Internet censorship: causes, effects, and global perspectives

Censorship on the Internet: An Anathema of the Gravest Proportions

The growing ubiquity of the Internet means that new issues, once confined to the "real" world, have spilled over into cyberspace. Censorship in particular has been a significant concern ever since the Internet grew into a popular medium of communication. Now, unfortunately, censorship is no longer a concern; instead, it is a reality on the Internet and one that seems to be ever-increasing. Censorship on the Internet represents one of the greatest threats to the integrity and usefulness of the Internet as a medium for the exchange of information. As a practice, censorship should be eliminated on the Internet or, at the very least, reduced at every opportunity. Threats to freedom and free expression do not merely affect pornographers and citizens of totalitarian regimes; they affect and diminish us all, reducing the quality of our own ability to freely exchange information with one another.

The case for censorship on the Internet is usually made in one of only a few categories. One of the first, and most onerous, is the desire of totalitarian and repressive regimes to control their citizenry by limiting their access to information that challenges the integrity of the government's power. When the Internet began, it was seen by some to be a bastion of free expression even within the usually repressive confines of these regimes. But governments have a way of catching up with new technology, and new regulations and controls are fast being placed on individual access to cyberspace in these countries (Media oppression, 2003). One of the more popular methods is for the government to simply take control of all of the Internet Service Providers in the nation and strictly control who can access the Internet and for what purposes.

Few in the West would argue that such censorship and controls are valid or should be endorsed. Google caused a furor among human rights activists recently when it decided to submit its search engine to Chinese filters as part of its agreement with the government when it wanted to expand operations into China. But few raised much of a fuss when earlier Google also submitted itself to hate crime laws in Germany, France, and Switzerland that filtered out certain results to comply with those nations' laws (Quirk, 2006). Censorship by governments is not limited to the Third World or even non-Western nations, but has become more pervasive with regard to the Internet. As a medium, the Internet represents a fount of information that flows without, necessarily, the direct oversight of governments and bureaucrats. Not surprisingly, steps are being taken to change this, though at the cost of everyone's freedom to think or express themselves as they please.

Another avenue of Internet censorship is the censoring of pornography, which is most often done in the name of 'protecting the children' (Dvorak, 2005). Legislators and concerned lobbying groups around the world, but especially in the United States, have taken it upon themselves to foist their own morals and dogmas on the swatch of the Internet by limiting the access individuals have to pornographic material. But the claims that this can be done to protect minors is ludicrous at best. Currently, children begin using the Internet in the West at young ages and have access to information never before imagined. No filter, no legislation, no amount of censorship will have the effect of utterly shielding these children from pornography. Socially, the more effective tactic would be to simply talk with children and correctly parent them according to the value (or lack thereof, as the case may be) of pornography. Censoring pornographic material is ineffective and every often has the effect of censoring websites and information that have nothing to do with pornography (Dvorak, 2005).