As recent events have shown, The Internet has played a vital role in various social movements across the Middle East. Social networks such as Facebook and Twitter are becoming the new soapboxes for people to stand upon and speak their mind. As with all opinions though, there are people who disagree with them, and want to discuss the opposing side or stop them altogether. A corrupt government or other leaders in power can try to use Censorship to stop an opinion from being heard. This is the case of a recent situation in Egypt where the Internet was turned off for two months. While the Egyptian government thought that turning off the internet would stop protests about its political policy, it only fueled the fire after which the government was then overthrown. But what is censorship in both a literal context and an anthropological context? What are the types of internet censorship other than a complete shutdown and how many people actually use the internet in Egypt?
Merriam Webster Defines Censorship as the following:
“To examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable ; also: to suppress or delete as objectionable ”
This means, if one considers an object questionable by their own social standards they try to suppress that object by deletion, redaction or transfiguration. This does not however, explain in what social context the decision was made. Across the globe different cultures and societies have different definitions for what is “Acceptable.” Because anthropology is “the study of human beings … in relation to physical character, environmental and social relations, and culture” , seeing how people live will give great insight to what might be consid...
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... protesters took to the streets. The act of censoring Facebook shows that it holds great cultural capital among Egypt’s people. In general, the government was forced to turn to radical displacement rather than soft critical censure.
Overall the protests succeeded in President Mohammed Hosni Mubarek’s resignation but even before the government was overthrown, a 2008 comment from Wael Nawara, an avid blogger and vice chairman of Egypt's El Ghad opposition party speaks true about the situation and what it became. "I think the time for censorship is gone," he says. "The government realizes this but they are trying until the last minute to slow the wheels of change. Forces of technology, changing cultures, changing modes of communication... This is a phenomenon that no government or alliance of governments can block. This is evolution and no one can stop evolution."
In his memoir revolution 2.0 the young Google marketing executive Wael Ghonim emerged as an internet activists’. His advocacy for freedom of the suppressed ordinary people initiated
The internet is a place where people can freely express their political or other views for people to see. A recent study, Freedom of Net, by the activist group Freedom House shows both the immense censorship of information around the world and the declining freedom of information around the world, “Two-thirds of all internet users, 67 per cent, live in countries where criticism of the government, military, or ruling family are subject to censorship” (APF & Bell). The report by Freedom House digs into the censorship of government criticism, military criticism, and negative views on the ruling family in two thirds of countries studied in the report with governments around the world are silencing the voices of people and their publications. By censoring the people's voices, the governments are able to control the population and their views on not only their own government, but also countries around the world. Governments around the world are stepping up their censorship of public information posted on social media by taking actions to suppress the publications before they even begin. The report by Freedom House shares how police around the world are arresting and punishing those who have taken to social media to complain about a topic that makes the country look bad. The report states: “Social media users face unprecedented penalties, as authorities in 38 countries made
Albanesius, C. (2013, April 13). Google Sees Spike in Government Requests to Remove Political Content. Retrieved from PCMagazine: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2418168,00.asp
Egypt’s government began to struggle with protestors and civil war earlier in 2011. They were having issues keeping crime rate down and keeping people from protesting against President Morsi because he wasn’t fulfilling the promises he made. To help control these conflicts, police were given live ammunition and were told to keep the protests at bay (Abi-Habib). Police were seen shooting into crowds of protestors and used tear gas...
We want freedom, we want our voice to be heard. Through social media we try to stay connected with people. However our governments fear the social media because it can lead to revolutions like the one in Egypt. Our governments use internet censorship to protect themselves. Although some of use try to oppose it, there is a population that is fine with it. That is the connection of internet censorship with modern day politics. It directly affects the way people look at their government and their regime and their political views. The three countries I talked about use internet censorship however there are differences between them. North Korea is the most extremist country and it is maybe an example of what China and Turkey might be like one day. These countries are all related to each other somehow and
"Internet Censorship." What does this mean to us? What is restricted? Censorship is summarily defined as the suppression of objectionable material. That means that material such as pornography, militant information, offensive language, anti-religion, and racism would be restricted in use. Freedom would not only be restricted to material placed on the web, but also what you could access, and where you could explore. Should the right of Freedom of Speech be taken away from us on the Internet? Having stated this, should there be any restrictions and if so, what's the limit of censorship?
that some of the material that is on the net needs to be filtered and regulated. The word censorship is defined as examining any material and prohibiting what is objectionable, according to Webster’s II dictionary. Censoring the internet is a violation of the first ammendment rights of every citizen in the United States. There are two general truths that some people feel are attitudes towards censoring the internet. The first is that very few people admit to favoring it. The second is that no matter who you are, in a matter of minutes spent surfing the net almost anyone can find something that they find to be offensive. In fact, some web surfers feel that the truly inappropriate things are inspired by one’s own religion. For example, the Nurenberg Files website showed pictures of mangled fetuses with the photograph, name, and address of some abortion clinic doctors.
Internet censorship laws started appearing around the world in 1995. These laws covered content already illegal in existing laws for non-internet content, as well as for content that is not suitable for minors. Worldwide, four different approaches were taken with internet censorship. 1) The government encouraged user self-regulation, and voluntary use of content filters by their citizens. 2) Laws were implemented that penalized content providers who made censored material available online. 3) Some governments instituted country wide blocking of censored material. 4) The most restrictive censorship implemented by some governments was complete blocking or restrictive access to the internet. 1
“A-28- year old construction engineer, Maher heads the April 6 youth movement, which began as a Facebook group in spring 2008 to support a workers’ strike in a northern industrial town in Egypt. This youth opposition coalition was the main organizing force behind last week’s demonstration. Their demands included the departure of the interior minister, an end to the restrictive emergency law, and a rise in the minimum wage. The member, who include many young well-educated Egyptians, have shown a greater willingness than others to risk arrest and start public protests. The group uses popular social websites to alert its networks about police activity and organize demonstration.”(Branch of the China Daily)
In human nature, people tend to keep anger even when they forgive. It is hard to forget the history. For most part, the history creates what we see today and shaped the living of the people. Human civilization is one of the cause of wars, battles, uprisings, and revolutions. In Cleveland and Bunton book, he mentioned that in order to understand the recent uprisings in Arab countries like Tunisia, Egypt and others, we need to reflect to the history of Europe in general (Cleveland & Bunton, 2017, p.538). The European history has a lot to do with the modern Middle East. The uprisings in Egypt have made changes in their government. The use of social media such as Facebook and Twitter made the people aware of what is going on around them. This helped them to view the wrongdoing easily by using the internet and the media. The country faced a lot of issues including police brutality.
Censorship is problematic towards society because it violates the 1st Amendment of the Constitution; freedom of speech. The freedom to be able to express oneself but then limited to what is allowed to be said breaks this basic and important right (FlowPsychology). Censorship can also be seen as pro-dictatorship. Many analysts of censorship dispute that it can be used in dictator’s benefit to get in the population’s head specifically in times of civil tension. There have been many events where a dictator enforced censorship on news stations that included discussion of political issues against the government. (GreenGarage). Many issues including war, poverty terrorism, and epidemics are extremely critical toward society in present day. Suppressing the information that can limit the society from knowing the pure truth (FlowPsychology). The internet is one of the largest instruments used in multiple ways. It is used as a tool towards enhancing knowledge and providing information in seconds. The problem is some countries have internet censorship depriving the sources and fulfilling information it can provide for a population (GreenGarage). Censorship ultimately can disimprove people’ lives preventing many ideas like knowledge, learning, and
The technological advancements made within the last decades have undoubtedly changed the way today’s society operates as a whole. People are more dependent on computers and the internet than they have ever been, so their prevalence in general life has been greatly inflated. Such an important and prominent tool could never go unregulated by governmental authority, however. Government censorship of the internet has been an extremely controversial issue, even from the point where “net neutrality” was first discussed. Governments generally argue for the use of censorship for the purpose of discouraging and disallowing the access to inappropriate material and other harmful practices, but further extend their censorship’s reach to affect many other facets of the internet; including politically sensitive material and discussions. There are several techniques which may be used to restrict the content deemed offensive by a government. This means that the authority in a given country can effectively restrict access to any material which they deem to be offensive. This is almost unavoidable for the citizens affected and so the resources which their internet holds are quite limited by these restrictions. As the internet has become such a valuable resource, people are not happy about its restriction. There has been much protest and backlash against internet censorship throughout the world. The morality of internet censorship has been in question countless times as it - in many cases - is stifling freedom of speech and expression, as well as limiting the resources available for the public. The purpose of this report is to prove that Internet censorship has a negative impact on the general public and global community.
Censorship allows governments more control of society than they already have, slowly progressing governments utilizing censorship to a dictatorship. Often times, this censorship can lead to immense rebellions. A good example of this is in China, where Google has been censored by a provider called The Great Firewall of China, which censors information that could be viewed as defamatory or insulting to Chinese government and culture. According to the article “Google turns off China censorship warning” as published by BBC News Technology, “Google has had a rocky relationship with the Chinese authorities since January 2010, when the company said it may shut down Chinese operations due to a ‘sophisticated and targeted’ cyber attack. Google said at the time that it was no longer willing to censor the Google search engine”. Many journalists have also taken a look at Egypt, which also utilizes censorship. According to “Egyptian authorities step up censorship” as published by the Committee to Protect Journalists website, the new military-run Egyptian government is censoring news outlets and keep journalists, as well as the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates. “Egyptia...
The Egyptians yet to accept freedom of speech, Bassem Youssef had to shut down his program, “Egypt 's most popular satirist Bassem Youssef weekly TV show, which lambasted presidents and politicians, has been cancelled because of pressure on the station airing it and a climate in the country that no longer accepts satire” (Hendawi, 2014). In addition, “he performs his satire in a country that is still testing the limits of its hard-earned freedom, where those who speak out against the powerful still have much to fear” (Rayman, 2013). Moreover, recently an activist called Fatma Naout expressed her religious opinion on T.V. and as a result she was accused of insulting religion. As a consequence, she was sent to prison for three years and fined LE 20, 000, equivalent to over $2550 (Gamal El-Din,
The Internet is an extremely educational and communicative tool. Everyone can access a tremendous amount of information and connect with people on the other end of the planet; it is capable of doing everything. Nowadays, the society is facing a variety of challenges and controversies which are mostly related to religion, morality, the economic crisis, etc., and the most talked-about issue in today’s world is “Internet censorship”. Although the Internet is very useful, many people are suggesting the idea of censoring the Internet; however, the government should not censor the Internet because a free and open Internet usage has many positive impacts on people’s lives.