Censorship of Social Networking in Developing Countries - Coursework Example

Censorship of Social Networking in Developing Countries In China, Facebook and Twitter are banned. A lot of people are outraged that these popular social networking sites are banned there. A quick search of the Internet would not show a definite answer from the authorities as to why Facebook was banned (Chao, 2010, para. 16). However, what is clear is that China wants to keep its citizens from accessing information from these sites and since it was highly probable that there are no self-censorship mechanisms available, they have blocked off the whole site all over China and people can only access this through VPNs (Web2asia, 2010). However, it was not just in China that social network sites are censored. A report from Reporters Without Boarders (2009) lists several countries as Internet Enemies because these countries censor Internet in their countries. These countries are Saudi Arabia, Burma, China, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam. Among these countries listed majority of them are developing countries. The reasons for the censorship of the Internet among these countries vary from political to religious. They may be justified in their acts as they perceive but they are stepping on the human right to information is what others perceive. This report discusses the censorship of social networking in particular, among the developing countries most especially those listed above. It also takes to account the various issues surrounding the censorship of social networking like right to information, and freedom of speech. Pros of Social networks The Internet has changed the lives of many. For one, it has bridged the gaps between people from all over the world. Chat and email services have made communication a lot faster and a lot less complicated as compared to the snail mail, telegraphs, long distance calls and the like. It has also made information access a lot faster. One invention that has also made its way into almost everyone connected to the Internet is social networking. It has connected so many people together who have been dispersed all over the globe like relatives, friends, classmates, and co-workers. In this day and age of globalization made possible by virtual technology connectivity is the key. Popular social network sites include MySpace, Friendster, Bebo, Twitter, and Facebook. The most phenomenal of all these would be Facebook whose membership dramatically boomed overnight and now has 500million active users all over the world (Facebook, 2010). These social network sites allow users from all over the world to communicate, share photos, play games, and more. A study by Subrahmanyam, Reich, Waechter and Espinoza (2008) shows activities of emerging adults in these social network sites. According to them, the social network sites are the online networks which enhances their offline networks. These offline networks include their families, friends, classmates, neighbors, football team members and more. These students connect with the people that they know offline, or within their offline social networks as opposed to immediately connecting with mere strangers that they happen to stumble upon in their search. However, social networks also have other uses. In another setting, organizations have set up their own accounts in various social networks to promote their causes, their organization and even their products. Waters, Burnett, Lamm, and Lucas (2009) have shown how non-profit organizations made use of Facebook to engage their stakeholders. Engaging stakeholders would mean public relations activities like disclosure of organization information like mission, vision, goals and objective as well as history and organizational structure. They also make use of Facebook to disseminate information of projects, events and various announcements through text, audio and video files that can be uploaded in their account and shared to the viewers of their Facebook profiles. Cons of Social Networks In as much as social networking has its good points by enabling people and organizations to keep in touch, there are also not so good points to these. There are some individuals and organizations who have been spreading their personal propaganda against others or against the government and the like. Militants have been feeding information through their social networks. Others have also been spreading misleading information in these sites to the extent of creating false accounts of celebrities, politicians or even ordinary people. To a certain extent, social network sites have also been a venue for bullying. Quite a number of reports show bullying (Kite, Gable & Filippelli, 2010) through social network sites and some have ended in suicide (Hinduja & Patchin, 2010). Pornography has also made its way to these sites. These are, logically, the prime reasons for censoring social networking among children, and among adults in their workplace most especially. However, there are other reasons for social network censorship and these are discussed in the following sections. Censorship of Social Networking by Developing Countries Censorship is basically equated to suppression. It is also usually connected with free speech at the same time pornography. In another sense, it is also related to religion and politics when a religious body or political party suppresses information to avoid the “removal” of faith or trust in the religion or in the government. In most cases, censorship leads to the avoidance of something. This section examines the situation of censorship of social networking in developing countries and some. Given the above stated negative uses of social networking, it can be understood why some organizations disable the use of these sites during work time, or for parents to disallow or at least closely monitor their children to use these. But