why internet censorship is bad essay

John Brown University's Student Newspaper

Averting our eyes: The controversy of internet censorship

Pornography. Extremism. Fake News. Few words have as visceral an effect on a person as these. Together, these three items embody almost everything that is wrong in American society. And how has the government responded to their increase? By inviting them in as guests of honor through internet servers around the country.

Since its inception, the internet has been a nearly universal hub of information and activity. Everything from debates, auctions and photo albums is shared across the web in plain view of the public. Unfortunately, the internet contains much more sinister files than these. Pornography, drug deals and explicit content are all only a few clicks away from anyone with access to a computer. In this age, parents are forced to protect the eyes of their children from graphic content and sexual innuendos from the moment they touch their first device. Sexual addictions and crime rates across the country are on the rise and the vulgarity of the internet bears the brunt of the blame.

For years there has been an ongoing argument regarding the subject of internet censorship. Many groups claim that any content that someone desires to put on the web should be allowed to be posted. Others staunchly believe that the internet has become too explicit and harmful to be allowed to continue unchecked.

I believe that there is a difference between the restriction of useful information that can be applied and evaluated freely by consumers and the restriction of material that has little to no positive application. To be clear, I don’t believe that the internet needs to be dismantled. It is a wonderful tool with limitless potential for the improvement of mankind. But, I also believe that it is a tool that can easily be misused. Evil was not born on the day the internet was created, but it was given a new foster home. In the days of newspapers and encyclopedias, evil things were still captured and mass-produced but not on the scale that the internet allows them to be.

Much of the content on the internet including pornographic websites fall within that category of harmful material. These are things that have no potential to improve society and serve as a stumbling block to many who are exposed to them. We are becoming a culture that is more addicted, sexualized and uncaring than we ever have been before, and it is happening at a younger age than we have previously seen. Left unchecked, this exposure could lead to a dramatic shift in the moral values of American youth. When exposure to explicit content becomes normalized, other more socially unacceptable acts become more acceptable. Several scholars and studies have made the connection between rape acceptance and pornography exposure. Pornography is not simply images or videos; it is the breeding place of complacency and acceptance of heinous acts.

Another more controversial item needing censorship from the internet is websites and forums that foster extreme or criminal opinions. The United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime published a document that records multiple examples of how the internet has been used to foster terrorism across the globe. One of the main ways these groups use the internet to reach people is through propaganda, including messages, videos or games that intended to sway people to a more extreme mindset.

This topic becomes startling when we realize that none of this is actually prohibited. The UNODC states that “the dissemination of propaganda is generally not, in and of itself, a prohibited activity.” How is this not illegal? Criminal groups are embedding dangerous messages into the internet, and there is nothing the law can do to stop them.

The final commonality on the internet that needs to be regulated is fake news. As internet users, we are practically drowned in a flood of news. I understand that storylines will differ based on the perspective from which they are told, but an issue arises when two stories become irreconcilable. We are correct to assume that a narrative contains multiple storylines, but those lines should not contradict each other.

Somehow, individuals and news outlets manage to transform a single-threaded story into a web of self-contradiction and fallacy. Often, only a select few of those accounts are reasonably factual, leaving the rest as pure fiction, written to incite an emotional response in undiscerning people. It has become increasingly difficult to find cultural common ground with people around us because of the sheer quantity of fallacies we are fed. Humanity requires a standard to be set for news on the internet if groups are to begin to fix bridges and restore broken relationships.

But my viewpoint is uncommon. As a whole, the general American consensus is that freedom of speech should not be infringed. They cry that the First Amendment protects our freedom and keeps the government from influencing our lives. The American Constitution makes it clear that information should be free for all, and that it cannot be restricted by the government.

There is certainly justification in their fears. Governments should not be allowed to abuse their power to subjugate their citizens by scrubbing the internet. Many people fear what may happen to America if internet censorship is allowed. They fear that their freedom of speech will be infringed upon, and they will not be able to express their doubts and concerns to the public. In the opinion of many, internet censorship is the first step down the road leading to the eventual loss of freedom for Americans. Without freedom, innovation and progress will come to a standstill, leading to the undoing of American society.

The discussion regarding internet censorship is just one example of a larger ongoing debate. The core of this issue lies the question of man’s moral compass. If a man is born good, then there is no need to regulate content on the internet or anywhere else. But if man is inherently evil, regulation is imperative. Without guidance, humanity will slowly fall away from moral rightness, and we will begin to suffer the consequences of our arrogance.

The question also remains, who exists that is good enough to regulate us? Certainly not the government. They are human as well and have shown that they fall victim to the same errors as the public. The regulator would have to be a group with objective goals and moral uprightness. I am not sure if such a group exists. But if humanity has proven anything, it is that we are a people sorely in need of regulation if we are to remain on a path to improvement.

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Harvard Law & Policy Review

Online Censorship Is Unavoidable—So How Can We Improve It?

By Ben Horton*

A few weeks ago, Professors Jack Goldsmith and Andrew Keane Woods ignited controversy by suggesting in the Atlantic that China was right and America was wrong about internet censorship and surveillance. This seemingly contrarian stance rubbed people the wrong way , especially given reports that China’s online censorship delayed their response to COVID-19 and that Chinese agents have actively disseminated disinformation about the virus—and then attempted to suppress reports revealing their disinformation campaign .

Except the professors’ critics seem to have missed the point of their essay. Goldsmith and Woods said China was right that the internet inevitably would be censored and surveilled, not that China’s methods were normatively appealing.

Even discounting existing state surveillance and censorship on the internet in the United States, private surveillance and censorship is ubiquitous. And, notwithstanding our intuitions, most people want an internet that is subject to ubiquitous censorship—that is, “content moderation.”

Putting aside illegal content (child pornography, snuff films, etc.), most consumers do not want to be inundated with what Sarah Jeong has dubbed “ the internet of garbage .” They do not want to be harassed, bullied, threatened, or spammed on the internet. And in the midst of a global pandemic, they want to ensure disinformation is kept to a minimum. They want to limit harmful speech.

Part of our problem is we still think of speech burdens in a binary, on-off way. But especially online, the question is not whether you can find content, it is how hard it will be to be find and how much it will be amplified .

The question is not if there will be censorship and surveillance, [1] the question is who gets to do it, and how it is done. Right now a relatively small group of private actors make not only the substantive decisions about content on the internet, they decide the process that drives those decisions and how information flows through their networks. They wield enormous power , and are almost completely unaccountable to the public.

So, what are our options?

Option 1: Stay the Course

First, the United States could continue to shield tech companies from most tort-based liability for content posted on their platforms via Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act , maintain an expansive view of the First Amendment, and not substantively regulate tech companies.

Supporters of the current system largely admit that ubiquitous content moderation is good, so long as it is private. They hold that a system of private speech regulation provides a market incentive for platforms to reach a Goldilocks-zone of content moderation : Enough harmful speech is blocked that it is possible to maintain deliberative communication amid the noise, but not so much that deliberative communication is also blocked. Consumers have a choice, and services that fail to moderate will either fail or be consigned to the dark corners of the internet .

But how real is that choice? Alphabet owns the two most popular websites in the world. Facebook (through its eponymous service and Instagram), Twitter, and Reddit collectively dominate U.S. social media . Over the past twenty years who has rivaled them? MySpace? Snapchat? Yahoo!? Tumblr? Even including these rivals, American consumers have had two significant options for their search engines and four or five social media sites. And, at least in part, that lack of choice is due to the inaction by antitrust enforcers at the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice when Google bought YouTube and when Facebook acquired Instagram . In a monopolistic environment consumers can try to campaign for changes to private companies’ policies, but their effectiveness might rely on some of the substantive regulations discussed below.

As Evelyn Douek has argued, these platforms are increasingly cooperative in their moderation decision-making , making consumer choice even more illusory. YouTube’s policies on terrorism-related content are not significantly different than Facebook’s or Twitter’s because they all belong to the same private group that develops those standards. Facebook’s new Oversight Board is probably a step in the right direction, but what happens if it becomes the de facto decision-maker for social media standards generally?

Finally, the market theory is contingent on the assumption that people choose their networks based on the ability of the network to curate information. But the profit incentive of social media companies is to increase our engagement—which might mean pushing harmful content on users , or at least enabling that sort of thing ( until they’re caught ). The negative effects of this content might be exaggerated , but without greater transparency we just don’t know.

Aside from the harms of disinformation, staying the course has the additional drawback of eliminating the United States from the global conversation about internet governance. As Microsoft President Brad Smith mentioned in a recent interview , in the future, tech companies may simply adapt their products to the regulations of the European Union and other Western democracies that lack stringent First Amendment or Section 230 protections against government involvement in online speech. We already see this to some extent with the NetzDG law in Germany, which, if nothing else, is offering us some useful transparency on content moderation.

Or tech companies themselves might simply decide how public health crises are managed .

Either way, the United States government, for better or worse, will simply not have much of a say in what the internet looks like.

Option 2: Content-Based Regulations

For constitutional reasons, the approach of regulating speech based on its content is closed off to the United States. There is a lively academic debate about the status of lies and hate speech under the First Amendment. But absent a political revolution, it will remain an academic debate. The Supreme Court has said, in an 8-1 opinion , it will not open up new “uncovered” zones of speech. Content-based regulations of harmful speech will continue to be subject to strict scrutiny, and they will continue to be struck down.

In the U.S. context, at least for the foreseeable future, content-based censorship will continue to be ubiquitous and limited to private actors. That does not mean we need to leave the speech moderating apparatus entirely to the private sector.

Option 3: Torts, Competition, Process, and Friction

Contrary to cyber-libertarians, the options available are not limited to “censorship” or no regulation at all. We have other tools at our disposal. The key is to focus on content-neutral regulations, especially those that govern the flow of information rather than regulations that criminalize certain content.

As a threshold matter, these policies do not have to—and likely will not—take the form of flat bans and mandates. They might be conditions attached to liability immunities or tax incentives, and they can—and should—distinguish between different types of online services. Of course, companies have been lobbied, and should be lobbied, to make these changes on their own; I am arguing that there is some role for direct government regulation in these realms.

First, we could reform Section 230. While supporters maintain that Section 230 is necessary to ensure that platforms can engage in decent moderation without fear of liability , detractors argue that a well-crafted alternative could still shield sites that engage in good-faith moderation without shielding sites that are designed to facilitate human trafficking , for instance. And regardless of where you stand on the 230 debate, given bipartisan support for both SESTA – FOSTA and the delayed “ EARN IT Act ,” 230 as we know it is unlikely to survive. If we want sensible intermediary liability protection, and not a patchwork of exceptions that probably make the internet less safe, the 230-or-nothing stance is increasingly politically untenable.

Second, we can advocate for regulations that promote competition, creating a market where consumers have real choices and their choices make a difference. This need not be the traditional “breaking up” of companies given the beneficial network effects consumers find in centralized services and the possible aggravation of harm that a balkanized internet could bring . Pro-competition policy could start with blocking the sale of startups to Facebook and Google . It could include the imposition of substantive requirements, like an information fiduciary responsibility or interoperability requirement on organizations with a certain share of the market. Any regulations, however, need to be sensitive to the needs of non-profits with large user bases and low revenues .

Third, and more controversially, we can require more transparent processes in content moderation. A number of organizations have released and advocated for the “ Santa Clara Principles .” These include, at a minimum, publishing the number of posts and accounts taken down organized by the category of violation, providing notice to users whose accounts or posts are taken down, and instituting some kind of appeal process. If content-based moderation decisions are largely going to be done by private actors, their legitimacy relies on being transparent and understandable to the public. Even if changes are brought about by private pressure, we cannot collectively criticize and improve on secret processes .

Finally, and most controversially, maybe we can impose content-neutral, friction-creating regulations that force consumers to be more deliberate in sharing and consuming information. For instance, WhatsApp recently limited its forwarding function so that any messages that come from a chain of more than five people must be forwarded one chat at a time. This type of rule is not content-based; it applies to speech based on its virality, not the “topic, idea or message” communicated. Disclosure requirements—revealing, for example, whether or not a human is speaking —might also increase friction and deliberation. And some regulations of social media’s “frictionless” design might be allowable under the First Amendment.

These regulations avoid the hard epistemological questions and constitutional hurdles of defining harmful speech. They regulate the flow of information regardless of its content instead of worrying about speech concerning a particular topic. Furthermore, they ban no speech—deliberate communication is unaffected.

There are pros and cons to every policy mentioned, with administrability challenges and constitutional issues . But to reach a substantive discussion of the realistic possibilities for regulation in the U.S. context, the conversation needs to move beyond the false binary of “censorship versus free speech.”

* Ben Horton is a rising 3L at Harvard Law School and an Online Editor for HLPR.

[1] I am not talking about the problems of surveillance presented by innovations like the Ring doorbell , or facial recognition . I am referring to the level of surveillance necessary to ensure that speech is successfully moderated on platforms—being able to tie punishments to certain accounts, for example. That overlaps with the problems of online behavioral manipulation and surveillance capitalism, which I am not addressing in this post.

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Americans and ‘Cancel Culture’: Where Some See Calls for Accountability, Others See Censorship, Punishment

People have challenged each other’s views for much of human history . But the internet – particularly social media – has changed how, when and where these kinds of interactions occur. The number of people who can go online and call out others for their behavior or words is immense, and it’s never been easier to summon groups to join the public fray .

The phrase  “cancel culture” is said to have originated  from a relatively obscure slang term – “cancel,” referring to  breaking up with someone  – used in a 1980s song. This term was then referenced in film and television and later evolved and gained traction on social media. Over the past several years, cancel culture has become a deeply contested idea in the nation’s political discourse . There are plenty of debates over what it is and what it means, including whether it’s a way to hold people accountable, or a tactic to punish others unjustly, or a mix of both. And some argue that cancel culture doesn’t even exist .

To better understand how the U.S. public views the concept of cancel culture, Pew Research Center asked Americans in September 2020 to share – in their own words – what they think the term means and, more broadly, how they feel about the act of calling out others on social media. The survey finds a public deeply divided, including over the very meaning of the phrase.

Pew Research Center has a long history of studying the tone and nature of online discourse as well as emerging internet phenomena. This report focuses on American adults’ perceptions of cancel culture and, more generally, calling out others on social media. For this analysis, we surveyed 10,093 U.S. adults from Sept. 8 to 13, 2020. Everyone who took part is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the  ATP’s methodology .

This essay primarily focuses on responses to three different open-ended questions and includes a number of quotations to help illustrate themes and add nuance to the survey findings. Quotations may have been lightly edited for grammar, spelling and clarity. Here are the  questions used for this essay , along with responses, and its  methodology .

Who’s heard of ‘cancel culture’?

As is often the case when a new term enters the collective lexicon, public awareness of the phrase “cancel culture” varies – sometimes widely – across demographic groups.

Overall, 44% of Americans say they have heard at least a fair amount about the phrase, including 22% who have heard a great deal, according to the Center’s survey of 10,093 U.S. adults, conducted Sept. 8-13, 2020. Still, an even larger share (56%) say they’ve heard nothing or not too much about it, including 38% who have heard nothing at all. (The survey was fielded before a string of recent conversations and controversies about cancel culture.)

Familiarity with the term varies with age. While 64% of adults under 30 say they have heard a great deal or fair amount about cancel culture, that share drops to 46% among those ages 30 to 49 and 34% among those 50 and older.

There are gender and educational differences as well. Men are more likely than women to be familiar with the term, as are those who have a bachelor’s or advanced degree when compared with those who have lower levels of formal education. 1

While discussions around cancel culture can be highly partisan, Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents are no more likely than Republicans and GOP-leaning independents to say they have heard at least a fair amount about the phrase (46% vs. 44%). (All references to Democrats and Republicans in this analysis include independents who lean to each party.)

When accounting for ideology, liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans are more likely to have heard at least a fair amount about cancel culture than their more moderate counterparts within each party. Liberal Democrats stand out as most likely to be familiar with the term.

How do Americans define ‘cancel culture’?

As part of the survey, respondents who had heard about “cancel culture” were given the chance to explain in their own words what they think the term means.

The most common responses by far centered around accountability. Some 49% of those familiar with the term said it describes actions people take to hold others accountable: 2

A small share who mentioned accountability in their definitions also discussed how these actions can be misplaced, ineffective or overtly cruel.

Some 14% of adults who had heard at least a fair amount about cancel culture described it as a form of censorship, such as a restriction on free speech or as history being erased:

A similar share (12%) characterized cancel culture as mean-spirited attacks used to cause others harm:

Five other distinct descriptions of the term cancel culture also appeared in Americans’ responses: people canceling anyone they disagree with, consequences for those who have been challenged, an attack on traditional American values, a way to call out issues like racism or sexism, or a misrepresentation of people’s actions. About one-in-ten or fewer described the phrase in each of these ways.

There were some notable partisan and ideological differences in what the term cancel culture represents. Some 36% of conservative Republicans who had heard the term described it as actions taken to hold people accountable, compared with roughly half or more of moderate or liberal Republicans (51%), conservative or moderate Democrats (54%) and liberal Democrats (59%).

Conservative Republicans who had heard of the term were more likely than other partisan and ideological groups to see cancel culture as a form of censorship. Roughly a quarter of conservative Republicans familiar with the term (26%) described it as censorship, compared with 15% of moderate or liberal Republicans and roughly one-in-ten or fewer Democrats, regardless of ideology. Conservative Republicans aware of the phrase were also more likely than other partisan and ideological groups to define cancel culture as a way for people to cancel anyone they disagree with (15% say this) or as an attack on traditional American society (13% say this).

Click here to explore more definitions and explanations of the term cancel culture .

Does calling people out on social media represent accountability or unjust punishment?

Given that cancel culture can mean different things to different people, the survey also asked about the more general act of calling out others on social media for posting content that might be considered offensive – and whether this kind of behavior is more likely to hold people accountable or punish those who don’t deserve it.

Overall, 58% of U.S. adults say in general, calling out others on social media is more likely to hold people accountable, while 38% say it is more likely to punish people who don’t deserve it. But views differ sharply by party. Democrats are far more likely than Republicans to say that, in general, calling people out on social media for posting offensive content holds them accountable (75% vs. 39%). Conversely, 56% of Republicans – but just 22% of Democrats – believe this type of action generally punishes people who don’t deserve it.

Within each party, there are some modest differences by education level in these views. Specifically, Republicans who have a high school diploma or less education (43%) are slightly more likely than Republicans with some college (36%) or at least a bachelor’s degree (37%) to say calling people out for potentially offensive posts is holding people accountable for their actions. The reverse is true among Democrats: Those with a bachelor’s degree or more education are somewhat more likely than those with a high school diploma or less education to say calling out others is a form of accountability (78% vs. 70%).

Among Democrats, roughly three-quarters of those under 50 (73%) as well as those ages 50 and older (76%) say calling out others on social media is more likely to hold people accountable for their actions. At the same time, majorities of both younger and older Republicans say this action is more likely to punish people who didn’t deserve it (58% and 55%, respectively).

People on both sides of the issue had an opportunity to explain why they see calling out others on social media for potentially offensive content as more likely to be either a form of accountability or punishment. We then coded these answers and grouped them into broad areas to frame the key topics of debates.

Initial coding schemes for each question were derived from reading though the open-ended responses and identifying common themes. Using these themes, coders read each response and coded up to three themes for each response. (If a response mentioned more than three themes, the first three mentioned were coded.)

After all the responses were coded, similarities and groupings among codes both within and across the two questions about accountability and punishment became apparent. As such, answers were grouped into broad areas that framed the biggest points of disagreement between these two groups.

We identified five key areas of disagreement in respondents’ arguments for why they held their views of calling out others, broken down as follows:

• 25% of all adults address topics related to whether people who call out others are rushing to judge or are trying to be helpful
• 14% center on whether calling out others on social media is a productive behavior
• 10% focus on whether free speech or creating a comfortable environment online is more important
• 8% address the differing agendas of those who call out others
• 4% focus on whether speaking up is the best action to take if people find content offensive.

For the codes that make up each of these areas, see the Appendix .

Some 17% of Americans who say that calling out others on social media holds people accountable say it can be a teaching moment that helps people learn from their mistakes and do better in the future. Among those who say calling out others unjustly punishes them, a similar share (18%) say it’s because people are not taking the context of a person’s post or the intentions behind it into account before confronting that person.

In all, five types of arguments most commonly stand out in people’s answers. A quarter of all adults mention topics related to whether people who call out others are rushing to judge or are trying to be helpful; 14% center on whether calling out others on social media is a productive behavior or not; 10% focus on whether free speech or creating a comfortable environment online is more important; 8% address the perceived agendas of those who call out others; and 4% focus on whether speaking up is the best action to take if people find content offensive.

Are people rushing to judge or trying to be helpful?

The most common area of opposing arguments about calling out other people on social media arises from people’s differing perspectives on whether people who call out others are rushing to judge or instead trying to be helpful.

One-in-five Americans who see this type of behavior as a form of accountability point to reasons that relate to how helpful calling out others can be. For example, some explained in an open-ended question that they associate this behavior with moving toward a better society or educating others on their mistakes so they can do better in the future. Conversely, roughly a third (35%) of those who see calling out other people on social media as a form of unjust punishment cite reasons that relate to people who call out others being rash or judgmental. Some of these Americans see this kind of behavior as overreacting or unnecessarily lashing out at others without considering the context or intentions of the original poster. Others emphasize that what is considered offensive can be subjective.

Is calling out others on social media productive behavior?

The second most common source of disagreement centers on the question of whether calling out others can solve anything: 13% of those who see calling out others as a form of punishment touch on this issue in explaining their opinion, as do 16% who see it as a form of accountability. Some who see calling people out as unjust punishment say it solves nothing and can actually make things worse. Others in this group question whether social media is a viable place for any productive conversations or see these platforms and their culture as inherently problematic and sometimes toxic. Conversely, there are those who see calling out others as a way to hold people accountable for what they post or to ensure that people consider the consequences of their social media posts.

Which is more important, free speech or creating a comfortable environment online?

Pew Research Center has studied the tension between free speech and feeling safe online for years, including the increasingly partisan nature of these disputes. This debate also appears in the context of calling out content on social media. Some 12% of those who see calling people out as punishment explain – in their own words – that they are in favor of free speech on social media. By comparison, 10% of those who see it in terms of accountability believe that things said in these social spaces matter, or that people should be more considerate by thinking before posting content that may be offensive or make people uncomfortable.

What’s the agenda behind calling out others online?

Another small share of people mention the perceived agenda of those who call out other people on social media in their rationales for why calling out others is accountability or punishment. Some people who see calling out others as a form of accountability say it’s a way to expose social ills such as misinformation, racism, ignorance or hate, or a way to make people face what they say online head-on by explaining themselves. In all, 8% of Americans who see calling out others as a way to hold people accountable for their actions voice these types of arguments.

Those who see calling others out as a form of punishment, by contrast, say it reflects people canceling anyone they disagree with or forcing their views on others. Some respondents feel people are trying to marginalize White voices and history. Others in this group believe that people who call out others are being disingenuous and doing so in an attempt to make themselves look good. In total, these types of arguments were raised by 9% of people who see calling out others as punishment. 

Should people speak up if they are offended?

Arguments for why calling out others is accountability or punishment also involve a small but notable share who debate whether calling others out on social media is the best course of action for someone who finds a particular post offensive. Some 5% of people who see calling out others as punishment say those who find a post offensive should not engage with the post. Instead, they should take a different course of action, such as removing themselves from the situation by ignoring the post or blocking someone if they don’t like what that person has to say. However, 4% of those who see calling out others as a form of accountability believe it is imperative to speak up because saying nothing changes nothing.

Beyond these five main areas of contention, some Americans see shades of gray when it comes to calling out other people on social media and say it can be difficult to classify this kind of behavior as a form of either accountability or punishment. They note that there can be great variability from case to case, and that the efficacy of this approach is by no means uniform: Sometimes those who are being called out may respond with heartfelt apologies but others may erupt in anger and frustration.

Acknowledgments – Appendix – Methodology – Topline

What Americans say about cancel culture and calling out others on social media

Below, we have gathered a selection of quotes from three open-ended survey questions that address two key topics. Americans who’ve heard of the term cancel culture were asked to define what it means to them. After answering a closed-ended question about whether calling out others on social media was more likely to hold people accountable for their actions or punish people who didn’t deserve it, they were asked to explain why they held this view – that is, they were either asked why they saw it as accountability or why they saw it as punishment.

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‘Extremely aggressive’ internet censorship spreads in the world’s democracies

• Kate McAlpine

Censored Planet by salvey on Sketchfab

The largest collection of public internet censorship data ever compiled shows that even citizens of the world’s freest countries are not safe from internet censorship.

A University of Michigan team used Censored Planet, an automated censorship tracking system launched in 2018 by assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science Roya Ensafi, to collect more than 21 billion measurements over 20 months in 221 countries. They will present the findings Nov. 10 at the 2020 ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security.

“We hope that the continued publication of Censored Planet data will enable researchers to continuously monitor the deployment of network interference technologies, track policy changes in censoring nations, and better understand the targets of interference,” Ensafi said. “While Censored Planet does not attribute censorship to a particular entity, we hope that the massive data we’ve collected can help political and legal scholars determine intent.”

News websites blocked in networks in Poland; social networking sites in Sudan

Ensafi’s team found that censorship is increasing in 103 of the countries studied, including unexpected places like Norway, Japan, Italy, India, Israel and Poland—countries which the paper notes are rated as some of the freest in the world by advocacy group Freedom House. They were among nine countries where Censored Planet found significant, previously undetected censorship events between August of 2018 and April of 2020. Previously undetected events were also identified in Cameroon, Ecuador and Sudan.

While the study observed an increase in blocking activity in these countries, most were driven by organizations or internet service providers filtering content. The study did not observe any nationwide censorship policies such as those in China. While the United States saw a smaller uptick in blocking activity, Ensafi points out that the groundwork for such blocking has been put in place in the United States.

“When the United States repealed net neutrality, they created an environment in which it would be easy, from a technical standpoint, for internet service providers to interfere with or block internet traffic,” Ensafi said. “The architecture for greater censorship is already in place and we should all be concerned about heading down a slippery slope.”

It’s already happening abroad, the study shows.

“What we see from our study is that no country is completely free,” said Ram Sundara Raman, a PhD candidate in computer science and engineering at U-M and the first author on the paper. “Today, many countries start with legislation that compels internet service providers to block something that’s obviously bad like child sex abuse material. But once that blocking infrastructure is in place, governments can block any websites they choose, and it’s usually a very opaque process. That’s why censorship measurement is crucial, particularly continuous measurements that show trends over time.”

Norway, for example—tied with Finland and Sweden as the world’s freest country according to Freedom House—passed a series of laws requiring internet service providers to block some gambling and pornography content, beginning in early 2018. But in Norway, Censored Planet’s measurements also identified network inconsistencies across a broader range of content, including human rights websites like Human Rights Watch and online dating sites like match.com.

Similar tactics show up in other countries, often in the wake of large political events, social unrest or new laws. While Censored Planet can detect increases in censorship, it cannot identify any direct connection to political events. It’s also important to note that it’s not always government-demanded network censorship that leads to websites being unreachable, though.

Some news websites were blocked in a few networks in Japan during the G20 Summit in June of 2019. News, human rights, and government websites saw a censorship spike in certain networks in Poland while a series of protests occurred in July of 2019, and social media websites were blocked in Sri Lanka after a series of bomb blasts in the country in January 2019. Some online dating websites were blocked in India after the country repealed laws against gay sex in September of 2018.

Censored Planet releases technical details for researchers, activists

Roya Ensafi. Image credit: Joseph Xu, Michigan Engineering

The researchers say the findings show the effectiveness of Censored Planet’s approach, which turns public internet servers across the globe into automated sentries that can monitor and report when access to websites is being blocked. Running continuously, it takes billions of automated measurements and then uses a series of tools and filters to analyze the data, removing noise and teasing out trends.

The paper also makes public technical details about the workings of Censored Planet that Sundara Raman says will make it easier for other researchers to draw insights from the project’s data. It will also help activists make more informed decisions about where to focus their efforts.

“It’s very important for people who work on circumvention to know exactly what’s being censored on which network and what method is being used,” Ensafi said. “That’s data that Censored Planet can provide, and tech experts can use it to devise circumventions for censorship efforts.”

Censored Planet’s constant, automated monitoring is a departure from traditional approaches that rely on volunteers to collect data manually from inside the countries being monitored. Manual monitoring can be dangerous for volunteers, who may face reprisals from governments. The limited scope of these approaches also means that efforts are often focused on countries already known for censorship, enabling nations that are perceived as freer to fly under the radar. While censorship efforts generally start small, Sundara Raman says they could have big implications in a world that is increasingly dependent on the internet for essential communication needs.

“We imagine the internet as a global medium where anyone can access any resource, and it’s supposed to make communication easier, especially across international borders,” he said. “We find that if this upward trend of increasing censorship continues, that won’t be true anymore. We fear this could lead to a future where every country has a completely different view of the internet.”

The paper is titled “ Censored Planet: An Internet-wide, Longitudinal Censorship Observatory. ” The research team also included former U-M computer science and engineering student Prerana Shenoy, and Katharina Kohls, an assistant professor at Radboud University in Nijmegen, Netherlands. The research was supported in part by the U.S. National Science Foundation, Award CNS-1755841.

Clarifications: This story has been updated to include additional nuance about the research, including: The names of the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post websites were removed from the subhead and the body of the story because the instance of blocking was only observed in one network and may be a case of misconfiguration rather than censorship.

More information:

• Roya Ensafi
• Ram Sundara Raman

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Despite being founded on ideals of freedom and openness, censorship on the internet is rampant, with more than 60 countries engaging in some form of state-sponsored censorship. A research project at the University of Cambridge is aiming to uncover the scale of this censorship, and to understand how it affects users and publishers of information

Censorship over the internet can potentially achieve unprecedented scale Sheharbano Khattak

For all the controversy it caused, Fitna is not a great film. The 17-minute short, by the Dutch far-right politician Geert Wilders, was a way for him to express his opinion that Islam is an inherently violent religion. Understandably, the rest of the world did not see things the same way. In advance of its release in 2008, the film received widespread condemnation, especially within the Muslim community.

When a trailer for Fitna was released on YouTube, authorities in Pakistan demanded that it be removed from the site. YouTube offered to block the video in Pakistan, but would not agree to remove it entirely. When YouTube relayed this decision back to the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA), the decision was made to block YouTube.

Although Pakistan has been intermittently blocking content since 2006, a more persistent blocking policy was implemented in 2011, when porn content was censored in response to a media report that highlighted Pakistan as the top country in terms of searches for porn. Then, in 2012, YouTube was blocked for three years when a video, deemed blasphemous, appeared on the website. Only in January this year was the ban lifted, when Google, which owns YouTube, launched a Pakistan-specific version, and introduced a process by which governments can request the blocking of access to offending material.

All of this raises the thorny issue of censorship. Those censoring might raise objections to material on the basis of offensiveness or incitement to violence (more than a dozen people died in Pakistan following widespread protests over the video uploaded to YouTube in 2012). But when users aren’t able to access a particular site, they often don’t know whether it’s because the site is down, or if some force is preventing them from accessing it. How can users know what is being censored and why?

“The goal of a censor is to disrupt the flow of information,” says Sheharbano Khattak, a PhD student in Cambridge’s Computer Laboratory, who studies internet censorship and its effects. “internet censorship threatens free and open access to information. There’s no code of conduct when it comes to censorship: those doing the censoring – usually governments – aren’t in the habit of revealing what they’re blocking access to.” The goal of her research is to make the hidden visible.

She explains that we haven’t got a clear understanding of the consequences of censorship: how it affects different stakeholders, the steps those stakeholders take in response to censorship, how effective an act of censorship is, and what kind of collateral damage it causes.

Because censorship operates in an inherently adversarial environment, gathering relevant datasets is difficult. Much of the key information, such as what was censored and how, is missing. In her research, Khattak has developed methodologies that enable her to monitor censorship by characterising what normal data looks like and flagging anomalies within the data that are indicative of censorship.

She designs experiments to measure various aspects of censorship, to detect censorship in actively and passively collected data, and to measure how censorship affects various players.

The primary reasons for government-mandated censorship are political, religious or cultural. A censor might take a range of steps to stop the publication of information, to prevent access to that information by disrupting the link between the user and the publisher, or to directly prevent users from accessing that information. But the key point is to stop that information from being disseminated.

Internet censorship takes two main forms: user-side and publisher-side. In user-side censorship, the censor disrupts the link between the user and the publisher. The interruption can be made at various points in the process between a user typing an address into their browser and being served a site on their screen. Users may see a variety of different error messages, depending on what the censor wants them to know. 

“The thing is, even in countries like Saudi Arabia, where the government tells people that certain content is censored, how can we be sure of everything they’re stopping their citizens from being able to access?” asks Khattak. “When a government has the power to block access to large parts of the internet, how can we be sure that they’re not blocking more than they’re letting on?”

