Final Blog

Internet censorship was a big topic in the news when we were choosing blog topics and the subject intrigued me enough to do more research. After choosing the topic, my goal was to tie in ethical questions into each blog post. These ethical questions pretty much ask who's right or wrong in a certain situation regarding internet shutdown/censorship.

When I first chose my topic, Egypt was in the headlines and many of the stories were about the internet/telecommunications shut down the government implemented. As I continued to do research, I found the topic to contain a lot more information than I originally imagined. My research was not as extensive as it could've been. I pretty much limited my research to current news articles/research studies. I should've done more research on the past of censorship and contrasted them with the current news. Although my research wasn't as broad as I would've liked it to be, I still learned more than I thought this topic had to offer.

One fascinating fact I'll always remember is that there were way more countries censoring internet and the reasons for censoring were more abundant than I originally imagined. I actually found an article that researched where and why internet censoring occurs. I included this article in my second blog and was truly intrigued that even the United States was classified under "some censorship." After reading further, the reason for censorship in the U.S. was to "maintain national security." This led me to the ethical question of "Is it ethically correct for a government to participate in censoring for safety reasons (national security)?"

I'm glad I chose a topic that interests me as much as this one did. I know censoring the internet will not go away anytime soon. I believe the topic will continually be on the news in the near and far future. This whole semester I was always able to find new news articles relating to the topic meaning there was always something going on regarding censoring. That trend won't stop and I believe that new countries will emerge as thew "new country censoring data." Kindof like this article posted just 5 days ago which talks about new censorship that India is participating in. I definitely will be keeping up with this topic and will continue to probe into new details as they emerge.

Restricted?! Says who!

So I've talked a lot about censorship from a government standpoint; however, what do users in these countries do about not having internet?? Do they just suck it up or do they try to get around the issue somehow?

Well as you may have guessed (or known) there's always going to be a backup plan. When Napster got shut down did P2P music sharing stop? Of course not.

So, what methods are used to bypass different firewalls put in place by a government? This article posted in the Financial Post mentions a few methods used. Most notably are proxy programs and even Google cache. Proxies trick firewalls into thinking the traffic is coming from somewhere else. These options are only a few from a long list. This study (Leaping Over the Firewall) that was performed researches Azerbaijan, Iran, Burma, and China (countries known to restrict internet use). The study notes and researches 12 different ways of getting around internet restrictions.

I've mentioned ethics in my previous posts so I figured I'd ask this question: Do you think it's okay for users to employ methods to get around governmental internet restrictions?

Censorship for Protection?

Is all Internet Censorship the same? If not, how do the different types differ? Many individuals may not know; however, the United States also participates in Internet Censorship for national security purposes. A recent article on Tech Dirt briefly explores internet censorship, showing where and how censoring occurs. Within the article is a venn diagram that highlights the reasons countries have for censoring data. The three reasons are to maintain: 1) Political Stability 2)Traditional Social Values 3) National Security. Many of the countries overlap between two reasons or even all three.

Most censorship that's in the news today has to deal with countries completely blocking websites out; which most of us can agree (at least in our society) is unethical. China is currently blocking the word "Jasmine" from being viewed due to fear of anti-government protests starting like in Egypt and Tunisia. And some internet censorship isn't even initiated by countries but by "Cyber Terrorists" like recently in Canada. But what about when censorship (like in the USA) is used for National Security?

What do you think... is it ethically correct for a government to participate in censoring for safety reasons?

First Blog

Is it ethically correct for countries to block their residents from viewing internet sites? Over 25 countries have proven evidence of some sort of internet filtering. Countries will either block out certain sites (like China) or block out the internet completely (like Egypt recently). In fact, China has recently blocked keyword searches of the word 'Egypt' since they are afraid of something similar happening in their country.

So if it is ethically OK for countries to censor the internet, is it then ethically correct for residents and other countries to figure out bypasses in order to get onto the internet? This is something that occurs frequently. Chinese residents have used proxies to access certain websites throughout their censored period. According to this article recently written, the United States has created a technology that can deliver media and e-mail to China even if it's blocked.

This topic has many angles it can be viewed from in terms of ethics and I will discuss them in more detail throughout this blog.