This quote from Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google, sums up what the internet is, an experiment. One that, until very recently, governments thought they had control of. Much like Dr. Frankenstein and his monster humanity is both amazed and revolted by our creation. It is perhaps the single most beautiful and disgusting thing to ever spring from the mind of man. With the creation of the internet came a new generation of both people and language. Words such as social media, search engines, and web sites are words that don’t even make sense to a person living twenty years ago have permeated normal conversations. Sometimes people tend to forget that Google, perhaps the poster child of the internet, is only 15 years old. The internet is new, influential and most of all growing at a rapid rate.
The internet is dangerous, to governments,the internet is an activist for every cause, and a revolutionary against every government. Many have assigned some blame for the revolts in Egypt to social media sites and chat rooms. The internet is a wealth of knowledge for any asker, no matter the background of intention and that has only gotten worse over the years.This means that even the average person can find information, sometimes reliable, sometimes not, at any time incriminating their government. If the government was a person, the internet would be the big bad wolf standing at the door. If the government does anything several sites will appear overnight that claim ulterior motives. The internet is the down fall for corrupt or repressive governments.
There are of course many other reasons to block certain websites and protect against some of the content of the web. One of the most common arguments for internet censorship is pornography. Pornorgraphy is approximately 11% of the internet and 25% of all internet searches. While some people couldn’t care either way about the internet pornography debate many parents are up in arms about the possible exposure to their children. The average first exposure to internet porn is at age eleven and getting younger. Some parents employ the use of private filters and website blockages but as porn sites increase it get more and more difficult to hide children for this influence. Because of this many people have requested immediate government action regarding these types of websites and images.
Another one of the arguments for internet censorship is the growing amount of internet piracy.
In Is Google Making Us Stupid? Nicholas Carr discusses how the increase and development in technology has shaped the way we do and think about certain things within our society. He tells us how as a society we have grown dependent on technology and look to it for almost everything we may need. Whether it is for an answer to a question, advice, a sickness diagnosis or when we have to do research, our first instinct is to look to the world wide web. He links the fact that people have tried to create a more efficient work ethic within different fields when it comes to hands on work, but that ideology has also flooded into our thinking towards the virtual side. Society has shown us that it is acceptable to look to the web as our primary source.
The type of content usually censored is sexual or violent things but Ballaro states, “Some bans (and the filtering software used to enforce them) eliminated access not only to pornographic materials but also to legitimate health and medical information” (Ballaro 1). If someone were to become sick, looking up symptoms on the internet is not the most efficient way to go about finding out what sickness they have, or what kind of treatments there are. Going to a professional would ensure that they get the correct diagnosis and treatment. Everything on the internet can be changed and not knowing the accuracy of a source is going to make the search more or less accurate. Children are also a big part of why things are censored. In the same passage, it is explained,“Opponents of Internet Censorship argue that education, not censorship, represents the best means of protecting children…” (Ballaro 1). Telling someone not to do something will just make them want to do it more. Educating kids on the dangers of the internet will not stop them from going on the internet. Protection children from all scammers and hackers, not just to mention explicit material, would also be challenging considering the internet is changing rapidly each day. Why not just block websites that are bad so even if children are tempted, they can not go to
In mid March of 1998, a scientific break through occurred for the engineers at NASA. The space probe that they sent to Mars came back and, for the first time, contained readable and usable photographs of the planet's landscape. Full of pride over their latest achievement, NASA posted the information on the Internet. This allowed astronomy enthusiasts, students, and other interested individuals to take a first hand look at the, never before seen, Martian Landscape. (NASA)
On 16th of December 1949, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was signed. Although we want governments and regimes to abide with the articles not all do. Our government is formed to protect us and to provide every citizen, infrastructure in order to make the person able to live. However our governments also care for themselves as well. They want to stay in power thus they have to protect their reputation. This is where internet censorship steps in. Although censoring some sites is reasonable, some are not. If a site on the internet criticizes the government and if this happens in a country where the government is somewhat oppressive, the site is blocked to access. I believe the level of tolerance towards criticism of a government can be found by the internet censorship in that country. We can categorize these types of governments into five: No or few censorship, normal amounts of censorship, above normal, high amount of censorship and extreme amounts of censorship. I am going to focus about the last three levels. For these levels Republic of Turkey, People’s Republic of China and Democratic People’s Republic of Korea are examples I am going to talk about. These examples would be coinciding with the levels respectively.