What Khattak does is characterise the demand for blocked content and try to work out where it goes. In the case of the blocking of YouTube in 2012 in Pakistan, a lot of the demand went to rival video sites like Daily Motion. But in the case of pornographic material, which is also heavily censored in Pakistan, the government censors didn’t have a comprehensive list of sites that were blacklisted, so plenty of pornographic content slipped through the censors’ nets. 

Despite any government’s best efforts, there will always be individuals and publishers who can get around censors, and access or publish blocked content through the use of censorship resistance systems. A desirable property, of any censorship resistance system is to ensure that users are not traceable, but usually users have to combine them with anonymity services such as Tor.

“It’s like an arms race, because the technology which is used to retrieve and disseminate information is constantly evolving,” says Khattak. “We now have social media sites which have loads of user-generated content, so it’s very difficult for a censor to retain control of this information because there’s so much of it. And because this content is hosted by sites like Google or Twitter that integrate a plethora of services, wholesale blocking of these websites is not an option most censors might be willing to consider.”

In addition to traditional censorship, Khattak also highlights a new kind of censorship – publisher-side censorship – where websites refuse to offer services to a certain class of users. Specifically, she looks at the differential treatments of Tor users by some parts of the web. The issue with services like Tor is that visitors to a website are anonymised, so the owner of the website doesn’t know where their visitors are coming from. There is increasing use of publisher-side censorship from site owners who want to block users of Tor or other anonymising systems.

“Censorship is not a new thing,” says Khattak. “Those in power have used censorship to suppress speech or writings deemed objectionable for as long as human discourse has existed. However, censorship over the internet can potentially achieve unprecedented scale, while possibly remaining discrete so that users are not even aware that they are being subjected to censored information.”

Professor Jon Crowcroft, who Khattak works with, agrees: “It’s often said that, online, we live in an echo chamber, where we hear only things we agree with. This is a side of the filter bubble that has its flaws, but is our own choosing. The darker side is when someone else gets to determine what we see, despite our interests. This is why internet censorship is so concerning.”

“While the cat and mouse game between the censors and their opponents will probably always exist,” says Khattak. “I hope that studies such as mine will illuminate and bring more transparency to this opaque and complex subject, and inform policy around the legality and ethics of such practices.”

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The Guardian view on internet censorship: when access is denied

Over the holiday period the Guardian’s leader column examines the challenges of the future by fathoming out the present. Today we look at growing efforts to restrict internet access

F or a long time, the seductive promise of the internet was of expanding horizons. Individual users would reach out, discovering new friends and new prospects. Nation would speak unto nation. That dream was not unfounded, but it was always an incomplete account, and the sceptics are increasingly being proved right. We are entering an age when what defines the internet may be not expansion but contraction; while the number of its users continues to grow, the imaginative and discursive space it offers is under threat. That space is constrained not only by tech firms’ decisions and customers’ choices, but by the diktat of governments.

Look to a new record set by India at the end of the year. In mid-December, the internet shutdown in Kashmir – one of several in the country – became the longest ever imposed in a democracy. The government celebrated with restrictions in Delhi , too. India’s actions put it in bad but plentiful company. The year began with a 20-day shutdown in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Sudan, Zimbabwe and Iraq are among those who followed due to protests. (Ethiopia cut off access for fear of cheating in exams, as well as following the assassinations of officials.) The effect was not only to prevent information coming in, or circulating internally, but to hinder news getting out. Access Now, an advocacy group dedicated to a free and open internet, says that shutdowns – sometimes targeting specific services, or throttling bandwidth rather than totally closing down access – leapt from 75 in 2016 to 196 in 2018 . Last year’s tally, still being finalised, will show another rise.

Spreading controls Shutdowns are the most blunt and conspicuous aspect of internet restrictions. Other methods range from “fake news” laws in Singapore and Myanmar to the blocking of particular platforms. The US NGO Freedom House has recorded declines in net freedom eight years in a row. In part, of course, censorship is rising because internet use is increasing. More than half the world is now online. Communities have found new sources of information and opinion, and a new way to magnify their voices. Some of the governments spending billions to get their peoples online are simultaneously finding ways to deny them access. The global tilt towards authoritarianism is another critical factor, and has helped drive demand for sophisticated censorship technologies. Leaders seeking to expand their traditional information controls (arresting journalists; closing printing presses) into the new realm are also taking cues from each other; when Benin shut down access last year, it followed the regional examples of Togo and the Gambia.

No country has done more to encourage the spread of internet restrictions than China, which has developed the world’s most sophisticated and wide-reaching censorship system, comprising internal controls, the Great Firewall blocking external services and, say researchers, the Great Cannon , a tool for DDoS attacks that overwhelm their targets with traffic. Though Beijing, too, has used shutdowns, for the most part it has ensured that it does not need to do so. Five years ago, Iran announced that China would help to develop its “national information network” and ensure “safe and healthy domestic services”. In November, during widespread protests, it managed to cut users off from the global internet while internal networks functioned relatively normally. Russia announced last month that it had completed tests to check that its internet services would work if the country were cut off from the world wide web. It follows a “sovereign internet” bill which substantially increases the government’s control, stating that all internal traffic should be carried within the country’s own networks, with other traffic going through registered exchange points.

There are economic benefits to persuading other countries to buy censorship technologies, as there are in making it hard or impossible for users to access foreign services, pushing them towards domestic rivals. But this is not just a commercial endeavour. Xi Jinping wants to transform China into a “cyber superpower”, touting the country’s regime as “a new option for other countries and nations that want to speed up their development while preserving their independence”. China is exporting not only its technology but its laws and skills, normalising its censorship practices. It has invited dozens of countries to seminars on legislation and policy. Freedom House has noted that soon after officials took such training, Vietnam introduced a cybersecurity law mimicking China’s own.

Testing the limits Tellingly, the Chinese state-run People’s Daily Online welcomed India’s internet shutdown in Assam and Meghalaya last month. A commentary on the website suggested that this had “once again proved that the necessary regulation of the internet is a reasonable choice of sovereign countries based on national interests, and a natural extension of national sovereignty in cyberspace”.

It’s true that democracies – even those far more liberal than Narendra Modi’s India – set limits upon what can be published, sometimes wrongly. But they tend to restrict far less material than autocracies, and the distinction is qualitative too. There is an obvious difference between banning images of child sexual abuse, and barring any criticism of political leaders. There is also a profound difference between a clear and transparent set of specific rules which can be challenged in independent courts and changed by a democratically elected legislature, and vague injunctions applied arbitrarily and behind a veil. In China, censorship decisions are themselves secret .

The most challenging issue may be how to respond when services are used to incite hatred and violence. Myanmar , Bangladesh, India and other places have experienced the deadly real-world effects of lies spreading at previously unimaginable speed online. Yet each claim that restrictions are needed to protect the public must be scrutinised; unscrupulous governments too often abuse them.

Even in immediate crises, closing off services can leave potential victims vulnerable and the information vacuum can magnify distrust. A better way forward is regulation which obliges tech companies to live up to their responsibilities. Introducing friction may be appropriate where prohibition is not. WhatsApp limited how many times a message can be forwarded after the viral spread of false rumours about child abduction led to lynchings in India .

Where internet restrictions are needed, they must be both proportionate and transparent. Information matters. If it didn’t, autocrats would not be so anxious to control its flow. And the people they rule would not keep finding ways to circumvent those restrictions.

• Freedom of speech
• Narendra Modi

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Threats to freedom of press: Violence, disinformation & censorship

The free flow of ideas: Freedom of the press, the journalists on the frontline

The way we see the world and act on it depends on the information we have. This is why freedom of expression and freedom of the press are fundamental rights, and the free flow of ideas is a key driver of vibrant societies and human progress. UNESCO works to reinforce the tools, skills and conditions that make these rights real.

Peter R. De Vries was on his way to a car park, walking past crowds of people enjoying post-work drinks in the heart of Amsterdam. It was the early evening of 6 July 2021 and the veteran crime journalist had just left a nearby TV studio, where he had appeared as a talk show guest. 

De Vries was a household name in the Netherlands, where his own TV show had run for 17 years, working with crime victims’ families, pursuing unsolved cases and exposing miscarriages of justice. The journalist had recently refused police protection after receiving death threats. A year earlier, he had agreed to act as an adviser to the key prosecution witness against the suspected head of a cocaine trafficking gang. 

As De Vries walked to his car, several bullets were fired at him. He died from his injuries nine days later. 

Threats and violence against journalists

De Vries’ death prompted outpourings of condemnation and anger in Europe. Yet, many journalists and reporters around the world today risk their lives to uncover the truth. Every four days a journalist is killed in the world. In 2020 alone, according to UNESCO, 62 journalists were killed just for doing their jobs. Between 2006 and 2020, over 1,200 media professionals lost their lives in the same way. In nine out of ten cases, the killers go unpunished.

In many countries investigating corruption, trafficking, human rights violations, and political or environmental issues puts journalists’ lives at risk.

62 journalists killed in 2020,

just for doing their jobs: UNESCO

Crimes against journalists have an enormous impact on society as a whole, because they prevent people from making informed decisions.

To help create the kind of environment journalists need to perform their vital work, UNESCO has set up several initiatives, including a global plan of action for the safety of journalists, in order to support Member States to establish or improve mechanisms for prevention, protection and prosecution to bring justice to cases of murdered journalists. One key aspect of UNESCO’s work is first and foremost to report and publicly condemn all cases of killing of journalists. UNESCO also produces training materials and best practices to help improve journalists’ skills and knowledge on international standards for freedom of expression, investigative journalism and reporting on conflicts.

For the past 40 years, UNESCO’s International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC)   has focused on targeting the most pressing issues concerning communication development around the world. It helps keep journalists safe, supports the development of media in countries where it is most needed, promotes freedom of expression and public access to information.

UNESCO's initiatives

Fostering Freedom of Expression

Women journalists facing risks and abuse

Across the world, journalists face countless threats every day, ranging from kidnapping, torture and arbitrary detention to disinformation campaigns and harassment, especially on social media. Women journalists are at particular risk. 

According to UNESCO research, 73 per cent of women journalists surveyed said they had been threatened, intimidated and insulted online in connection with their work. Often, the failure to investigate and address online attacks has real-life consequences for women journalists, affecting their mental and physical health. In some cases, online threats can escalate to physical violence and even murder, as the murder of Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in 2017 demonstrated.

#JournalistsToo:

For many years, Caruana Galizia had been the most prominent investigative journalist in Malta. She had worked as a columnist and editor in various newspapers. She later set up the website Running Commentary, where she published some of her most significant investigative journalism, exposing tax abuse and corruption in Malta and abroad. Harassment, threats and attempts to silence the journalist had been a constant presence throughout her career.

Online threats and violence against women journalists are designed to belittle, humiliate and shame them, as well as induce fear, silence and discredit them professionally. To respond to increasing threats against women journalists, UNESCO has published a research paper aimed at associations, politicians and governments: The Chilling . It seeks to promote discussion about effective legislative and organizational initiatives that are designed to protect women journalists.

