On-line censorship is the control of what can be published, viewed, or accessed on the internet. This happens frequently on social networking sites such as : blogs, Youtube,On-Line Gaming and chats. It can be carried out by organizations, admins, or individual users. Said to be used to protect people, the most commonly censored things are moral or religious topics, things made to conform to societal norms, things censored for legal reasons, things censored due to intimidation, or to prevent Lies and Falsehoods on the Internet.
Different types of on-line censorship include
- IP Address Blocking: Access to certain IP addresses is prohibited
- Packet Filtering: Packets that contain certain keywords are restricted
- Portal Censorship: Certain websites cannot be located through search engines
To learn more about on-line censorship visit the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Think about what your opinion is about this picture. Do you agree with what this author is saying?
Many people are annoyed with online pages being censored because of the content, but some pages should be censored for people 18 years and younger.
The most notable thing about online censorship is that it varies from country to country. Some countries attempt to censor online news or online social interaction as way to control citizens or keep them in the dark. The things they can view may also be heavily observed.
China is one such country, having very strict censorship laws. Just one example is the closure of many individual and organizational accounts on an app called WeChat that dispensed political and legal news articles to thousands of subscribers. You can click here to read more about that. Unfortunately not everyone is subscribed to The Wall Street journal, so all people will not be able to read the article. I know that I am not subscribed to The Wall Street Journal. If you are not subscribed, here is another article on the same topic about WeChat.[http://tech.firstpost.com/news-analysis/online-censorship-wechat-shuts-40-user-accounts-china-219925.html]
When thinking about different countries that are talking about censorship, the UK has one campaign that wants to end censorship on the university level. The internet plays an important role in this campaign, but they are going even farther than the internet. They want the end to censorship completely. The campaign is incredibly controversial, but the issue of censorship is the driving force. Watch this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvDUwek4MSs to get some more information about their side of the argument.
It is funny to look at all the comics and pictures about censorship on the internet. The issue of censorship is incredibly controversial and there are completely different views on the topic. Some people think that censorship should not be allowed and others feel that on line censorship is the same as jail. Take a look at this comic. The man using the computer thinks that censorship is equivalent to jail. It is a bit hilarious how far some people go.
On Social Network sites, people feel as if they write anything on them and not get censored. That is not true at all. Here is a recent article about people selling guns on Facebook. Facebook is still allowing the selling of guns to people over the age of 18 and where it is illegal. Take a look at the article[http://www.thewire.com/national/2014/03/facebook-take-down-posts-try-skirt-gun-sale-laws/358855/].
Importance for course
The concept of online censorship is incredibly important to this course on Fundamentals of Using the Internet. Online censorship is a fundamental idea that not all people understand correctly. It is true that not all information is readily available on the internet and is censored on the Internet because of content. In this course we learned to be aware of what is on the internet and to never post anything that you would later wish you had not. Information written on Social Media can be rejected and censored.
Footnotes
Here is a list of the websites for the pictures that were used.
- http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/the_worst_thing_about_censorship-4ea871c-intro.jpg
- http://bartvpn.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2013/01/china-censorship.gif
- http://media.cagle.com/107/2010/03/25/76273_600.jpg
More Reading
If you are interested in learning more about online censorship and how it works, this is a great website that goes into very refined detail. [http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet-censorship1.htm]CNN is consistently posting articles online about WeChat. This is a great debate in China and will frequently be updated. Here is the latest ideas about WeChat.
[http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/17/world/asia/wechat-censorship/]