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  • Essay / The Pros and Cons of Internet Censorship Today

    Censorship technology has often been seen as an unfair means of restricting citizens' freedom of expression by filtering out content that authorities deem offensive to the public. audience. In some countries, the extent of censorship that prevails can be seen as oppressive and threatening. However, according to many scholars, censorship helps reduce the crime rate and to some extent promotes the existence of a peaceful and disciplined society. This essay aims to study how censorship technology has been misused by many countries and then discuss how it could play a role in protecting people from unwanted content while reducing crime rates in the company. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay Nowadays, censorship is increasingly prevalent in digital and traditional media. Recent technological advancements have resulted in the expansion of Internet censorship to cover data available on various online media such as websites and other social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. In countries where traditional media are tightly controlled, the free flow of information online can be seen as a threat to authorities. Limiting or completely blocking access is a tool they can use to control both citizens and the narrative around an event. Various countries like Australia, Finland, Turkey and Singapore use ethical values ​​as the main factor to justify the act of censorship. They focus on the need to restrict content related to pornography and child pornography. Further research proved that access to information in other categories like gaming and homosexuality was also restricted by the government. In Finland, the main list of restricted websites is not publicly accessible, despite many cases where websites that had no reason to be blocked have been banned from public access. Pakistan is well known for regulating access to many online media for religious, political and security reasons. Many censorship technologies are unable to correctly classify all content available on the Internet. Censorship technology falls prey to two major flaws: under-blocking and over-blocking of various websites. This type of technology is extremely useful for regulating access to prominent websites, but cannot recognize and filter specific sets of information available on many websites, blogs, discussion forums, etc. Underblocking occurs when censorship technology fails to restrict access to online media that falls under censorship categories. In many cases we can also see the prevalence of overblocking. Here, filtering technologies are unable to accurately identify content that should be censored and regulate the availability of content that cannot be considered offensive or harmful. As a result, the government ends up blocking sites that are not on the censorship blacklist. Saudi Arabia unintentionally blocks certain websites because SmartFilter does not classify them correctly. Researchers still cannot agree on the accuracy of software classification of web content, and many oppose it. Smart Filter marketing data shows a study indicating “94% of sites blocked accurately”; which implies that the software makes errors at least 6% of the time. The Google search engine currently searches over 4 billion web pages. This means that if SmartFilter categorized all of these pages, it would make errors on over 240 million pages, which is not an encouraging number at all in this context. Misclassification by filtering software is inevitable with current technology. However, misclassification by SmartFilter in Saudi Arabia is causing more content to be blocked than the state intended, limiting Saudi citizens and residents' access to information that would otherwise have been allowed. to be consulted and used. Many governments restrict access to the Internet and reduce connection speeds in the name of censorship. More and more national governments are expressly allowing their country's ISPs to monitor and filter their citizens' Internet access. The problem arises when governments themselves facilitate these systems. Such acts should not be shielded from scrutiny under the free speech protections and rights applicable to the nation. They should be accountable to the state, with the required level of analysis, control and systematic procedure that befits such a government enterprise. Iranian citizens have been seen desperately trying to ask the world for help on various social media platforms and news channels. presidential elections in June 2009. Iranians who attempted to access news channels and social media platforms were subjected to unprecedented levels of degradation and torture. Since the uprising around the web has generated a lot of attention, rather than shutting down networks, which would have caused more controversy, the government has reportedly reduced connection speeds to levels that would make the web almost obsolete. , specifically for the use and transfer of multimedia content. This has sometimes taken the form of throttling speeds to specific sites or protocols and stopping all traffic at other times. After the events of the 2009 election, connection and download speeds of webmail services such as Gmail were reported to be significantly disrupted. The use of censorship technologies results in a restriction of freedom of expression. Penalties imposed on those who violate laws and legislation relating to freedom of expression vary widely from country to country. In some cases this may be as simple as a fine, in others it may range from imprisonment to intimidation or even suspected murder. In some countries like China and Myanmar, sanctions are so brutal that they are considered human rights violations. The Chinese government has implemented strict bans on rumors and posts on the Internet. In September 2013, the Supreme People's Court ruled that authors of online content spreading "rumors or lies" viewed by more than 5,000 people or shared more than 500 times risked defamation charges and up to three years of imprisonment. prison. In July 2016, for example, following massive flooding in Hebei province, the government arrested three people accused of spreading "fake news" via social media about the death toll and the cause of the flooding. . Social media posts and photos of the floods, particularly those of drowning victims, were all censored. Censorship technology helps censor harmful and offensive content. Internet censorship is aimed at and caused by a wide range of topics, including hate speech, pornography and even.