The Consequences Of Internet Censorship

While protecting children is an important thing society has to take on, some believe that internet censorship for children can lead to oppressing the people of a nation. Since internet is something that is hard to regulate it becomes a bit of chore when deciding how to protect children. Government can use these regulations as a mask and in reality use them to oppress. Especially totalitarian governments like China, Russia, and Iran. Lawrence Strickling, the US Department of Commerce Assistant Secretary, argues the internet should be free from government control and says “Groups and government have been making up the rules and regulations as we go along.” Larry Magid, a writer for Forbes, went to a conference in Russia regarding their censorship …show more content…
Every country has laws regarding the internet. It depends on the country 's government to what degree the laws are regulating. The United States has laws where you cannot look at certain things like pornography on public computers. The extreme comes in to where some countries don’t allow internet at all like Cuba which has no private internet. According to Jonathan Strickland of How Stuff Works: “Myanmar’s government allegedly keeps internet cafes under surveillance with computers that automatically take screenshots every few minutes.” Governments can use web filtering just like a parent or business. China has a firewall so convoluted it is called “The Great Firewall of China”. The Open Net Initiative (ONI) is an organization that informs people on what web filtering is. They have four categories to which filters can fall under: political, social, conflict/security, and internet tools. The political filter is any content about politics. Totalitarian countries may block politics because that don’t want their people to see what is going on. The social filter includes anything about sexuality, gambling, drugs, and other subjects a nation can deem offensive. Social issues can go against what a country believes or can be used by parents to protect children. The conflict/security filter blocks pages that relate to wars, fights, or any conflict. This is another filter …show more content…
When one uses a proxysite the network being used will only be able to view that that person went to the proxysite but anything visited after will not be seen. People who fight for those who cannot fight for themselves against internet censorship are called “Hacktivists”. One hacktivist, Andrew Heap, became dedicated to helping Iranians experience internet freedom. Heap was creating proxies for Iranians and gathered a follow of 10,000 people. He struggled as Iran was always able to follow what he was doing. As a proxysite would open, the Iranian government would hastily close it. Heap was later able to develop anti-censorship software called Haystack. Haystack would show a different website to what was actually being viewed. For example, if you went to Facebook the government would see something else that was government approved. Before Heap could implement Haystack in Iran he needed approval from the United States government. The United States has a law against trading with Iran and Haystack would be in violation of this law. Heap was able to get approved and had the United States government standing behind him while he tried fighting the second largest cyber army, the Cyber Defense Command. This Iran run cyberarmy goes into email and hacks websites that show