"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?
“If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” - George Washington. Freedom of speech is one of the universal declarations of human right, created on the 10th of December 1948. It is the complete opposite of what censorship of the internet entails. “This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by a public authority and regardless of frontiers.” Censorship of the internet not only goes directly against this, but it prevents a free flow of information, our ability to communicate as a society and places governments in control of our rights of expression.
Another reason for not censoring the internet is the psychological effects that it can have on a child. The filtering of the internet can tell a child that adults do not trust them to surf the net on their own. This can lead them to believe that they can not make their own decisions, and that a computer determines what right and wr...
Although the Internet is very helpful and has created many technological advances, we as humans are not created to function like a computer. Our minds require deep thought, human interaction, and thorough knowledge of things so we can remember and fully understand concepts. The Internet in itself is a very helpful tool. The advances that have fallowed are truly amazing, along with vast array of information available. Carr’s article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” is very flawed and does not provided adequate resources to back up his claims. That being said, Carr points out things that might otherwise have been looked over and accepted as normal. His question is sincere, thought provoking, and one we all should be asking ourselves before its too late.
Do you want our future generations being exposed to violence, hate, sex, illegal substances, and false information, and then one day think it would be cool or alright to try these things? The internet is filled with dangerous information, that children should never have the freedom to access. Children learn from example, and if they search, watch, or read something on the web that could be potentially dangerous, they could be influenced or curious and think that it would be alright to imitate one day. If our children now are viewing these things, it could mean that are future generations can grow to be more violent and our world could become more dangerous than it already is today. Censorship is necessary if we plan on having our kids grow up in the safest environment possible.
It is the year 2014. The growth and advancement in technology and innovation lead to the birth of new channels of media. Back tracking to the 1950s, the primary source of media would have been printed such as newspapers, articles and magazines. The introduction of the televisions and cinemas in the late 20th century resulted in the production of masterpieces such as movies and dramas alike. Currently, the internet is the unified source for all kinds of media which gives allows us to freely express and exhibit our perspectives and ideas. On the other hand, this revolution in the media industry saw the production of certain media that are unsuitable for certain audiences. Thus, government bodies such as Malaysia’s Multimedia and Communication Commission are set up to selectively evaluate and censor contents to ensure that media would not be harmful to the public. Therefore, this essay strives to prove that censorship is sometimes justified.
Most of the Internet regulation is imposed by the Government in an effort to protect the best interest of the general public and is concerned with some form of censorship.
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.
The Internet is, “a vast computer network linking smaller computer networks throughout the world.” (dictionary.com) Everyday millions of people use the Internet in order to communicate, to work, to research information, and educate themselves. (internetworldstats.com) The popularity of the Internet has caused the world to become more dependent on the information that is searched. Some countries’ governments believe that although the Internet is one of the top worldwide researching databases, its lacking in privacy has created unnecessarily high security risks and has had a negative if not harmful affect on their society. (techcrunch.com) One example of this lack of privacy would be that research found on the Internet can be accessed from any country in the world. Many countries view being able to access information from an...
The Internet along with other technologies has opened channels of communication. Not only has the Internet played a great role in forming international public opinions regarding the United States throughout the Middle East, Asia, and Western Europe, but it has also helped to democratize the rest of the world by allowing them to voice their own opinions. However, sometimes the incited cyber public opinions would lead to some extremely negative behaviors and cause serious problems like cyber bullying, real life crimes, and even a long time social unrest.
But can having this kind of power be a bad thing. I believe that in some cases it is and the internet can be highly dangerous if it is abused or used in the wrong hands. This is because the internet as much of a benefit it may be does have the potential to put other people at risk for anything from physical to psychological harm. People can use the internet to perform illegal activities such as: