However, China remains the world’s most infamous user of internet censorship, ranking the maximum of five stars by Reporters without Boarders and labeled as ‘very serious’. Web page censorship in China have ranged from new sources that contain ‘taboo’ national topics such as the 1989 protests at Tianneman Square, sites supporting the Tibet liberal movement and the teachings of the Dalai Lama, and websites that contain obsenity and pornography. Web pages considered to contain any counter government bias information on national affairs such as that of BBC News are often banned, along with blogging websites such as MySpace, and region based search engines such as Yahoo Hong Kong. Although not all websites of the same nature are banned, many are strongly regulated, such as in the comparison of google search results in China and France. A recent study showed a camparison of the image search results of Tianemman Square displayed pictures of scenary in China as opposed to pictures of the violent political opposition demonstration in the French results.
In response to the growing problem of internet censorship in several countries, political scientist Ronald Deibert and his team of software engineers launched an open source software in November 2006, which intended to help citizens in censored countries circumvent imposed website censorship. Although not the first open source program to be launched, Psiphon has gained wide popularity due to its advanced and effective features. The program works by connecting a censored computer with one that is liberal through an encrypted connection, much like ones that protect financial transactions. Users in a non-restricted country can download a program via its website, making their computer a host. A person in a restricted country can then log on to their computer through an encrypted connection and gain access to website that are restricted by the state. According to the creators of Psiphon, the user’s visits to banned sites will look like mere financial transactions to the government.
Previous launched open source programs and rivals of Psiphon have demonstrated obvious flaws and problems with use that Psiphon has successfully overridden. Tor, an open software program jointly designed by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institution of Technology, carries potential risks with use. The programs requires the user to download files in order to run these programs, which could carry a great amount of personal risk since the possession of such files on one’s computer is often treated as a criminal offence in censored countries. According to statistics released by Reporters Without Boarders, approximately 52 internet censorship dissidents are imprisoned in China for wrongful internet communication. Although the act of downloading Tor is already banned in many censored countries, Psiphon does not require the downloading of any files and encrypts the connection of users who are accessing the program. Although government officials can monitor when users are online, the visitation of banned sites look like mere financial bank transactions.
However, although this newly introduced program offers new and innovated features that have flawed in past trials of open source software, it was speculated to achieve limited success due to the inability to advertise in censored countries. Also, because the program would only effectively be used by connecting to an unrestricted computer, internet users in restricted countries must have social connections in liberal countries in order to begin using the program, as authorization is needed. The program is designed to be shared within social affinities, thus limiting the ability for the program to reach as many people as possible. The host also has the ability to monitor what the user does, causing possible trust issues. However, the downfall and minor flaws of the program did not halt its popularity, as it was downloaded 85 000 times within the three months of its initial public launch, prompting the Citizen Lab to continually update their software.
The program is not only used as circumvention for visitation to leisure sites, but is also widely used by scholars who cannot attain the information they need under the wide restrictions imposed by the government. Open source software are often used by scholars in censored countries to access information by which is censored by the state, in which they are able to gather the proper information needed for their study. Many scholars in censored countries often find it difficult to conduct their study because some countries outlaw and censor searches under seemingly harmless words. For example, the word ‘meat’ is highly censored in Iran because of its alternative definition as ‘pretty women’ in Farsi, which could government officials fear is a search of pornographic web pages. This also leads to searches on Muslim dietary restrictions to be blocked.
Although governments in censored countries have indeed attempted to shut down circumvention programs such as that of Psiphon or Tor, their attempts are halted at a certain point when shutting down open source software present an indirect confession that the government does indeed engage in the act of filtering. The open discussion of circumvention programs such as that of Psiphon can almost be openly discussed among citizens in China. Ronald Deibert, creator of the new open source software Psiphon, argued that if governments wanted to, they could regulate all transactions and censor all but a selected amount of websites. However, the act could put serious strain on the economy, such like that of North Korea’s desolate economy, in which severe internet restrictions are placed.
