of the internet as well as the content that greatly harms the child’s development. Existing literature clearly depicts that when children are exposed to inappropriate media such as the internet, the yields some negative results. Some of the negative effects are increased level of aggression, poor performance when in school, fear, anti social behaviour, psychological trauma, negative self perception, low levels of self esteem, identify confusion and depiction of psychological trauma symptoms15. Principally, the availability of sexually explicit content are said to desensitize young children to unusual sexual motivation and encourage the young children to endorse in antisocial sexual behaviours. In addition, the inscrutability of the Internet enables pedophiles to approach the children by the use of online chatting. Most youngsters spend a considerable amount of their time on the internet trying to find more friends and thus they are best targeted and can be easily abused by anonymous adult sexual offenders. Another serious concern among parents is the online violent games. According to Donnerstein et al., 1994, the online violent games augment a child’s physical, anti social aggression, verbal speech and personal relations. The negative impacts brought about by the violent video games is more advanced since by the use of the internet the children are able to access free as well as fee based video games Another negative internet use problem among the children is online gambling and it is also said to have a lot of impact on children. Gambling can easily disturb children's social and psychological growth. Other problems that crops up is addiction, dropping out of school and children unable to pay the debts incurred. In actual sense, the amount of children exposure to unsuitable information as well as activities is not exactly known or cannot be determined. Existing information depicts that there is a lot of difference between the data by the parents and that that is given by children on the children media usage. In most cases the parents tend to underestimate the time that their children spend on the internet viewing violence movies on the internet. This inconsistency leads parents to underestimate the impact of medium messages on their children and to not exert much control over their children's media use. According to various sources, a small percentage of the children between the ages of 8 to 18 indicate that their parents do not impose any measures in regard to the use of the internet, while another higher percentage indicated that they use the internet without their parent’s supervision. The cyberspace is not a territorial space where nations can enact legislations to restrict the content that is distributed over the internet for the internet crosses regional, territorial and national boundaries in an effortless manner. This therefore ascertains the premise that a national, regional, territorial and international legislation on the content distributed over the internet will be uncalled for and very unlikely in light of the spirit of globalization and the cultural diversity of the world. In addition, when governments try to control content distributed over the internet through having laws which when broken imposes stiff penalties on the providers of distasteful information on the internet, many are the times that the persons who are responsible for uploading the information on the internet are not reachable16. In addition, overarching laws that also seeking to regulate the content that is to be distributed over the internet becomes also a nightmare for the same reasons that some of the providers of distasteful internet content cannot be reached. Therefore, legislative laws whether they are made on a regional, territorial, national or global legislative measures hit a dead lock and they become ineffective in light of the issues raised above. Moreover, if such overarching laws are made, they can impinge on freedom of thought and provoke arbitrary inconsistencies across regions and territories. While in the efforts of regulating the content distributed over the internet, it is a requirement by some governments that website operators should ensure that their websites are installed with age verification systems in order to safeguard children from assessing sites that have adult content17. Most of the systems for verifying the age of a user in most cases require that the user to purchase the verification code with a credit card. However, most of the content that is inappropriate for children always comes from territories that are beyond the national boundaries and in such cases, the governments where the information is coming from may have no systems for age verification. For instance, in Australia, the Restricted Access System Declaration 2007 only imposes measures on online content providers in Australia for content that is only in Australia or for content that is developed from Australia. Even if the governments do have the age verification systems, the age verification systems can vary across national boundaries and hence the arbitrary inconsistencies. In addition, age verification systems in regulating the content that is distributed over the internet is associated with certain setbacks for instance, it limits adults who use the internet as they become reluctant to type their credit card numbers over the internet and thus the systems works as a double sword in that it deters adults as well as children from accessing content on the internet, is an expensive as well as complicated method to maintain for website administrators and most importantly, there is no guarantee that the person possessing the credit card is an adult or a child and hence its ineffectiveness. A shift where the regulation of content over the internet is placed in the hands of parents is preferred as this distances the government from directly involving in the censorship of content on the internet to establishing norms that promote good parenting and the appropriate conduct by children. On the other hand, devolving the responsibility of content on the internet offers the government a solution in matters relating to government engaging in interventions that seems political on online content distribution and establishes policies that ensures that governments encourage individual empowerment on the online content that they want to consume and at the same time have consumer choices. Parental and self selection strategies therefore aid the government to avoid involving in such markets. It is with this argument that parental and self – regulation strategies are best in regulating the content that is distributed over the internet for this strategies places in the hands of the end user autonomy over the content that the end user wishes to receive from the provider of the information and in addition providing the solution to censoring and filtering of the content that is distributed over the internet. The self – selection strategies ensures that the end users are the ones who are responsible for the content that there are viewing over the internet rather than placing such decisions in the hands of ISPs (Internet Service Providers) among other intermediaries for instance nations through national legislative laws. However, these calls for the end users in making important reflect the cultural and ideological values of the end users in regard to the content choices and decisions and this choices mostly that they view on the internet. Parental and self – selection strategies also gives autonomy to providers of information over the internet to continue publishing the content they want to be distributed over the internet and on the other hand for the end users to filter the information that they want to receive and the information that