Internet Censorship

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Need for Internet Censorship

A forum where speech and conduct can be hard to regulate, the Internet poses serious problems when it comes to minors accessing inappropriate sites. After all, kiddies' cartoons and adult magazines are all accessed in the same way and it is this very reason that prompts some kind of control over the access and content of the Internet.

The above brings to light a much debated issue Is it the responsibility of parents or the government to implement measures to ensure that underage children not be exposed to potentially depraving content?

While a knee-jerk reaction to the problem would be to simply propose censorship, this opposes the "Library Bill of Rights" which stresses that "Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval." ("Sex, Censorship, and the Internet", http//www.eff.org/CAF/cafuiuc.html) The Library Bill of Right protects principles of intellectual freedom developed for libraries which, if viewed laterally, can also be applied to the Internet. A library is after all a depository where knowledge and material are pooled to assist in the understanding and evaluation of issues, concepts and theories. Likewise, the Internet, previously mainly for military use, has today evolved radically to an important source of information that caters to everyone from the businessman to children wanting to access online television guides to online gaming.

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Although the Internet is a relatively new media paradigm which is indicative of its lack of social and legal mechanisms as compared to more traditional forms of media like the telephone, radio or the television, it remains a media tool (similar to televisions) which also doubles as the basis for many forms of communication (similar to telephones) like electronic mail. This intrinsic nature of the Internet points to the one-dimensional implication that the Internet should indeed be regulated the same way as telephones, radios or televisions should.

However, this inference does not take into account the fact that the telephone, radio and television are government-supervised monopolies which gives the government the right to supervise content passing through these mediums. A country attempting to supervise and regulate content passing in and out of its virtual boundaries is likely to face more political ramifications than if it tried controlling the release of its content on its local radio station. Because the Internet today transcends all categories and does not fit into a single categorization, the Internet can be seen as 'belonging' to the public of the world as compared to than how a news station of a country 'belongs' to the public of that country. It is therefore very difficult to come to a common agreement to appropriately demarcate the social responsibilities and obligations of authors and information providers from different countries.

As society becomes more affluent and the boundaries of the world meld together to form a single, seamless virtual system, it is easy to think that what applies in one society would also apply in another. In most countries where democracy is customary, we therefore tend to think that the free flow of ideas and information is highly valued, and that freedom of expression is a right every individual is entitled to, not given.

Evidently, for all its usefulness and the good that it brings, the Internet does bring about a fair share of problems. Complete censorship would require any person with Internet access around the world to abide by a common law and this in turn would require every country around the world to cooperate and come to a common agreement on the measures to take to implement proper conduct and the netiquette of its citizens. This concept is simple enough to grasp, albeit naïve.

Take for example, the short-lived Communications Decency Act (CDA) of the United States of America. The CDA considered "indecent" speech on the Internet to be deplorable, and defines indecency as "speech depicting or describing sexual or excretory acts or organs in a patently offensive fashion under contemporary community standards." ("The Internet Censorship FAQ", http//www.spectacle.org/freespch/faq.html#1)

Each of the clauses proposed by the CDA indecent, depicting or describing, patently offensive, and contemporary community standards, concealed the suppression that would threaten the future of freedom of speech in the country. The short lifespan of the CDA demonstrated the significance and importance of freedom of expression to the people that even the Courts could not repress.

Therefore, a proposal would be for authors of information providers to optionally classify the content of their own material in objective, machine-readable forms and then signed using a secure digital signature. This allows browser programs to filter material on criteria to be decided by individual users and in particular by adults responsible for children. However, this leads to the issue of subjectivity of individual classification. The character and integrity of the classifier would then have to be factored into the accuracy and reliability of the classification and this suggests the need for an impartial single point of authority on top of the author's classification. The credibility and perceived sensitivity of this classifier is very important.

