Pros and Cons of Internet Censorship in Unfree Countries

Internet censorship by definition “is the control or suppression of the publishing or accessing of information on the Internet” stated by Christopher Leberknight et al. in the article “A Taxonomy of Internet Censorship and Anti-Censorship” (2010). The thought of not being able to use the internet freely might sound odd to those living in a country with free internet. We live in a country where we have access to all sort of information and news simply by searching the desired topic. Yet, in some countries people do not have complete and free access to the internet. The content of the internet is usually blocked, censored or manipulated by the local government of that state. Certain governments, mainly nondemocratic regimes, believe that free internet will expose their citizens to subjects and information that threatens their power and policy overall. These threats can range from government elections to protests. Countries such as Iran, China, Russia etc. are among those countries. These governments fear that free internet will raise awareness among citizens. And when awareness increases so will the number of people who will question the government’s policy and strategy. The internet and more specifically social media can reach a large audience within a short amount of time. This allows for anti-regime advertisements to spread easier and faster as well. This is exactly why non-democratic governments censor the internet. Unfortunately, this issue is becoming more widespread as we go forward. According to Sanja Kelly et al., in the article “Silencing the Messenger: Communication Apps Under Pressure”, internet freedom has declined in the past six years. Today more governments are targeting social media and communication applications in order to stop the quick spread of information. Over the past couple of years “Facebook and Twitter have been subject to growing censorship for several years” Kelly asserts. However, governments today are going after Telegram and WhatsApp which are voice communication and messaging apps. These apps have a high level of security and end to end encryption which does not allow for governments to easily track the messages even if the records are needed for law enforcement and national security. Thus, certain governments block these apps withing their country. The issue of internet censorship needs to be addressed because we are living in an era where more people have access to the internet than a toilet yet, on the contrary, two-thirds or 67 percent of those people live in countries in which internet data is censored (Kelly et al. 2016). It is vital to be sure that the content which people are exposed to is not manipulated and is true. This paper will analyze the perks and downsides of internet censorship in unfree countries while mostly focusing on Iran.

Historically, the internet has been censored to support political and religious goals. As stated by Leberknight et al., the frequency of censorship increased in the 15th century when the printing press became widespread. The printing press spread information and the news more widely and was much harder to control. It also helped in the preservation of books. Then radio and television broadcastings were able to stimulate the speed of communication which made them better or faster means in terms of spreading the news. However, the internet allows for a more rapid spread of information compared to the previous means. Another issue that governments are facing is keeping the information on the internet within their borders. The internet’s border is permeable as Leberknight declares. So even if the content of a website is blocked it is accessible on a website outside of the country. Today, governments must become innovative with their censoring methods as the networks and devices are rapidly changing. According to Leberknight, another reason why online information cannot be controlled is that the objective of this innovation was to make information accessible to the majority of people.

As mentioned before, the spread and access of the internet are very extensive. Not being able to control the product of rapidly sharing news and the difficulty of harnessing it will pose a threat to authoritarian regimes. Regimes such as Russia, China and Iran’s totalitarian government. The increase in the control over what content which is accessible on the internet only proves that social media and online communication have a significant effect on advancing political freedom, social justice and general knowledge overall (Kelly et al. 2016). There are several criteria for censorship. The criteria, as Leberknight et al. assert, include cost, scope, scale, speed, granularity, false negative, false positive and, circumvavility (2010). The cost of opportunity and resource determines the availability of censorship. The scope refers to the number of communication means being censored. The number of people who are affected during this process makes up the scale. Granularity alludes to different servers, ports, webpages, etc. The terms false negative determines the accuracy of the censoring process. False positive refers to the exhaustion of censoring resources if it is too high. And finally, circumvavility incapacitates censorship. Besides these criteria, there are different techniques that these governments use to filter the information on the web. These techniques include attack mode, filtering mode and, target (Leberknight et al. 2010). Each of these methods are designed to filter internet content in a unique way. IP filtering is the most common way of censorship. This method has its downside since many websites are hosted on one IP address, blocking that address would block websites that do not even have any censorable content (Leberknight et al. 2010). China has the most advanced technology and censor network and is the only country that uses all three methods (Leberknight et al. 2010). This allows China to strictly control the information on the internet. Along with strict censoring, China has smart cities which allow the government to control the citizen’s activities even more. While some countries only rely on internet censoring, other countries have even decided to take a step further and shutdown all internet access during political crisis only to prevent users from sharing the ongoing events with the world. In such countries those users who tend to post political content are arrested. According to Kelly et al., 27 percent of people who have access to internet live in those countries.

Many argue that censorship threatens free speech and privacy. Countries are currently censoring more diverse content. Although news outlets that spread opposing political views compared to the local establishment are the main focus, issues regarding the LGBTI community and anti-religious material are being censored too. These actions are all taken on the ground of enhancing national security, keeping people from being exposed to fake news and the Western culture. On the contrary, the steps that these governments are taking is diminishing freedom of speech and democracy. Unfortunately, a number of governments both democratic and non-democratic have passed laws which allows them to have greater surveillance over their citizens and limit their privacy. Even though it is difficult to go against the government especially in certain countries, citizens should not underestimate the power of the internet. The internet can be used as a powerful voice to be heard by the world, fight for human rights, and demand a better government establishment. People living in these restrictive countries have been able to achieve something unprecedented that was not possible before. Online activism has revealed corruptions, embezzlements, contributed to political prisoners’ freedom and even saved many from being executed. Therefore, as time goes by, we can see more tangible results from internet activity in unfree countries.