Training judges and prosecutors to defend press freedom

Caruana Galizia’s biggest fear was that her example of physical threats, online harassments and libel lawsuits might discourage other journalists from speaking out. At the time of her death, Caruana Galizia was facing 48 libel suits. Award-winning journalist and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Maria Ressa also faced several lawsuits before being found guilty of libel in the Philippines in 2020.

What you are seeing is death by a thousand cuts for press freedom and democracy. It joins the messaging that was pushed out on social media that “journalists equal criminals.

Ressa and a former colleague at the news site she founded, Rappler, were convicted of cyber libel by a court in Manila after they published an article linking a businessman to illegal activities. During her career, Ressa has been arrested and has been subject to a sustained campaign of gendered online abuse, threats and harassment, which at one point, resulted in her receiving an average of over 90 hateful messages an hour on Facebook.

Often based on meritless or exaggerated claims, these lawsuits are brought in order to pressure a journalist or human rights defender, rather than to vindicate a right.

That is why judges and prosecutors play an important role in protecting journalists from threats and harassment, as well as promoting prompt and effective criminal proceedings when attacks occur.

When attacks against journalists go unpunished, the legal system and safety frameworks have failed everyone.

In recent years, UNESCO has trained nearly 23,000 judicial officials, including judges, prosecutors and lawyers, through several workshops on media and journalist law, training courses and online webinars, in partnership with universities and educational institutions like the Knight Center for Journalism at the University of Austin, Texas (USA). Training focuses on international standards related to freedom of expression and the safety of journalists, placing a particular focus on issues of impunity. In 2021, UNESCO’s online conference The role of the judiciary and international cooperation to foster safety of journalists – What works? explored effective ways in which judges, prosecutors and lawyers, as well as regional human rights courts and judicial training institutes, can combat impunity for crimes against journalists.

The fight against misinformation and censorship

The threats to freedom of expression and democracy also come from misinformation and censorship. The COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing pandemic of misinformation have demonstrated that access to facts and science can be a matter of life and death.  In the first three months of 2020, almost 6,000 people around the world were hospitalized because of coronavirus misinformation, according to a paper published in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene . During this period, researchers say at least 800 people may have died due to misinformation related to COVID-19.

In May 2020, at the very beginning of the pandemic, the Knight Center, with the support of UNESCO and the World Health Organization (WHO), launched an online course on how to empower journalists, communication workers and content creators countering the phenomenon of disinformation related to the pandemic. The course attracted nearly 9,000 students from 162 countries. ‘2020 was surely the most important year for the fact-checking community,’ said journalist Cristina Tardáguila, who was the course instructor and has been involved in global initiatives against disinformation as associate director of the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN).

Journalism in a Pandemic: Covering COVID-19 Now and in the Future is an online self-directed course available in eight languages:  Arabic ,  Chinese ,  English ,  French ,  Hindi ,  Portuguese ,  Russian and  Spanish . 

Journalists covering the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines have received support through a live webinar, Covering the COVID-19 Vaccines: What Journalists Need to Know.  The recording is now available in 13 languages : Arabic, Bambara, Chinese, Dari, English, French, Guarani, Hindi, Pashto, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Wolof.

The media can also take an important part in understanding complex issues such as climate change and fighting the misinformation that surrounds it. In the face of climate change, journalists have the ability to enlighten the public and be the link between scientists and citizens by highlighting the urgency of the situation, but also tell stories that are positive and inspire solutions.

Getting the Message Across: Reporting on Climate Change and Sustainable Development in Asia and the Pacific

UNESCO has supported the publication of a handbook for journalists covering climate change. Journalists are key to ensuring that stories of destruction as well as of resistance are shared, in order to get the message across about climate change and avoid misinformation.

The power of community radios

The struggle to protect journalists and promote freedom of expression is just one of the pillars helping build knowledge societies that have the power to transform economies and communities. Universal access to information and knowledge as well as the respect for cultural and linguistic diversity are essential to building peace, sustainable economic development and intercultural dialogue.

The Syrian Hour is a UNESCO-funded project that produces a bi-weekly radio programme, aired on Yarmouk FM radio station in Irbid, northern Jordan, where there is a large Syrian refugee population. 

Syrian Hour

The programme trains young Syrians in radio broadcasting skills to host the shows while the shows themselves provide vital information and support to displaced Syrian refugees residing in Jordan. Majd Al Sammouri is one of the young people being trained to host The Syrian Hour. 

The first paths of my dreams were at the Faculty of Media and Mass Communication at the University of Damascus, a road I thought was lost forever after finding refuge in Jordan. Yarmouk FM was the compass that put me back to the streets of my dreams.

Many Syrian refugees who fled the war to Jordan still lack awareness about their security, liberty and protection rights and what is available to them in terms of food-assistance, education, health or psychosocial support. Often, their precarious refugee status makes them too afraid to approach authorities and humanitarian organizations.

Majd and his young colleagues provide much-needed reliable information and support to the refugee community.

Community radio is a powerful tool because it has the potential to reach out to people with little or no access to information. It is an efficient mechanism for educating and informing people living in remote areas about key issues such as health, education and sustainable development.

UNESCO is supporting and promoting community radios as a means to facilitate social communication and support democratic processes within societies.

Community radios are also being used to promote oral traditions. For example, in Bandafassi, Senegal, the community radio broadcasts stories and proverbs, traditional music and the history of the various villages. This is one of the many small steps towards building pluralistic and diverse media that provide free impartial information options to empower the public to make their choices towards peace, sustainability, poverty eradication and human rights.

UNESCO is supporting and promoting community radios

Fostering freedom of speech.

UNESCO works to foster free, independent and pluralistic media in print, broadcast and online. Media that adhere to this model enhance freedom of speech as well as contribute to peace, sustainability, poverty eradication and human rights.

#TruthNeverDies

#TruthNeverDies is a campaign developed jointly by UNESCO and communication agency DDB Paris to commemorate the  International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists  on 2 November.

Women Make the News 

Women Make the News is a global initiative aimed at raising awareness on issues relating to gender equality in and through the media, driving debate and encouraging action-oriented solutions to meet global objectives.

#HerMomentsMatter  

#HerMomentsMatter is a continuation of UNESCO’s World Radio Day campaign and aims to promote fairer coverage of women athletes. Women represent just 7 per cent of sportspeople seen, heard or read about in the media, while only 4 per cent of sports stories focus primarily on women. 

Remote Radio Week

Community media, whether broadcast or online, are key to ensuring media pluralism and freedom of expression. They are also an indicator of a healthy democratic society.

In partnership with the World Health Organization (WHO), UNESCO has launched a free online training for radio stations to develop their capacities to broadcast remotely.

AI and Facial Recognition webinar

This webinar about artificial intelligence (AI) and facial recognition, organized by UNESCO, touches on the pressing issues of facial recognition and the concerns it raises about the widespread adoption of AI and human rights. As AI is developing rapidly, it is important to understand its developments, which may have profound and potentially adverse impacts on individuals and society.

Webinar on Artificial Intelligence and Facial Recognition

World atlas of languages.

The World Atlas of Languages is an unprecedented initiative to preserve, revitalize and promote global linguistic diversity and multilingualism as a unique heritage and treasure of humanity. The project aims to stimulate new research and innovation, create demand for new language resources and tools, help support language policy and legislation, and forge new partnerships and collaboration in the global community to open up access to information.  

World Digital Library

Launched in 2009, the World Digital Library is a project of the U.S. Library of Congress, with the support of UNESCO, and contributions from libraries, archives, museums, educational institutions and international organizations around the world. The WDL seeks to preserve and share some of the world’s most important cultural objects, increasing access to cultural treasures and significant historical documents, to enable discovery, scholarship and use.

UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize

Created in 1997, the annual UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize honours an individual, organisation or institution that has made an outstanding contribution to the defence and, or promotion of press freedom anywhere in the world, especially when this has been achieved in the face of danger. It is named after Guillermo Cano Isaza, a Colombian journalist who was assassinated in front of the offices of his newspaper El Espectador in Bogotá, Colombia on 17 December 1986.

UNESCO / Guillermo Cano

World Press Freedom Prize

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“In the dot-com heyday of the ’90s and early 2000s…there was a myth that the Internet can’t be controlled,” says Ronald Deibert, a researcher at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab. “There was some mysterious, magical property associated with it that will route around censorship.” The most exhaustive study yet of Internet censorship—Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering, published this month by the MIT Press—pretty much disproves that notion.

The report’s authors, the OpenNet Initiative—a multi­disciplinary team at the University of Toronto, and Cambridge, Harvard, and Oxford universities—sent investigators to 41 countries that had been rumored to filter Internet content, whether to silence political dissent or to block access to pornography or religiously and culturally divisive material.

ONI set out to objectively confirm or invalidate the reports. It found that the situation was worse than the rumor mill suggested. “The big thing is that the scope, scale, and sophistication of Internet content filtering is on the rise worldwide, and it’s really an alarming increase,” says Deibert, one of the book’s editors and contributors.

ONI discovered systematic Internet filtering in 25 countries, with nine of them—China, Ethiopia, Iran, Myanmar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, and Yemen—blocking content in every category it investigated.

“The vast majority of ­content [around the world] that is blocked is ­pornography,” Deibert says. “But what we’re seeing now is many countries ­broadening the scope of their filtering to political opposition ­movements, human rights information, Web sites of minority groups, ­secessionist movements, gay and lesbian information, translation ­services, and encyclopedias.”

On the other hand, five countries—Azerbaijan, Jordan, Morocco, Singapore, and Tajikistan—that were rumored to broadly filter the Internet turned out to block just one or a few select Web sites.

ONI researchers travel to each country they test and, wherever possible, employ Internet-savvy locals who know the ISPs and cybercafés most likely to be targeted by the government. Using a Web browser in the Internet cafés, on the local ISPs, or both, they attempt to access approximately 1000 Web sites that might be targeted by any government. The sites include top human rights, activism, and pornography destinations, as well as ones that offer tools that let you surf the Web without being traced.

In-country researchers also run local lists of sites that might be targeted by the relevant authorities. In China, for example, they tried to access sites associated with Falun Gong and local democracy activists. In Arabian and Persian Gulf countries, ONI attempted to access women’s rights and Islamic dissident sites.

Testing over a span of weeks, at various times of night and day, ONI ­researchers concluded that a site had been filtered if it was persistently unavailable in the country but accessible elsewhere in the world.

ONI has noted that censorious governments have become increasingly subtle about the way they filter Internet content.

One new frontier of Internet censorship, Deibert says, is “just-in-time filtering.” For instance, ONI detected no noteworthy filtration in Kyrgyzstan in general. But in the weeks leading up to the country’s February 2005 elections, Web sites of the country’s opposition newspapers were regularly taken down by denial-of-service attacks. ONI traced those attacks back to Ukrainian hackers for hire but was never able to establish a direct link to the Kyrgyz government.

In a more recent instance, the Cambodian government blocked SMS messaging over the country’s cellular network for the two weeks before elections last April. “One would have to surmise,” Deibert says, “that they were doing this to prevent mobilization of opposition, especially street demonstrations.”

