User:Akirchbe/sandbox

Internet Censorship

Wikipedia defines internet censorship as the control of suppression of what can be accessed, published or viewed online. This may be in form of self-restriction due to individual morals, or beliefs, or this can be deemed widespread in response to government action. Website blocking and content filtering offer a unique case in regards to the internet, different from other forms of media. In film or television, countries are able to restrict content because of individual laws and government code.

With the internet, information is free flowing and constantly available no matter your geographic location; foreign countries have access to other country's hosted information, as is the nature of the internet. Restriction and censorship becomes much more difficult to enforce because of this, allowing the idea of total censorship to fail as a possibility. Countries such as Cuba or North Korea, who do have complete control over their nation's web access, are among the few outliers, and are often associated with censorship problems that stretch further outside of the internet. Generally, the greater the internet use within a country, the greater the call for increased censorship online. This is dealt with primarily through filtering processes that are unique between each other. For example, the United States has a generally uniform filter across K-12 libraries and schools, where as France and Germany put more emphasis on blocking Nazi or Holocaust content. China, which is among the highest of restricted nations, filters search engines and blocks foreign websites, such as Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. The "Internet Society" conducted a survey of more than 10,00o internet users, in 2012, spanning across 20 countries, revealing striking results. There is an overwhelming amount of the global population which agrees to that access to the internet should be a basic human right; 83% strongly agree. Although this support for access is very high, many countries view restrictions similarly on abrasive content that may be deemed pornographic or explicit.

In January of 2012, the Stop Online Piracy act had become widespread, and really made a name for internet censorship. Online piracy in the United States had always been an issue among members of the media and entertainment business, but never had a massive impact upon the population. Piracy was kept in check for the most part, and although it was not possible to completely stop, it had never caused any harmful impact. This all changed with SOPA, as piracy among countries outside of the United States started to become a real issue. Online piracy was always a threat overseas, but it was not until late December of 2011 that American advertising agencies and entertainment tycoons took action to stop it. As previously mentioned, global internet piracy is extremely difficult, if not impossible to fully halt. The United States has a hefty control of power over the internet, and American entertainment industries began to take action against piracy in the only way possible.

Their response to piracy was to completely blanket the internet with censorship, as taking action individually within nationally owned portions of the web was not a reality. The American power over the internet is so great that this plan had a chance at success. However, the internet, according to 83% of the world connected, is entitled to the people and should not be subject to government takeover. In the midst of SOPA, the internet started a social rebellion. An online movement against SOPA began spreading as SOPA became more and more recognizable against basic human rights. Websites began protesting, and supporters eventually turned. Wikipedia shut down completely in protest, along with similar sites like Reddit and Flikr. Google, the most powerful search engine worldwide, even shut down for the cause. The argument against SOPA was that restricting access does not stop piracy. It does nothing but destroy user generated content. These protests swept across the web and users of it, and by January 2012, the publicity turned to reaction. SOPA was stopped, and although not deemed completely "killed", it is unlikely an attempt at such global censorship will rise again.

-Alec Kirchberger (akirchbe), Comm 397M