they do not want to receive. This is a milestone in the effort of not infringing on anyone’s freedom of speech, expression and thought which is always used as a defence in court when providers of information over the internet are sued for uploading distasteful content. Parental and self – selection strategies goes a long way in ensuring that the diversity of content in regard to providers and end users is wholly respected. In Kathleen R. v. City of Livermore, et al. 199818. the complainant (Kathleen) sought an injunction against the defendant “City” (City of Livermore), in using funds acquired from the public in the maintenance of computers which were connected to the WWW (World Wide Web). In her claims, she argued that by providing internet in the library, even minor could have access to materials that were pornographic and hence create a nuisance later on in the life of such minors. The case was dismissed but on appeal in the Court of Appeal of State of California, the decision that Livermore Libraries should not use public funds to maintain computers that were connected to the WWW was upheld. However, in upholding the decision, one is left to wonder whether in this era where children can even access the internet through their mobile phone or receive emails that contain distasteful information, the judge who presided over the appeal was right or had erred? In avoiding instances where children cannot access materials on the internet which is not appropriate, is the problem solved or just buried waiting to explode? This argument is in line with the premise that the younger generation are more technology savvy and feel more comfortable with new technologies more than the older generations.. Conclusion Though a greater percentage of the people are of the opinion that censorship can play a greater role in restricting the children access to internet it is evident that parental control and self selection is the most preferred method. This is evident by the fact that censorship has in itself failed. Censorship may fail to work due to number of factors ranging from the rationale used to censor to issues of press and individual freedom. Conflict between politically motivated censorship and morally motivated censorship is the main cause of failure of censorship mechanisms as politicians take the advantage of censoring obscene content to filter out opposing ideas. The historical context of censorship shows many instances of the failure of censorship as a way of protecting children from harmful internet content. Since 1994 various laws have been implemented to filter out undesirable content from the internet as it is accessed in Australia. However, most cases that have been tried involving internet content shows that the internet ought not to be censored. In the case of Theophanous v Herald & Weekly Times Ltd (1994) 182 CLR 104 it was concluded that citizens have the right to freely discuss and publish political matters19. Although the Australian committee on censorship has continuously tried to restrict the content of films and videos by using codes to rate them according to their content children still continue to access explicit content. Censorship efforts have encountered many difficulties in their implementation. The Victorian director of public prosecution had to drop charges against the four defendants in the case of Michael Brown & Ors v Members of the Classification Review Board of the Office of Film and Literature [1998] FCA20 319 to avoid criticism and protest against the censorship laws. Based on the various complains from the general public, the film named romance was banned. NSW had to drop laws meant to restrict access of adult material by people over the age of eighteen years after they found the laws would interfere with citizen’s rights to free flow of information. In 2003 hundreds protested against the banning of the film Ken Park by illegally airing it in Sydney. The issues discussed above show that censorship as a means of protecting children from the internet would fail miserably. However those calling for censorship cite a number of reasons of supporting it as a strategy for restricting access of the internet by children. These reasons include the negative effects that unrestricted access to the internet has on children. One of the major effects is the anti social behavior developed by children through the continuous use of the internet. Another negative effect is that children who have unrestricted access to the internet tend to be aggressive and at the same time they tend to perfume poorly in schools. Those who support the idea that unrestricted access has negative effects also say that it has led to motivation of sexual behaviors among the young children. Censorship even though sometimes aimed at restricting access to internet content for positive reasons will continue to be abhorred by the masses. Most people believe all types of censorship are politically motivated and can never achieve satisfactory results in regards protecting children from harmful content. In light of the various technological advancements that continue to be made on a daily basis, the question of whether or not to let parents control internet content that their children access undoubtedly has one answer: parental control and self – selection strategies is the best strategy for internet content control Works Cited A. Articles/ Books Brian, Crittenden. Parents, the State, and the Right to Educate. Victoria: Melbourne University. 1988 Fuligni, Andrew,. “The Academic Achievement of Adolescents from Immigrant Families: The Roles of Family Background, Attitudes, and Behavior”. Child Development, 68 (2), 351-363. 1997 Gutmann, Amy. “Civic Education and Social Diversity,” Ethics 105. 1995. Le, Anh and Miller, Paul.. “High School Graduation in Australia: Do Schools Matter?”. Scottish Journal of Political Economy, 51 (2), 194-208. 2004. Dawson, L. J., Chunis, M. L., Smith, D. M., & Carboni, A. (2001). The role of academic discipline and gender in high school teachers' AIDS-related knowledge and attitudes. Journal of School Health, 71, 3-8. Donnerstein, E., Slaby, R. G., & Eron, L. D. (1994). The mass media and youth aggression. In L. D. Eron, J. H. Gentry, & P. Schlegel (Eds.), Reason to hope: A psychosocial perspective on violence and youth (pp. 219-250). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association B.Others Galaxy Research, Classification Decisions and Community Standards 2007 – Report‟ (a report commissioned by Censorship Ministers) and Australian Consumers’ Understanding of Classification Information Market Research Report – March 2002 (a report commissioned by the OFLC) Retrieved on 7th May, 2012, Retrieved from, http://www.ag.gov.au/classificationpolicyresearch. Corporation for Public Broadcasting. (2002). Connected to the future: A report on children "s Internet use. Retrieved , 7th may 2012, from http://www.cpb.org/pdfs/ed/resources/connected/03_connect_report.pdf Michael Brown & Ors v Members of the Classification Review Board of the Office of Film and Literature [1998] FCA Theophanous v Herald & Weekly Times Ltd (1994) 182 CLR Kathleen R. v. City of Livermore, et al. 1998 Classification of Computer Games & Images Act (CCGI) Communications Legislation Amendment (Content Services) Act 2007 (Cth) Australia’s Broadcasting Services Act 1992, Schedule 7 America’s Communications Decency Act Broadcasting Services Amendment Act (1999) Australian Capital Television Pty Ltd v Commonwealth of Australia op cit Michael Brown & Ors v Members of the Classification Review Board of the Office of Film and Literature [1998] FCA 319 Communications Legislation Amendment (Content Services) Act 2007 (Cth) Lange v ABC (1997) 145 ALR 96 Broadcasting Services Amendment (Online Services) Act 1999 (BSA Act) Read More