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Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — Internet Censorship — Why Internet Censorship Is A Bad Idea

Why Internet Censorship is a Bad Idea

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13 Internet Censorship Pros and Cons

Internet censorship is the ability to restrict specific websites or online content from being viewed. It may come in the form of an edit, regulation, or law issued by the government. It could also occur privately is an ISP objects to the content that certain individuals wish to view.

The advantage of allowing internet censorship is that content which is violent, obscene, or dangerous can be immediately blocked. This protects children from inadvertently viewing content that could be scary or harmful to them, such as the murder and decapitation videos which have made their way to sites like Facebook and Twitter in recent years.

The disadvantage is obvious: internet censorship is a restriction on a person’s ability to view the content they wish to see, when they wish to see it.

Here are some additional internet censorship pros and cons to discuss.

What Are the Pros of Internet Censorship?

1. It creates the chance to set common sense limits. There are some things that just aren’t part of what a society would deem to be healthy. A simple search right now on an unfiltered public search can provide anyone with access to numerous videos that purport to show real murders in progress. High-profile cases, such as the murders of Alison Parker and Adam Ward, were broadcast on-air and then a first-person video of the event made its way through social circles afterwards. Restricting this content sets a common-sense limit on the content that van be viewed.

2. It limits access to harmful activities. There are dark areas of the internet where anything goes right now. Access to illicit drugs, sex trafficking, human trafficking, and child pornography can be accessed with relative ease by those who seek out such things. By restricting content that can be accessed, it limits the opportunities that predators can create to reach out to find new victims.

3. It could lessen the impact of identity theft. One of the fastest growing crimes in the world today is identity theft. NBC News reports that more US citizens were victims of identity theft in 2016 than any year before. More than 15.4 million reports of identity theft were compiled by Javelin Strategy and Research, which reflects a 16% increase in the total number of reports from 2015 figures. Restricting content that would allow identity information to be easily shared could lessen the impact that identity theft causes to a society.

4. It may provide a positive impact on national security. Although hacking will occur no matter what internet censorship laws may be in place, by creating internet censorship regulations with strict and mandatory penalties for a violation, it could become possible to reduce the number of hacking incidents that occur. That could have a positive impact on national security because the restrictions would possibly prevent alleged incidents like what occurred during the 2016 US Presidential election.

5. It stops fake news. Claims of fake news increased dramatically in 2017. Fake news websites promote false reports for money through clicks because readers think the news is real. Internet censorship would provide another level of discernment which could possibly stop divisive incidents that are based on events that never occurred.

What Are the Cons of Internet Censorship?

1. Who watches the watchers? Even if internet censorship is directly supervised and ethically maintained, someone somewhere is deciding on what is acceptable and what is not acceptable for society to see online. At some level, someone does not have anyone to whom they report regarding their censorship decisions. With that kind of power, one individual could influence society in whatever way they chose without consequence.

2. It stops information. Although fake information can be restricted through internet censorship, so can real information. According to the World Economic Forum, 27% of all internet users live in a country where someone has been arrested for content that they have shared, published, or simply liked on Facebook. 38 different countries made arrests based solely on social media posts in 2016.

3. It is a costly process. According to research from Darrell West, VP and Director of Governance Studies and the founding director of the Center for Technology Innovation at Brookings, internet shutdowns cost countries $2.4 billion in 2015. The decision to cut connectivity in Egypt came at a cost of $90 million. Censoring content is costly and it will come at the expense of taxpayers.

4. It provides a negative economic impact. What happens if a business has their website blocked because it doesn’t meet an arbitrary standard of “goodness”? Allowing the government or some other entity to declare what is “good” or “bad” for the internet can have a dramatic economic impact at the local level. If a business cannot promote themselves online or sell their goods on an e-commerce platform, then they are placed in a disadvantageous state compared to industry competitors who would be allowed to sell online.

5. It shifts where responsibilities lie. If the government is dictating what individuals can see online, then people are no longer as responsible for the decisions they make. It cedes that control over to the government. Once that control is ceded, it becomes easier to cede more control over responsibility because the action was normalized.

6. It prevents individuals from accessing a freedom of expression. A free internet allows individuals to post what they want. It gives them the chance to freely express their thoughts, opinions, and views. Laws may already exist in many jurisdictions that would allow for the prosecution of individuals who share illegal content already, such as child pornography, so placing additional restrictions would simply create another layer of bureaucracy.

7. A lack of truth leads to ignorance. In 1984 by George Orwell, people in this dystopian environment are kept under tight control so that specific societal results can occur. Once people in this society begin to discover love, they discover truth. That truth prevents them from living in ignorance. With internet censorship, there is a lack of truth which exists in such a policy. That means there is a societal ignorance in place that a ruling party could attempt to control.

8. It limits entrepreneurial opportunities. In a world of internet censorship, entrepreneurs would be forced to have their ideas approved by an oversight committee, board, or individual instead of pursuing the idea immediately on their own. If a business in the same industry as the entrepreneur has enough wealth or influence, they could potentially restrict the entrepreneur from pursuing their opportunity. Such an action would limit innovation in many sectors.

These internet censorship pros and cons show us that what can be used for good can also be used for selfish intent. Who do you think should determine if content is inappropriate? Should it be a government, an oversight committee, or yourself?

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Classic internet censorship.

New regulations in Indonesia show that strict online controls are no longer confined to autocratic countries like China.

By Shira Ovide

I want us to consider the implications of this new reality: In three of the four most populous countries in the world, governments have now given themselves the power to order that the internet be wiped of citizens’ posts that the authorities don’t like.

Indonesia — the world’s fourth-most populous country, and a democracy — is in the process of implementing what civil rights organizations say are overly broad regulations to demand removal of online speech that officials consider a disturbance to society or public order. Most major internet companies, including Google, Meta, Netflix, TikTok, Apple and Twitter have effectively agreed to go along with the rules, for now.

Indonesia’s regulations are another sign that strict online controls are no longer confined to autocratic countries like China , Iran, North Korea and Myanmar. They are also increasingly the realm of democracies that want to use the law and the internet to shape citizens’ discussions and beliefs.

In free societies, there has long been a tug of war over free speech and its limits . But one of the enduring questions of the online era is what governments, digital companies and citizens should do now that the internet and social media make it both easier for people to share their truth (or their lies) with the world and more appealing for national leaders to shut it all down.

What is happening in three of the world’s four largest countries — China, India and Indonesia; the U.S. is the 3rd largest — is simpler than that. It fits the classic definition of censorship. Governments are seeking to silence their external critics.

Officials in Indonesia have said that their new regulations are needed to protect people’s privacy, delete online material that promotes child sexual abuse or terrorism, and make the internet a welcoming space to all.

Governments sometimes have legitimate reasons to shape what happens online, such as preventing the spread of dangerous misinformation. But Dhevy Sivaprakasam, Asia Pacific policy counsel for the global digital rights group Access Now, said Indonesia’s rules are a fig leaf used by the government to stifle journalism and citizen protests, with few checks on that power.

The regulations require all sorts of digital companies, including social media sites, digital payment and video game companies and messaging apps to constantly scan for online material that violates the law and pull it down within hours if discovered. Authorities also have the right to request user data, including people’s communications and financial transactions. Companies that fail to comply with the law can be fined or forced to stop operating in the country.

Indonesia’s regulations, which are new and haven’t been applied yet, “raise serious concerns for the rights to freedom of expression, association, information, privacy and security,” Sivaprakasam told me.

Access Now has also called out other sweeping online censorship laws in Asia, including those in Vietnam, Bangladesh and India .

(My colleagues reported today that the Indian government withdrew a proposed bill on data protection that privacy advocates and some lawmakers said would have given authorities excessively broad powers over personal data, while exempting law enforcement agencies and public entities from the law’s provisions.)

It gets more complicated trying to decide what to do about these laws. Companies in technology and other industries tend to say they are required to comply with the laws of the countries in which they operate, but they do push back sometimes , or even pull out of countries such as Russia, arguing that the laws or governments’ interpretations of them violate people’s fundamental freedoms.

Access Now and other rights groups have said that companies should not bow to what they say are violations of international human rights and other norms in Indonesia.

Executives of American internet companies have said privately that the U.S. government should do more to stand up to overly strict government controls over online expression, rather than leave it up to Google, Apple, Meta and Twitter alone. They say American companies should not be put in a position of trying to independently defend citizens of other countries from abuses by their own governments.

There are, of course, much less clear-cut questions of when and whether governments should have a say over what people post. Countries such as Germany and Turkey have state controls over online information, employed in the name of stamping out hateful ideologies or keeping society healthy. Not everyone in those countries agrees that those are reasonable restrictions of the internet, or agrees with how the limits are interpreted or enforced.

The U.S. Supreme Court may soon weigh in on whether the First Amendment permits government authorities to dictate rules of expression on Facebook and other large social media sites, which now make those decisions mostly on their own.

The original, utopian idea of the internet was that it would help tear down national boundaries and give citizens abilities they had never before had to challenge their governments. We saw a version of that, but then governments wanted more control over what happened online. “Governments are very powerful, and they don’t like to be displaced,” Mishi Choudhary, a lawyer who works on the rights of internet users in India, told me last year.

Our challenge, then, is to make room for governments to act in the public interest to shape what happens online when necessary, while calling them out when authorities abuse this right in order to maintain their own power.

Tip of the Week

The art of buying used gadgets

Are you curious about buying a used computer, phone or another device? It’s great to save money and be gentler on the planet — as long as you don’t buy a lemon. Brian X. Chen , the consumer technology columnist for The New York Times, has his own tale of buying used products the smart way.

Recently my wife wanted a new iPad Pro to create illustrations, and maybe send emails occasionally. I grimaced.

The largest version of the tablet costs $1,100. Add an Apple Pencil for on-screen drawing ($130) and a keyboard ($100 or more), and we would have spent $1,330. Instead, I did some legwork and bought everything used. My price was $720. Here’s how I did it.

I started by searching for used iPad Pro devices on eBay. Models released in 2021 were still pricey — $850 or so. The 2020 models were far less. I ended up buying a 2020 12.9-inch iPad Pro with 256 gigabytes for $600. That’s about half the price of a new model with less data storage.

I was careful. I bought an iPad described as being in “good condition” from a seller whose reviews were 100 percent positive. The seller even included a one-year warranty and a 30-day return policy. To my delight, the iPad arrived days later and looked new.

I couldn’t find a good deal on an Apple Pencil on eBay or Craigslist, but I did on Facebook Marketplace. I found a seller who lived near me with five-star reviews. His profile displayed a photo of him with his girlfriend, and he was very polite in our conversation. I felt comfortable. We met during lunchtime in the parking lot of a taqueria, and I paid him $70 through Venmo.

The last step was buying a keyboard. Apple sells its own models, but I opted for one from Logitech. I found one on Amazon listed as in “like-new” condition, meaning the keyboard had been purchased before and returned with an open box. It was $50, compared with $115 for a new one. When the keyboard arrived, it looked pristine and worked perfectly.

The bottom line: There’s an art to buying used. There’s some risk involved, but you can minimize the odds of being ripped off by seeking out online sellers with high ratings, generous return policies and product warranties. And when it comes to in-person transactions, feel for good vibes — and meet in public. The money saved was worth the effort to me.

