The Benefits and Shortcomings of Internet Censorship Today

Censorship technology has frequently been perceived as an inequitable means to curb a citizen’s freedom of speech by filtering content that the authorities deem offensive to the public. In certain countries, the magnitude of censorship that is prevalent can be considered oppressive and threatening. However, according to scores of academics, censorship helps in the reduction of crime rate and promotes the existence of a peaceable and disciplined society to a certain extent. This essay aims to investigate how censorship technology has been misused by many countries and then discusses how it might play a role in protecting people from undesirable content while decreasing the crime rates in society

In today’s day and age, the censorship is becoming prevalent in digital as well as traditional media. The recent advance in technology has resulted in the expansion of Internet censorship to cover data available in various online media such as websites and other social networking platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. In countries where traditional media is tightly controlled, the free flow of information online can be seen as a threat to authorities. Limiting or completely blocking access is one tool they can use to control both citizens and the narrative around an event.

Various nations like Australia, Finland, Turkey and Singapore make use of ethical values as a primary factor in justifying the act of censorship. They focus on the need for restricting content related to pornogrpahy and child pornography. Further research has proven that access to information in other categories like gaming and homosexuality was also limited by the government. In Finland, the main list of restricted websites is not available to the public, in spite of many instances where websites that had no reason to be blocked were restricted from public viewing.  Pakistan is very well known for regulating access in numerous online media for religious, political and security reasons. 

Many censorship technologies are unable to correctly classify all of the content available on the Internet. Censorship technology falls prey to two major shortcomings – the underblocking and overblocking of various websites. This type of technology is extremely useful for regulating access to eminent websites, but cannot possibly recognize and filter specific sets of information that is available on numerous websites, blogs, chat rooms etc.

Underblocking occurs when censorship technology fails to restrict access to online media that falls under the categories for censorship. In many instances, we can see the prevalance of overblocking as well. Here, the filtering technologies are unable to accurately identify content that needs to be censored and regulates the availability of content that cannot be considered as offensive or harmful. As an outcome, the government ends up blocking sites that do not fall in the censorship blacklist. 

Saudi Arabia unintentionally blocks some Web sites because SmartFilter classifies them incorrectly. Researchers still cannot agree on the accuracy of software classification of Web content and many are against it. Marketing data from Smart Filter’s shows a study indicating ‘94% of sites accurately blocked’; implying that the software makes errors at least 6% of the time. The search engine Google at this point searches over 4 billion Web pages. This means that if SmartFilter were to categorize all these pages, it would make mistakes for over 240 million pages which is not an encouraging figure at all in this context.

Classification errors by filtering softwares are unavoidable with current technology. However, wrongful classification by SmartFilter in Saudi Arabia results in more content being blocked than the state intends, thus curbing Saudi citizens and residents access to information they otherwise would have been cleared to view and use. 

Many governments restrict access to the Internet and reduce connection speeds in the name of censorship. More and more national governments are expressly sanctioning their country’s ISPs to monitor and filter the Internet access of their citizens. The issue arises when the governments are themselves facilitating these systems. Such acts must not be kept away from scrutiny under the free speech protections and rights that’s are applicable to the nation. They should be answerable to the state, with the required level of analyzing, scrutinizing and systematic proceeding that pertain to such a government undertaking.

Iranian citizens were seen desperately trying to reach out for help from the world on various social media platforms and news channels post the June 2009 Presidential elections. Iranians attempting to reach news channels and social media platforms were put through unprecedented levels of degradation and torture. Seeing as there was a lot of attention being garnered due to the uprising over the web, rather than shut down networks, which would have drawn more controversy, the government is said to have reduced connection speeds to levels that would make the worldwide web nearly obsolete, specifically for the usage and transfer of multimedia content. This had sometimes taken the form of hindering speeds to specific sites or protocols and stopping of all traffic at other instances.  After the events of the election in 2009, connection and download speeds to webmail services such as Gmail were reported to be notably perturbed. 

Using censorship technologies result in the restriction of freedom of speech. Punishnment for those who break the laws and legistation pertaining to freedom of expression varies widely from country to country. In some cases they may be as little as a fine, in others it ranges from imprisonment, intimidation and even alleged murder. The penalty in some nations like China and Myanmar are so brutal that they are viewed as human rights violations. 

The Chinese government implemented severe bans on internet-based rumours and posting. In September 2013, the supreme people’s court ruled that writers of online content that spread ‘rumours or lies’ that were either viewed by over 5,000 individuals or shared more than 500 times, could face defamation charges and up to three years prison time. In July 2016 for example, following the huge floods in Hebei province, the government took into custody three people accused of spreading “false news” through social media about the death count and the cause of the flood. Social media posts and pictures of the flooding, especially of drowning victims, were all censored.

Censorship technology helps in the censoring of harmful and offensive content. Censorship of the internet is aimed at and due to a wide array of subjects, including hate speeches, pornography and even bomb making instructions that can otherwise easily be accessed by anyone on the internet. The justification for censorship of such information and content is that this would result in a greater social good, the cost of which is limiting the amount of information that can be accessed by public on the worldwide web. Till date,Internet censorship movements have taken two major stands: limiting what can be accessed or what can be posted on the Internet. Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, Germany, and Finland have followed the U.K’s lead and have blocked Internet access to classifications of speeches and content that they see as harmful. 

There are many ways to circumvent censored content that the authorities deem harmful to citizens. These include VPN (Virtual Private Network), DNS Servers and Proxy services.

Censoring content also helps reduce the prevalence of piracy. Censorship however fights piracy by blocking out content that may violate intellectual property rights. In 2010, the U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator announced the start of Operation in Our Sites, a joint intellectual property enforcement undertaking between the Immigration and Customs Enforcement division of the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice.’ The effort is aimed at ‘seizing the domain names of websites providing access to allegedly infringing online content.’  Despite efforts to censor pirated content, it is widely available all over the internet. There are many sites like thepiratebay.com, where people can easily access torrents with pirated content.

In countries like China, authoritarian governments have taken extreme measures to censor content that they deem harmful to its citizens. These include blocking certain websites, throttling connection to the internet and placing restrictions on freedom of speech. Many of the censorship technologies that are used by the authorities today cannot guarantee complete accuracy and this results in the blocking of many websites that should be accessible to the public. Censorship technology can be used to create a better society by filtering out harmful, violent and offensive content. It can also help in the fight against piracy by blocking access to sites with illegal content. This paper aimed to provide an insight into the benefits and shortcomings of using censorship technology today. Censorship can be a massive boon to the society, but it must be practiced in a judicious manner.   

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