it could not be fathomed by many as to why countries make so much effort to censor their citizens and not allow them access to these. What follows is a summary of the reasons why some countries do not allow access to social network sites. All these information are taken from Reporters without Boarders (2009). China China has been dubbed to be the leader in Internet repression. It has made a countrywide censorship through monitoring of files in the Internet specifically done by the information ministry. It sends out information to its people not use articles or even read from identified sources which are deemed improper. The censorship is very organized and the government is serious about it. Filtering is highly advanced to even include synonyms, homonyms and the use of symbols. The specific words or terms that are banned include those relating to the Tiananmen Square massacre or rebellion in 1989. The censorship in China is very organized and is documented in How Censorship in China works (n.d.). The government coordinates with ISPs and even mandate computer manufacturers to install monitoring softwares. Cuba Two networks exist in Cuba – national and international. The national network is of course limited and censored by the government. It is provided for free to universities and for individuals, it is cheaper than the other network. The international network is only accessible to tourist hotels but is still limited in that it takes a while to load web pages. Like China, a ministry in the government is devoted to the monitoring and providing sanctions to those who go against the rules. Egypt Bloggers and others who have participated in the April 6 strike called through social networks in Egypt have been imprisoned. Cybercafes are being closely monitored as they even need to note the identification of their customers. Access to WiFi is also closely monitored since those who connect through the WiFi also need to provide identification. This hinders their freedom of expression because the threat of imprisonment or any form of sanction is already looming. Iran Similar to China, Iran also has a blatant censorship on the Internet and social networking. About 5 million websites have been blocked in the country and some social network sites like YouTube, Facebook and Orkut are dubbed as illegal. It would seem also that the harsher the authority in censoring information, the more that the people would try and find ways to go around the rules. There is also the greater tendency for people to be more vigilant. In Iran, protests against the censorship of the Internet and specific websites have been coordinated via Twitter (Stone & Cohen, 2009). Thailand Soonthoon Prueksapipat shares that the website that he has created with other professionals like himself was shut down five times (Macan-Markar, 2010). Their site is devoted to criticizing the government and this is what has gotten him into a lot of trouble. There is indeed a rising trend of blocking of websites in Thailand. The government blocks websites that they deem are threat to national security. Vietnam In Vietnam, all forms of opposition are banned. This holds true to online opposition through social networking. They have circulars in place to treat dissidents. One example is not allowing blogs to be posted in another identity. Of course, who would be brave enough to post a blog opposing one’s country and be imprisoned afterwards? It would either be post and be imprisoned, or do not post at all. These countries and all the other countries that censor their citizens from these social network sites are motivated by self-preservation. They are afraid that if their people would freely think for themselves, and are properly fed with the right information, they would have the power to go against the ruling class. This is clearly against the human right to information and these countries are clearly not taking care of their people. It could also be noted that these countries are not in any way democratic because the very essence of democracy is in the ability of its people to decide for themselves given the right information. In another light, Gareth Compton and Paul Chambers were both arrested by the police because of their comments on their Twitter accounts (Liddle, 2010). Compton twitted: Can someone please stone Yasmin Alibhai-Brown to death. I shan’t tell Amnesty if you don’t. It would be a blessing. This is in relation to the comments of Alibhai-Brown on the issue of stoning women and the comments of politicians on this. Compton found the comments stupid that is why he expressed his comments in his twitter. This happened in the UK not in China, not in Iran. This is a highly developed country so why was he arrested? Chambers on the other hand twitted privately to another person : You’ve got one week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I am blowing the airport skyhigh (Liddle, 2010). Obviously, this tweet was taken out of context and was understood to be an expression of terrorism. For the context of Chambers, his tweet was an expression of exasperation for both the deadline and the airport. However, his tweet was spotted by those in the business of looking into these things and got him arrested. Again, this happened in UK which is a highly developed country. This shows that the concerns on threat to security are seriously being considered but to what extent? Unfortunately, these things have posed threats to the common citizen. They have self-censored themselves and are already afraid that what they post will get them into trouble. Even when Fogel and Nehmad (2009) found out that those with social network accounts have greater risk taking attitudes, being arrested and imprisoned just for a simple tweet or shout out is not a joke. McKinnon (2010) a renowned blogger and critique of Internet censorship has enumerated why there is a decline in Internet use