Importance Of Freedom Of Expression On Internet

FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION ON INTERNET IN CHINA

1. The Concept, Development, Characteristics and Problems of Freedom of Expression on Internet

1.1 The concept of freedom of expression on Internet

“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”. A column in the Daily Telegraph of February.

Freedom of expression is a law concept, and for its definition there has two different opinion. The first is that the concept of freedom of expression is same with the freedom of speech, because this phrase has the highest frequency, and is widely used in international documents, therefore, in our life people often use the freedom of speech to present the meaning of freedom of expression. But also some scholars argue that freedom of speech is just one

The Reason of Restrictions on Freedom of Expression

Some western countries and China right molecules, they are kept denounce China's Internet censorship system, think the censorship restrictions on freedom of expression. However, this is no total freedom in the world, any kind of freedom is based on the legal. For example, in 1789, the French "Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen" admit every citizen have the freedom of publish and speech, but after it there has other stipulation that government should bear the responsibility for the abuse of the freedom (Cai, 2010). Therefore, the censorship of Chinese government is also based on the existing law.

But there also have some problems: how to sure the government violate their human rights or not, when it restrict citizens or collective exercise their freedom of expression, and what kind of question the government can intervene the freedom of expression? Comprehensive analysis the situation of China, can consider several cases:

 Based on the protection of privacy and reputation. Because defamation in internet is very easy, so we need state machinery to take charge of internet, and guarantee citizens' privacy and reputation are