What you need to know before buying refurbished . (Wirecutter)

How to shop for a used laptop or desktop PC . (Wirecutter)

Should you buy a refurbished phone? (Consumer Reports)

Before we go …

They even compared their military to a losing soccer team: On Chinese social media, many people took the rare step of mocking their government for not taking military action to stop Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. My colleague Li Yuan wrote that the online backlash showed that the nationalism encouraged by the Chinese Communist Party can also be turned against the government.

Buyer beware: People searching for weight loss treatments have plenty of options for telehealth companies. Stat News reported that virtual options can be great, but that experts also worry that some sites can be ineffective or churn out prescriptions purely for profit.

We have feelings about sounds: Twitter’s app now makes swooshing and alien-like sounds when people refresh their feeds. Input Mag explored why sounds are so important in tech and product designs.

Hugs to this

Check out this hungry goat that’s doing good work annihilating invasive plants . (I’ve shared videos of the goat herd in New York’s Riverside Park before, but I can’t get enough of them.)

We want to hear from you. Tell us what you think of this newsletter and what else you’d like us to explore. You can reach us at [email protected].

If you don’t already get this newsletter in your inbox, please sign up here . You can also read past On Tech columns .

Shira Ovide writes the On Tech newsletter, a guide to how technology is reshaping our lives and world. More about Shira Ovide

Need for Internet Censorship and its Impact on Society Essay

Introduction, against civil rights, ignorance and misinformation, technically impossible, standardization, works cited.

The Internet is a worldwide electronic library with virtually any kind of information hence it is the greatest and most convenient source of information at the click of a button. Of all the diverse information available in the internet, some explicit information such as pornography, racism, ethnicity, crime and war are considered unethical and against strong virtues of the society.

The negative impacts of internet have raised many concerns over freedom of access and publishing of information, leading to the need to censor internet. Although censoring of internet can help in protecting virtues and culture, it is technically impossible, prohibits propagation of knowledge and against civil rights freedom of speech and press.

Internet censorship is against freedom of expression. The United States government attempted to control internet in 1996 when they passed Communication Decency Act but the Supreme Court made a landmark ruling that it is a violation of the First and Fifth Amendment of the Supreme Court (Valdes Cortes Para. 7).

According to the American Civil Liberties Union, the internet freedom deserves much protection as books, newspapers, magazines and even as a nude statue in a museum (Para. 1). Therefore, it is unconstitutional to censor internet because people have the inalienable rights of freedom of speech and press so long as the civil rights are protected for the interest of justice.

Since internet is the greatest source of knowledge, the censorship of internet denies people access to vital information required in order to acquire knowledge. Insufficient information in the current society will led to misinformation or ignorance that is quite unrealistic (Yee Para 4).

Misinformation and ignorance completely outweigh the negative consequences of the free internet; it is better to have options and choice on the kind of information than be ignorant and misinformed. Modern society is fighting to eliminate ignorance and misinformation that are key democratic aspects of an open society, free of deception and secrecy.

Internet censorship is a way of controlling the minds of people as they say knowledge is power hence, leaders who are in power wants to control and regulate information access by their subjects so that they can continue gain more power while the subjects become more ignorant on pertinent issues that affects their lives (Yee Para 6).

Internet has made it hard for leaders to guard selfishly the knowledge to be within their own reach thus they are making futile attempts to control the flow of information worldwide. Free access of information from the internet have significantly enabled people to gain more and more knowledge making them have informed decisions in the kind of information and challenges they face because ignorance is no longer an excuse of not making the right decision in life..

Internet information is so vast and diverse to the extent that it will be impossible to censor the information in it. Technically, due to the overwhelming data and consequent complex encryption protocols involved, plus other technical factors makes internet censorship impossible (Chapman 132). Internet protocols are designed in such a way to avoid or prevent blocking. Moreover, internet is very dynamic in that censorship will be as futile excise as chasing the wind.

The internet has no boundaries unlike laws and legislations that are specific to a given territory. The Communication Decency Act left many questions unanswered; what is decency and who will determine decency? Diverse cultures in the world have different perceptions of what is ethical or not, what is decent or not, but a censor may have a different perception of what constitutes decent or ethical.

The diversity of cultures and legislations a cross the countries makes it impossible to have a standard internet censorship. According to the Americans Civil Liberties Union, internet censorship need to be put on the hands of the individual so that they can have autonomy to decides on the information they access or publish (Para 2).

Internet censorship is a noble idea of trying to conserve our cultures and traditions, but on contrary, we also need knowledge to eliminate ignorance that seems to perpetuate in this modern society. The positive impacts of free internet access of any information, outweighs by far its negative effects in the society.

Today, a society without access to information seems be in a dark world full of ignorance and misinformation that makes people behave as if they are blind to the current world issues that directly affects them. It is our inalienable right to access and publish information and the freedom of speech and expression are the integral aspect of information.

A democratic and prosperous society is based on the access of the right information used in the making of informed decisions a better society. The freedom to access information must be fought for, otherwise; people in the power will take advantage of our innocence and deny us the right to information that is necessary to rid of the ignorance in the society.

American Civil Liberties Union. “Censorship on Internet.” ACLU. 2010. Web.

Chapman, Gary. “Censorship: Opposing Viewpoints”. 1997. Greenhaven Press . Web.

Valdes Cortes. “ Margarita. Internet Censorship around the World .” University of Chile. 2010. Web.

Yee, Danny. “Internet Censorship: an Australian Press Council Seminar.” Electronic Frontiers Australia . 2010. Web.

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How Internet Filtering Hurts Kids

Zealously blocking their access to certain websites can end up undermining learning.

Giving all children access to the Internet and computing became a rallying cry for educators and elected leaders in the 1990s. In March 1996, President Clinton and Vice President Gore led 20,000 volunteers in a one-day effort to connect thousands of California public schools to the “ brave new world of mouse clicking and web surfing. ” Yet that brave new world remains unconquered for many students and schools, especially in rural and high-poverty communities. Some have coined the term “ digital redlining ” to describe how advanced technology has been deliberately denied from certain areas based on geography as well as the race, ethnicity, and income of residents.

In the intervening years, the spotlight has pivoted to the so-called “ connectivity gap ”—which hurts schools without high-speed Internet connections—and the homework gap —which hurts students unable to access wireless and broadband connections from home. And like his predecessor, the president is using his bully pulpit to push for change. In 2013, the Obama administration launched the ConnectED initiative with the goal to connect 99 percent of schools to broadband Internet in five years; it also unveiled ConnectHome last year as a pilot project to bring high-speed broadband to over 275,000 low-income households in 27 communities, including Baltimore, Philadelphia, New Orleans, and Oklahoma’s Choctaw Tribal Nation.

Still, even as supporters work to promote equitable access through connectivity, deep-rooted disparities linger. And a more nuanced digital divide seems to have surfaced, thanks to the pernicious practice by school districts of overzealous Internet censorship on in-school computer networks and on school-issued laptops and tablets that are carried home with students. In turn, educators, academics, and advocacy groups have renewed calls to revisit school Internet policies, which, despite some progress, continue to deprive children from becoming knowledgeable digital consumers—with the hardest hit apparently being the most disadvantaged students.

At the core of the ongoing debate is a law passed by Congress in 2000 that mandates all public libraries and schools that receive federal funds for Internet access install blocking software. The Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) specifically requires schools and libraries to block or filter Internet access to pictures and material that are “obscene, child pornography, or harmful to minors” on computers that are used by students under 17 years of age. The fundamental question has been how schools are interpreting the law—and whether districts are acting in the best interests of children or simply functioning as online overlords.

“If you were to take one word that has driven the use of technology in education over the last two decades, [it’s] safety,” said Keith Krueger, the CEO of the Consortium for School Networking, a professional group for school-district technology directors. According to Krueger, safety is typically policymakers’ and administrators’ primary concern when it comes to technology in education.

The ACLU elevated another concern in 2011 when the national organization and its regional chapters in several states issued letters demanding public high schools remove web-filtering software that blocked items related to LGBT issues and support groups for LGBT youth. The ACLU discovered from students that web filters were routinely blocking access to groups such as GLSEN and the Gay-Straight Alliance Network, along with LGBT anti-bullying resources like It Gets Better and the National Day of Silence. Joshua Block, the senior staff attorney for ACLU’s LGBT Project, credits the organization’s campaign, “ Don’t Filter Me ,” with changing minds and policies.

A separate LGBT category was eliminated in the filtering software that major companies sell to schools, Block said, and websites with resources for LGBT people are no longer sorted out. He notes that some problems with censorship persist, but not to the same degree. Krueger, representing school technology officers, said the key is balancing safety and access. “Without question, students need to become digitally literate (having the knowledge and ability to use information and technology for varied purposes) because ultimately they live in an unfiltered world. School systems need to ensure that we create a safe environment [but] if we believe any technical solution like filtering will keep us totally safe, that is misplaced.”

This common-sense viewpoint, however, has yet to trickle down to many schools, where over-filtering—filtering beyond the requirements of CIPA—is common. One of the most ardent and active opponents of over-filtering to date has been the American Library Association, which for many years has championed the need to protect students’ access to “legal, constitutionally protected information that is necessary for their school studies [and] personal well-being,” said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, the deputy director for ALA’s office for intellectual freedom. Stone said in some cases, the problem is as simple as school staff failing to adjust the pre-set maximum settings on filtering software, though much of the difficulty resides with school personnel who misunderstand the federal law and the requirements necessary to be in compliance. As an example, she said both the Federal Communications Commission and representatives from the Department of Education have issued guidance stating that Facebook, YouTube, and other platforms do not need to be filtered, but school districts often block these websites “on the grounds that students might access content barred by CIPA.”

Maria Salmeron, a junior at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School just outside Washington, D.C., uses Facebook in student organizing as a leader in the Minority Scholars Program , a youth-led group working to increase the academic success of students of color in Maryland’s Montgomery County Public Schools. Up until this school year, the district blocked Facebook, effectively cutting Salmeron off from a critical mobilization tool. “Facebook is one of the sites that connects you with everyone the most … it’s kept me in contact with people and groups from all over the world,” she said.

Likewise, Caldwell-Stone points to contradictions: students in AP biology classes blocked from accessing information needed to prepare for the AP exam; debate-team members unable to research controversial topics on school computers; and filters that routinely block websites for the National Organization for Women, the Quakers, and other “perfectly innocuous, legal, and informative content.” The ALA report “ Fencing Out Knowledge ”—an analysis of CIPA 10 years after its enactment—found that schools’ overreach with filtering software was putting children’s education at risk , particularly children in poverty who depend on school-provided Internet access the most. “Other children are likely to have unfiltered internet access at home or through their own mobile devices,” ALA wrote.

This finding is confirmed by anecdotal and empirical evidence. In Maine, Portland Public Schools in April 2012 installed filters on high-school students’ school-issued laptops that banned access to social networks, games, and video-streaming sites. At the time, Portland was among the first districts in the state to authorize such stringent filtering on take-home school devices. As the Press Herald reported , Portland High School students had very different responses to the new policy, based on their access to another computer at home: “…those from middle-class families expressed various degrees of annoyance when told of the new filtering measures. A group of immigrant students reacted with anger.”