Based on the classifications available to users, individuals can then set their browsers to filter the material to access. More conservative readers can choose to avoid documents falling outside their target classes whereas more liberal readers have the option of accessing material with no classification despite the possibility of potentially offensive contents. ("Protecting Our Innocents", http//www.csse.monash.edu.au/publications/15/tr-cs5-4/15.4.html)

This arrangement allows control of access to sensitive material, particularly access by children in the care of adults and also solves the problem of disagreement between countries with regard to level of censorship.

Case Study

In 1, The Australian Federal Government was contemplating the implementation of a new policy that would block all sites relating to or containing dubious keywords. This required online service providers to either to undertake the responsibility to remove RC or X-rated material from the Internet once they have been notified of its existence or the information would be blocked. ("GILC Statement on Australian Net Censorship Plan ", http//www.gilc.org/speech/australia/gilc-statement-.html) This policy, while seemingly innocent and justified, in fact caused much inconvenience to persons who had justifiable reasons for accessing these sites or were put into such situations beyond their control.

An international student from Thailand who lived in one of the University's hall of residences fell into the latter category. Because his family name contained the word 'porn', every time he tried to load up a page which required his full name to be typed on the page (email login, internet banking, etc.), the page he tried to access would be re-directed as the college system processing the information given to it would pick up on the 'porn' in his name.

This might seem reasonable because after all, there has to be some way of social and legal mechanism that controls content. After all, such mechanisms of traditional media, although imperfect, successfully manage to curb and control content, so why would it not be appropriate to apply these measures to the Internet?

Reasons for such measures

The phrase 'prevention is better than cure' is perhaps the best reason for Internet censorship of such degree. The inconvenience of a few individuals does not and cannot sufficiently efface the fact that an underage person might possibly be able to gain access to undesirable content which would could have potentially damaging effects in the later years of the minor's life if such measures are not taken. After all, the persons that would fall under this category belong to the minority, and the implementation would effectively only negatively impact only a small group of people. The general well-being of our children and the integrity of the Internet versus the inconvenience of a small group of people, it appears that the good this implementation will result in definitely outweigh the bad.

Traditional media has been around for much longer than the Internet and even social and legal mechanisms of traditional media are imperfect. We therefore cannot expect to develop a mechanism for such a new paradigm that pleases everyone and achieves the maximum overall good as yet. Also, no matter how optimal a solution is, there is bound to be grey areas that cannot be covered. This understanding applies to the Internet as well and leads back to the previous argument where a sacrifice has to be made either in the context of the healthy growth of children around the world, or the inconvenience of the minority.

Reasons against such measures

The inherent purpose of the Internet is to enable free speech and information sharing. Imposing censorship completely defeats this purpose, and degrades the Internet back to yet another supervised forum. While I do agree that there must be some degree of control over the content on the Internet, imposing such stringent constraints that indirectly segregates persons for reasons beyond their control seems very much unfair. Although one may argue that the Australian Federal Government was not aware of the repercussions their decision might make (i.e. disallowing persons from different cultures access to the Internet) due to the lack of understanding of different cultures, Australia, which prides itself on having a multicultural society, should create personal settings and/or profiles for individuals where such unusual circumstances arise. Ignorance should not and cannot serve as an excuse here.

To gain access to the Internet, or in this case, for the Thai student previously mentioned, usually requires the details and sometimes credit card to sign up for an Internet account. The rule should make exceptions for such individuals and where appropriate, automatically create a personal profile for these users if their details justify their reasons for dubious keywords. This prevents these users from facing the inconvenience and humiliation directed at their culture.

Conclusion

Therefore, the point to note would be that censorship is not the answer to protect minors or to improve the integrity of the Internet. Instead, a mutual trust that adults will responsibly supervise the Internet access of children using various technological means (like using net nannies) needs to be established between the public and government. Individuals should also be allowed to select the sexual content level of the material they want to view. This eliminates the problem of unknowingly victimizing innocent persons. Beyond that, only extreme situations would call for censorship.

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