Leisure and censored scholarly websites, however, are not the only social benefits that arise from the success of Psiphon, but can also furthermore provide economic growth and benefits to the state. Recent studies have shown the symbiotic relationship between the growing use of the internet relative to the positively (growing) economy. The internet is cutting costs in every corner of the economy. It makes it cheaper to design products, reduces the need for vast inventories, and provides a cheaper alternative to the high costs of delivering many products and services. For example, e-commerce helps eliminate the need to keep large numbers of inventory in stock. The demands of the product are precisely kept on record by purchases and can be ordered or manufactured according to the demands public. Products such as airline tickets and online books can be delivered online immediately after its purchase, helping companies avoid the high costs of delivering tangible products.
The internet also provides a much faster means of targeting, servicing, and communicating with costumers, cutting the costs of labour intensive capital. Products can be browsed online by buyers themselves, eliminating the need for sales representatives, thus saving companies from dealing with labour and service intensity. The internet also has a great influence on productivity growth by significantly reducing the cost of transactions, increasing management efficiency and by making prices more transparent through heavy competition. A collective team of researchers from several major American Universities have concluded in their study that the internet may save Americans up to 200 billion annually. Thus the censorship of online products, such as those of cigarettes and even pornography, both multibillion dollar industries, could cause potential economic set backs.
Aside from the wide economic benefits the internet provides, it also brings about social benefits. In the 1970s, Daniel Lerner argued that the introduction of mass media in developing countries would allow “for a broadening of empathy”. His theory can still be applied to today with the internet. Not only is the internet able to bring together people of similar identity, it also has the ability to create religious and ethnic tolerance between ethnic groups through exposure. Internet censorship of religious minority sites will not aid nor promote the tolerance of other religious and ethnic groups and will only further segregate groups of a common identity while promoting ignorance of groups outside of themselves.
However, in spite of the great economic and social benefits internet freedom may deliver through the use of such successful open source programs such as Psiphon, no action can be taken unless the public is aware of the wide use of internet censorship. Despite its immense popularity, programs like Psiphon require a dual partnership between a censored and liberal citizen in order to successful circumvent censorship.
Without world population’s knowledge of such human rights infringement acts, the proper action cannot be taken, thus reaching no end in sight for the problem.
Amnesty International, a non-profit, international non-governmental group (NGO) has launched a campaign entitled Irrepression Info to internationally bring to attention the act of government internet freedom repression. Irrepression Info attempts to achieve this encourage participants to publish fragments and articles of censored material from around the world on their websites, or on other blogs to take a stand against the growing problem. Currently, approximately 77, 700 people have pledged to act against web repression on the Amnesty International web page. The website also informs readers of other related problems of internet censorship, such as the contradictions it the fight against repression. The site offers information of how many North American companies such a Microsoft and Google are aiding countries such as China to censor users of their services.
As a result of Amnesty International’s Campaign, the social innovation group has launched a online blog with similar intentions of that of Irrepression Info. Instead of posting censored material directly on the blog, bloggers will be encouraged to post the ‘illicit’ content in the form of an image so it would be harder to trace by government official. This approach does not, however, indicate that the content posted on the blog site would be severely hard or impossible to trace by censored governments. The blog is merely an attempt to launch yet another site containing censored material to be made available to users in censored countries. The idea behind this social initiative is that with the increase of web pages supporting the ideology of Irrepression Info., there will be more sites for governing bodies to shut down, hopefully not being able to trace and shut down all that have been launched.
The group also considered and anticipate launching a blog of the same nature on common the social networking website entitled Facebook. The social networking website is a common international website in which teenagers and adults alike communicate by sending messages on the blogs of personal websites (referred to as ‘The Wall’), sending private messages viewed by only the account holder, while giving users the options of other online activities such as sending intangible gifts through the website which can be prominently displayed on the user’s personal web page. With more than 64 million users worldwide, members of the innovation group strongly feel that the blog will capture the attention of a large internet population.
The blog will consist of a number of elements. It contains information about the
Irrepression Info campaign while encouraging users to join and participate in the blog to carry out its purpose. The blog is open to anyone who wishes to join, and is also viewable to those who have not officially joined the blog. Creators of the blog have encouraged users to publish as many, if not all material known to them despite what language the fragments may be written in. The diversity of languages is widely encouraged to attract users of different race and backgrounds, to encourage international participation, thus raising international awareness.