among other countries who are not blocking or censoring Internet use. One reason given is that those who criticize their government online are bound to receive equivalent cyber attacks or intimidation. According to her, it is difficult to promote freedom of speech but there are ways to do so. There are ways to go around the censorship of authorities, and these are technical and they need help. Right to Freedom of Information The right to freedom of information is an internationally protected human right. Hussain (1995 cited in Mendel n.d.) expressed “Freedom will be bereft of all effectiveness if the people have no access to information” (para. 35). In this case, the acts of censorship from the countries listed above go against the basic human right to information. There are various protests and circumventing rules on information access particularly Internet access in China, Iran and many other countries. In China people subscribe to commercially available VPNs just so they can access what they need to access. In Iran, bloggers use the web to bring to the world what they perceive about their country but they are being persecuted. These are being done by their governments because they consider these acts of terrorism, treason, dissidence and whatever wrongful act they can think of. Even when rules and laws are in place for those who go against their laws on information or Internet access for that matter, people still go great lengths to satisfy their need for information. Aside from the fact that access to information is a basic human right, knowing is a basic human act. Knowing is important in decision making (Floridi, n.d) therefore when people decide on certain matters they would want to know as much about that which they want to decide on. For example, in voting for a particular politician, people do not rely on what the politician in question tell them. Of course these are all candy coated, that is why people research for themselves. They ask questions, they read, and they listen for information about the politician. After all, as was said earlier “access to information is basic to the democratic way of life” (Hussain, 1995 as cited in Mendel, n.d.). Other reasons for censorship In other developing countries, censorship is not as harsh as China, Iran and Vietnam. In fact, some are even very liberal about it to the extent that even their heads of state and other government officials maintain their own personal and official social network accounts. This is for them to reach out to their constituents in as much as this is the new “language” that the people are using. The Philippines for example is one country where social networking is highly acceptable. Ho (2010) reports that the “Philippines has the highest penetration of social networking” (para. 2). Philippine social network users’ average visit was 26 times a month spending about 5.5 hours. However, this high usage of social networking has pressing issues over the productivity of the Filipino workers in as much as most of their Internet access are in their workplace. Angeles (2009) blogs that social networking can be addictive and therefore the use of it or access to it can consume precious company time. As such, in this note, access to social network sites during office hours should obviously be limited or totally disallowed. However, if the motivation for not allowing access to social network sites is because of leaking company information, then this would be unacceptable because even without social networking there is still the possibility of leaking company information through person to person (Hunter, 2008). What is emphasized here is that the censorship of social networking in particular and Internet access in general should be logical and valid. Otherwise, this would obviously count as going against the right to information. Some companies also prohibit posting photos taken from their offices in social networks. The reasons for not allowing them is for the security of the company, because competitors may find clues, product information and the like in these candidly posted photos in the workplace (Angeles, 2009). Conclusion Censorship of social network sites in developing countries, based on the accounts presented above show that this is against the human right to information. The censorship is also mostly political because the reigning political body/party would want to stay in power and in doing so, they try everything in their power to remove all threats even the ones in cyberspace. It has also been shown that censorship of social networking sites and social networking itself is not limited to developing countries but also to highly developed countries but with different concerns. Social networking is considered as a threat by governments in these countries because it is such a powerful tool for getting information to the most number of people. This is the fear of the reigning body – to be overpowered by those who are informed. As such, they stifle those who are brave enough to keep other people informed. This is just not right. References: Angeles, R., 2009. Should we allow Social networking in the workplace? Social Media Philippines. [Blog] Available at: http://socialmediaphilippines.com/should-we-allow-social-networking-in-the-workplace/ [Accessed 28 Dec. 2010] Chao, L., 2010 Dec. 23. Mr. Zuckerberg goes to China – Facebook CEO makes the rounds with tech executives, fueling speculation over effort to end ban. Wall Street Journal (Eastern Edition) [Online]. Available at: ProQuest Databses [Accessed 26 Dec. 2010] Facebook, 2010. Statistics. [Online] Available at: http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics [Accessed 26 Dec. 2010] Fogel, J., & Nehmad, E., 2009. Internet social network communities: Risk taking, trust and privacy concerns. Computers in Human Behavior, 25, pp. 153-160. 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