New research released this past February echoes these students’ sentiments. A team from Sesame Workshop’s Joan Ganz Cooney Center, a nonprofit research lab, and Rutgers University conducted interviews on digital equity with 170 Mexican-heritage parents and children in three states—California, Colorado, and Arizona. All of the youngsters were enrolled in high-poverty school districts. Vikki Katz, an associate professor of communication at Rutgers and the study’s co-author, said school-supplied laptops were usually not the only digital device in these families’ homes, but emphasized that “the poorest families are least likely to have other devices. Districts filtering content means that those children and families don’t get the same Internet as their more privileged counterparts.”

What’s more, in-depth conversations with the families revealed that districts blocked YouTube at school, as well as on school-supplied devices, because some content was deemed inappropriate. And the consequences were steep. “Parents and children depended on YouTube to support homework time, including tutorials to solve math problems and to learn more about historical characters. The problem is that these platforms are multi-use, and those uses change too quickly for district [filtering] policies to easily keep up.”

This opinion is shared by Mary Beth Hertz, the art/tech teacher and technology coordinator at Science Leadership Academy at Beeber, a public high school in West Philadelphia. In her role as a technology teacher leader, Hertz has watched the district’s filtering process evolve since 2006, with teachers now able to request that sites be unblocked and requests “reviewed by actual human beings instead of an algorithm.” Hertz said what many districts get wrong is listening too closely to lawyers. CIPA leaves a lot of room for interpretation, she said, and some districts opt to choose a strict interpretation to protect themselves rather than engage families, parents, teachers, and students in these digital-access decisions. “We should be blocking what the law requires, but unfortunately the phrase ‘harmful to minors’ to some districts means everything and anything that could offend or embarrass kids and their families,” Hertz said, adding that blocking content doesn’t teach kids how to “effectively, respectfully, and responsibly use the Internet.”

At the start of each school year Hertz asks her freshmen “Is the Internet a basic right?”—eliciting responses from a dismissive “no” to an enthusiastic “yes” and prompting comparisons to China, where access to the Internet is restricted. A room of 14-year-olds is able to grasp what some school leaders seem to overlook.

“They understand that this connection is not a life-or-death situation, but that it affords opportunity. They also have a basic understanding of oppression and the idea that limiting access to the Internet limits people from opportunity,” said Hertz. “We sometimes think too much about the content that we block, and we forget [that] when we cut kids off [from social media] we limit their opportunities to succeed, explore their passions, and discover their strengths and talents.”

Essay on Censorship On The Internet

Students are often asked to write an essay on Censorship On The Internet in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Censorship On The Internet

What is internet censorship.

Internet censorship is when someone, like a government or company, controls what people can see or do online. They might block websites or stop certain words from being seen. This is like having a librarian who only lets you read certain books.

Why Do People Censor the Internet?

Some censor the web to protect people, like keeping children from seeing bad things. Others might do it to stop people from learning about or sharing ideas that could cause trouble or change how things are run in a country.

Types of Censorship

Censorship can be hiding parts of the internet or completely blocking it. Sometimes, it’s just for a short time, like during an election or a big protest, to control what information gets out.

Effects of Censorship

Censorship can keep people safe, but it can also stop them from learning and sharing ideas. It can make it hard for people to understand what’s really happening in the world and to make good choices for themselves.

Debating Censorship

Some people think censorship is good because it keeps harmful content away. Others believe it’s bad because it limits freedom. It’s a big topic that affects everyone who uses the internet.

250 Words Essay on Censorship On The Internet

Internet censorship is when someone in power controls what we can see or share online. This can be done by governments, companies, or even schools. They block websites or content that they don’t want people to see. Imagine a librarian deciding which books you can’t read; it’s similar with the internet.

Why Do They Censor?

Leaders or groups might censor the internet to keep people safe or to follow the law. For example, they might block violent videos or stop people from sharing secrets that could hurt a country. Sometimes, they also stop people from talking bad about them or sharing ideas that are different from their own.

Is Censorship Good or Bad?

Censorship can be helpful sometimes, like keeping kids away from bad content. But it can also be bad when it stops people from sharing their thoughts or learning new things. When only certain ideas are allowed, it’s hard for people to think freely and make their own choices.

What Can We Do?

It’s important to know about censorship so we can talk about it and understand our rights online. We should learn how to use the internet responsibly and also stand up for the freedom to share ideas. By doing this, we can help make sure the internet stays a place where everyone can learn and speak freely.

500 Words Essay on Censorship On The Internet

What is censorship on the internet.

Censorship on the internet means when someone, like a government or a company, decides to control what people can see or share online. They might block websites, delete certain posts, or even stop people from talking about specific topics. It’s like when your parents decide which movies are okay for you to watch and which ones are not.

There are many reasons why someone might want to control the internet. Some governments do it to stop people from seeing bad things like violence or to keep them from learning about ideas that could cause trouble. Companies might do it to keep their website safe or to make sure people follow their rules. Sometimes, it’s done to stop lies or harmful information from spreading.

The Good Side of Censorship

Censorship can sometimes be helpful. For example, it can protect young people from seeing things that are not suitable for them, like scary or adult content. It can also stop people from sharing other people’s private information or from bullying others online. When used in the right way, censorship can help make the internet a safer place for everyone.

The Bad Side of Censorship

But censorship can also be a problem. It can stop people from sharing their thoughts and ideas, which is important for freedom and for learning new things. If a government censors too much, people might not be able to find out about important events or express their opinions. This can make it hard for people to make good choices or to change things that are not fair.

How Does Censorship Affect You?

Censorship on the internet can affect what you learn and talk about. It might mean you can’t access certain websites for homework or that you can’t watch videos from other countries. Sometimes, it can even mean that you won’t hear about big events until much later, if at all. It’s important to know about censorship because it can change how you see the world.

What Can We Do About It?

There are ways to deal with censorship. People can speak up about it and ask for more freedom online. They can also use special tools to get around censorship and find the information they need. But it’s also important to understand why some things are censored and to think about whether it’s being done to protect people or to control them.

In conclusion, censorship on the internet is a tricky thing. It can keep us safe but also stop us from learning and sharing. By understanding what it is and how it works, we can make sure that we use the internet in the best way possible and stand up for our right to learn and share freely.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

• Essay on Censorship Of Art And Artists
• Essay on Censorship In Social Media
• Essay on Cellphone Usage While Driving

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Net neutrality is back: U.S. promises fast, safe and reliable internet for all

Emma Bowman

The Federal Communications Commission has restored net neutrality rules that ban content providers from restricting bandwidth to customers. Michael Bocchieri/Getty Images hide caption

The Federal Communications Commission has restored net neutrality rules that ban content providers from restricting bandwidth to customers.

Consumers can look forward to faster, safer and more reliable internet connections under the promises of newly reinstated government regulations.

The Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 on Thursday to reclassify broadband as a public utility, such as water and electricity — to regulate access to the internet. The move to expand government oversight of internet service providers comes after the COVID-19 pandemic exposed the magnitude of the digital divide , forcing consumers to rely on high-speed internet for school and work, as well as social and health support.

The Indicator from Planet Money

What happened to the internet without net neutrality.

Because the government deems internet access an essential service, the FCC is promising oversight as if broadband were a public utility. In doing so, the government aims to make providers more accountable for outages, require more robust network security, protect fast speeds, and require greater protections for consumer data.

The decision effectively restores so-called net neutrality rules that were first introduced during the Obama administration in 2015 and repealed two years later under President Trump.

The rules are sure to invite legal challenges from the telecoms industry — not for the first time. And a future administration could always undo the rules.

Meanwhile, net neutrality regulations are set to go into effect 60 days after their publication in the Federal Register.

But much has yet to be clarified about the rules: The 400-page draft order to restore the regulations has not been publicly released.

Here's what we do know.

What's net neutrality?

Net neutrality is a wonky term for the idea that the flow of information on the internet should be treated equally and that internet service providers can't interfere with what consumers do online.

Also referred to as an "open internet," net neutrality aims to level the digital marketplace, prohibiting internet service providers (ISPs) like Comcast and AT&T from running fast lanes and slow lanes — speeding up or slowing down internet speeds — for online services like Netflix and Spotify.

What's this latest battle about?

Without the net neutrality regulations in place, phone and internet companies have the power to block or favor some content over others. The issue has pit telecom companies against Big Tech. Net neutrality advocates — tech companies, consumer watchdogs and free speech activists among them — warn that without such regulations, broadband providers are incentivized to charge customers more to use internet fast lanes or else risk being stuck with slower speeds.

In recent years, the issue has largely become a partisan one. In 2015, the President Obama-appointed FCC chair ushered in the approval of net neutrality rules . Those rules were repealed two years later under President Trump after his pick to run the FCC called them "heavy-handed" in his pledge to end them.

Now, the return of FCC regulations has reinvigorated the net neutrality debate.

"Every consumer deserves internet access that is fast, open and fair," FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel said ahead of Thursday's vote. "This is common sense."

As in 2015, the rules classify broadband as a utility service under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934.

The measure passed along party lines, with Democratic commissioners in favor of net neutrality and Republicans opposed.

What critics are saying

Opponents say the net neutrality rules are government overreach and interfere with commerce. In a letter to FCC chair Rosenworcel this week, a group of Republican lawmakers said the draft order to restore net neutrality regulations would chill innovation and investment in the broadband industry.

Dissenting FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, a Republican, said that fears of a sluggish or pricey internet without the rules were overblown — that consumers benefited from faster speeds and lower prices since the repeal. Net neutrality advocates dispute the argument that broadband rates dropped when net neutrality went away, saying the numbers are misleading .

"There will be lots of talk about 'net neutrality' and virtually none about the core issue before the agency: namely, whether the FCC should claim for itself the freewheeling power to micromanage nearly every aspect of how the Internet functions — from the services that consumers can access to the prices that can be charged," Carr said in October, when the Biden administration proposed restoring net neutrality.

Some telecom companies argue that the FCC is trying to solve a nonexistent problem in its stated aim to preserve equal internet access for consumers.

"This is a nonissue for broadband consumers, who have enjoyed an open internet for decades," said Jonathan Spalter, the CEO of USTelecom, a trade group that represents ISPs such as AT&T and Verizon, in a statement following the vote to hand regulatory authority back to the FCC.

"We plan to pursue all available options, including in the courts," the group said.

What's happened when net neutrality went away?

What ended up happening in the years after the rollback went into effect in 2018 was so discreet that most people unlikely noticed its effects, says Stanford Law professor Barbara van Schewick, who directs the school's Center for Internet and Society and supports net neutrality.

For the past six years, she says, "a lot of public scrutiny on the ISPs and then the attempts to bring back net neutrality in Congress basically kept the ISPs on their best behavior."

Still, there were changes. Some ISPs implemented zero-rating plans, the practice of excluding some apps from data charges, she notes, or were caught throttling — intentionally slowing down consumer internet speeds.

Absent heightened federal regulation, tough net neutrality rules that sprang up in several states, including California , Washington and Oregon, also have continued to keep internet service providers in check.

"It's still being litigated," van Schewick says. "And so, it is fair to say we haven't seen a world without net neutrality."

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