Upon creating the blog, it has become clear of the ignorance of internet censorship among citizens of liberal countries. Despite the mass and popular downloads of Psiphon, as well as the large number of citizens who pledged to fight against internet censorship, members of the liberal community do not seem to be taking enough action to their maximum potential. Although Amnesty International launched a campaign encouraging the world community to publish censored material on their web pages, they did not take the liberty to provide a blog of their own on its website to promote the campaign, which would have potentially attracted more posts than any other personal blog. Also, there have been no published evidence alternative approaches by Amnesty International, including lobbying and open source software development.
Despite the heavy advertisements of the online blog by the social innovation group, few visitors took the personal time to search for banned web pages to post on the blog. Because of the millions of blog creators and users out on the web, the blog the social innovation group has created is almost impossible to find on many major and popular search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, and Ask.com. As a result, exact address of the web page must be given to both raise awareness of the website and also to users who wish to access the site.
Although the blog was extremely difficult to find in on the internet, the social innovation group did not anticipate a greater success with a blog involving facebook. Because Facebook is a social networking website, many of its users choose to post personal conversations on each others’ web pages rather than promoting social and political campaigns. Although the website does allow for users to create groups of leisure, political, and social natures, many groups are unknown to users unless they are personally invited by a member or administrator. Due to the mass population of Facebook users, groups created by users are plentiful and can be difficult to locate, even under the site’s search engine. Groups and blogs must also be heavily advertised to gain activity. Therefore, a user with a limited network may find it difficult to recruit members. As a result, like any revolution, the fight against internet censorship is not only dependant on awareness, but is also heavily dependant on the whether the aware population takes action against the problem.
In conclusion, it is important to recognise that internet censorship takes place in many levels of severity, from parental controls to infringing on a citizen’s right to freedom of expression. Although many successful open source programs such as Psiphon have been developed, the success of the fight against internet censorship heavily relies on the action taken by the world community. Because citizens in censored communities are bound by strict rules and laws, it is up to the citizens of liberal countries to help them liberalize internet use. The fight against internet censorship is heavily dependent on the dual relationship between users from both liberal and censored countries. Censored users need aiding while liberal users have the power to aid. Without this relationship, the fight against internet censorship is likely to suffer great setbacks in the goal of creating a liberal internet community for all.
Works Cited:
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CBC News. (2001). Zundel's Internet hate crimes case wraps up. Retrieved Feb. 29, 2008, from http://www.cbc.ca/news/story/2001/02/26/ott_zundal010226.html
Deibert , R. (2006). The Geopolitics of Asian Cyberspace. Far Eastern Economic Review, 169(10), 22-25.
Kalathil, S. (2003). Dot.Com for Dictators. Foreign Policy, (135), 42-49.
Deibert , R. (2006). The Geopolitics of Asian Cyberspace. Far Eastern Economic Review, 169(10), 22-25.
Kalathil, S. (2003). Dot.Com for Dictators. Foreign Policy, (135), 42-49.
Mason, C. (2006). Web Tool to Help Sidestep Government Censors. International Herald Tribune,15.
Kean, S. (2007). Internet Research, Uncensored. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 53(29), A29-A30.
Mason, C. (2006). Web Tool to Help Sidestep Government Censors. International Herald Tribune,15.
Hurwitz, R. (1999). Who Needs Politics? Who Needs People? The Ironies of Democracy in Cyberspace. Contemporary Sociology, 28(6), 655-661.
Kean, S. (2007). Internet Research, Uncensored. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 53(29), A29-A30.
Mason, C. (2006). Web Tool to Help Sidestep Government Censors. International Herald Tribune,15.
Kean, S. (2007). Internet Research, Uncensored. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 53(29), A29-A30.
Kalathil, S. (2003). Dot.Com for Dictators. Foreign Policy, (135), 42-49.
Mason, C. (2006). Web Tool to Help Sidestep Government Censors. International Herald Tribune,15.
Litan, R. E. (2001). The Internet Economy. Foreign Policy, (123), 16-24.
Litan, R. E. & Rivlin, A. M. (2001). Projecting the Economic Impact of the Internet. American Economic Review, 91(2), 313-317.
Shapiro, A. L. (1999). The Internet. Foreign Policy, (115), 14-27