Although the experience is different depending on which country someone lives in, in order to demonstrate how it is to use the internet in an unfree country in more detail this paper will focus on Iran mainly because I was born and raised in Iran. I am aware of both the previous and the ongoing situation while witnessing some myself. I believe that having this experience would allow me to better explain what it is like to use the internet in an unfree country. Iran has a long history of censorship especially after the Iranian revolution of 1979. The leaders of Iran believe that social media is the West’s conspiracy yet ironically, all Iranian government official, including the supreme leader, have personal social media accounts. As BBC writer Nasim Hatam remarks, this is a disadvantage of internet filtering which removes checks against the government. The internet and social media are closely monitored in Iran. Iran is among those countries using IP filtering to block access to certain social media platforms and websites. Citizens of Iran have already found different ways of bypassing the filtering and sort of found a back door to access their desired websites by using VPNs and Internet proxies. But of course, the Iranian regime is aware of this trick and goes after any popular VPN and disables it. Then ordinary citizens would have to search for new ones. Certain platforms such as Facebook, Viber and Telegram are filtered on daily basis. However, the government will also shut down the internet altogether if certain political incidents have happened or are on the surge of happening. Eleven years ago, following the presidential election of 2009 millions of Iranians came to streets questioning the validity of the election. The government had manipulated the election results, and this caused lots of rage which led to a massive protest that the Islamic republic had not seen since the 1979 revolution, says Omid Memarian, author of “Iran’s Green Movement Never Went Away” (2019). Many of the protestors were arrested and many were killed during the marches. The internet and social media are the reason why the world knows about this movement and what happened to the Iranian people. As noted in the article “The Role of Social Media in Iran’s Green Movement” written by Somayeh Moghanizadeh, shortly after the protest began pictures and videos of the demonstration were shared on social media regardless of the limitation imposed on the internet and this led to what the west called the Twitter movement because the extensive use of the platform as a means of communication since the use of regular text messaging was restricted by the government. Unfortunately, the Green Movement did not lead to a solid outcome since the government’s retaliation was too brutal for people to tolerate. Fast forward a few years there was another protest after the increase in gas prices by 50 percent. Iranians were using the popular application “Wayz” to coordinate car protest, says Mahsa Alimardani a New York Time’s writer. Wayz users were sending traffic reports to invite more people to the scene. This time the government took a step further and imposed a nation-wide internet blockage to cut any connections with the outside world. The government was afraid of something similar to the Green Movement happening since they were aware of how affective the internet can be in spreading the news. This blackout lasted two weeks. Within one day from the initial shut down 93-95 percent of internet users were offline (Alimardani 2019). During these two weeks lots of protesting was going on and we were not aware of our family and friend’s well-being. Yet, people recorded everything that was going on and shared it on social media when they got a chance. Not only did social media get the news of the protest out to the world but it also led to a retrial of the execution of 3 Iranian citizens who were arrested during the protests. Users were able to achieve this accomplishment by twitting and re-twitting the hashtag “Do Not Execute” over a million times on Twitter (Malekian 2020). While the main cause of this protest was lack of economic regulation and inflation, the government decides to spend the country’s budget on filtering the internet. Iran is also working on a national internet project. The objective of this project is to securely host digital platforms and be mostly disconnected from the global internet (Alimardani 2019). This is when the government can let businesses flourish and expand by not censoring and limiting new opportunities on the internet, but they decide to put their benefits first.

Among other heroic actions that Iranians have taken to fight this government to have more freedom using the internet, White Wednesdays is another movement led by Masih Alinejad, Iranian Journalist and human rights activist. Iranian women have started wearing white on Wednesdays to oppose the compulsory hijab in Iran. As Hatam attests, this campaign quickly became widespread only because of videos that people shared of themselves on social media and those which Alinejad posted on her personal social media accounts. Many of these women were arrested and have received lifetime sentences. With the help of people and the power of the internet and social media the Iranian regime was forced to release many of the inmates. The only reason why these women’s identities in prison are known to the world is because of the internet. In an email to Alinejad, I asked what her key to leading such a successful movement was. “Our camera is our weapon!” said Alinejad. She then continued by saying, “this is what the Iranian regime is most afraid of. They have seen what the great people of Iran are capable of and are doing everything in their power to keep their corrupt establishment”.

Altogether, no matter how hard people try there will always be some sort of internet censoring and blockade in most countries. But this does not mean that people should sit back and watch. This a long-time process. It is something that one or several generations would have to fight for so that their next generation can benefit from what they did. Although some might argue that internet censorship keeps false information from spreading, it is worthy of notation that this idea can be abused by authoritarian regimes. Regimes in unfree countries can and will abuse the ability of internet filtering to keep themselves in power. Filtering the web also costs a lot of money as is a waste of national budget. People living in unfree countries must remember that the information they are being fed is manipulated. Internet censorship takes away basic human rights, such as freedom of speech and having access to new and true information. Experience is different living in each country yet, the most important thing is to remember to fight for your rights.