1.
No society has ever existed, as far as we know, which has not exercised some form of censorship over the conduct and opinions of its members… Good morning teachers and students. Censorship by the government infringes upon the rights of the individual and inhibits freedom of expression. Now, censorship is a broadly used term so what exactly IS censorship? Well, censorship is defined by the Australian Macquarie Dictionary as ‘the actions of a censor – that is, an official who examines books, plays, news reports, films, radio programs (and more recently the internet), for the purpose of suppressing parts deemed objectionable on moral, political, military or other grounds’. Censorship has been around since the beginning of time. It has been used as a tool to control what others have access to. In Australia today, we are supposedly guaranteed the rights of freedom of speech and freedom of the press by our constitution. Yet censorship still exists. We are told censorship is necessary, but at what cost? National security and public interest, are these valid reasons? Why must the government decide what is best for me to read or watch in a cinema or in the privacy of my own home? Sure, we must protect our youth, but that is a parent's responsibility, not the government's. I can understand censorship based upon national security; we can't go around selling all of our secrets without a major threat to our government and our way of life. Censorship is a way of controlling the population. This is exactly why we have laws that forbid random censorship. Some censorship is necessary in every culture, but only a minimal amount is required. Australians love freedom. The rest of the world regards us as one of the most liberal nations, which is why restrictive censorship is so out of place here. Censorship is a way of limiting the freedom we so love. Censorship affects everybody on a both direct and indirect level everyday. Whether it is at the newsagent, cinemas, music store or the voting booths. When the boundaries of government censorship start to inhibit freedom of expression and information, the definition of a democratic society is challenged.
A majority of the censorship I have run into in my lifetime is due to my age. The government determined some years ago that myself and minors in general were not mature or old enough to deal with certain subjects and thus forbade us from obtaining these certain pieces of material. Aside from this I believe myself and the Australian public have been very fortunate in our academic freedom. Compared to other places in the world we have a very wide access to material from all over from a wide variety of points of view. One of the greatest aspects of life, without any doubt, must be the process of learning and acquiring information. Beyond simple facts, this allows an individual to better understand the world around them in all its different aspects and to better appreciate the diversity of existence. For these reasons censorship poses a serious threat to both the individual person and to society as a whole for it obstructs the search for all knowledge and is detrimental to a complete understanding of life as we know it. Within any nation it is in the best interests of its citizens to allow all ideas and information to be free from any restrictions and prohibitions. Free speech eliminates the possibility of one group imposing its own values and judgments upon another and instead creates a society of free thinking individuals, who, as a whole, can work together for the benefit of all.
The freedom to read is essential to the democratic way of life. But today, that freedom is under attack. Private groups and public authorities everywhere are working to remove both books and periodicals from sale, to exclude certain books from public schools, to censor and silence magazines and newspapers, and to limit access to "controversial" books and periodicals to the general public. The suppression of reading materials is suppression of creative thought. However or whenever these attacks occur, they usually fall into at least one of the following categories: Religion, Violence, Race, Drugs, Sex or Inappropriate Adolescent Behaviour. All of these categories relate in some form or another to the issue of obscenity. What IS obscenity? Clearly something hard to talk about from an objective point of view. "Obscenity" is difficult to discuss honestly. After all, what makes a thing obscene? It is something too vague perhaps to be defined. It's an elusive term we use, but can't explain. Different people will always see things differently. This is human nature. Some see obscenity in nude pictures, statues, paintings, etc while others find obscenity in completely different things. All the same, "obscene" isn't the same as "wrong" or "bad".
The whole premise of obscenity relies on individual opinion.
Recently we have been hearing a lot about the need for censorship of television and recording industries. Whether it is the cartoon ‘Southpark’, the controversial American television program ‘ Sex and the City’ or rap recording artists, someone always seems to arguing about their negative effects on society and the need for government regulation. Being a fan of rap, I am particularly interested in issues effecting regulation of the recording industry and rap artists. Popular "gangsta rappers" include Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg Tupac Shakur, Ice Cube, and Eminem (aka Slim Shady). Many are outraged at the explicit lyrics of the songs and the lifestyles of these artists. Snoop Doggy Dog and Tupac Shakur are two of the most publicized "gangsta rappers" whose songs contain explicit lyrics and who have been indicted for criminal activities. I was once given a piece of advice when watching a particularly gory movie with my father in one of my younger years. He said to me ‘If you don’t like it, don’t look at it’, and I believe this applies to all facets of society that are affected by censorship – whether in relation to film, literature or audio material.
Nobody in our society is told what to watch, listen to or partake in, therefore it should only be fair that nobody is told what they can’t watch, can’t listen to or can’t partake in.
Our world is not perfect. We are a world filled with violence, sex, racism etc. Certain literature like “hard-core” or “unclassified” pornography" should be censored to children. These types of "explicit sex" truly have no place in front of the eyes of kids. In extreme cases some of this literature degrades the human race by inciting physical, mental and sexual abuse against women, animals, and sometimes against men and should not be viewed full stop. These examples however are in the extreme minority.
To make a tree grow correctly, you must start caring from the very beginning. You must not block its nutrients, water nor sunlight, but allow it to move around a bit. Our society needs to be treated in the same fashion. There should indeed be ready access to information, but in varying degrees of freedom, determined not by censorship, but by controlled access. The government is trying to protect the population from the harsh realities of life through censorship of information, but are they really helping, or are they hindering by restricting the individual’s freedom to information in a supposedly democratic nation?

2. is impossible not to acknowledge that internet revolution has instilled the spirit of freedom of expression and information even in the most repressive regimes. It is truly a radical transformation which has knitted the diverse world into a single being. However, in many contexts this free flow and exchange of information is deemed as a serious threat by the authorities of several countries. It has led those countries to impose censorship on internet to limit the flow of information by monitoring, filtering, jamming and tracing the data, which is being exchanged, (Tariq, O. 2006). The extent of censorship has reached such levels that many a times internet users are subjected to the scrutiny of authorities, which has exposed out their privacy under in the name of official coercion (Global Internet Freedom Consortium, 2007). With such intense responses to cyberspace regulations, censorship on internet has become a hot topic in various discourses concerning legislations, academia, media and socio-political concepts. The increasing debate has forces the scholars to investigate censorship on internet both from the regulation perspective and from the libertarian views.
In this article we will discuss both of the facets investigating how cyberspace control works in some contexts while in some others it is proving to be seriously detrimental. The article considers the importance of factors such as pornography laws which are highly important to protect kids and minors from unreasonable exposure (Zuchora-Walske, C. 2009). Similarly, it will elaborate how in national security context criminals and unregulated internet use are using internet to leak sensitive informatio and how censorship on internet can be instrumental in curbing that. Is it not fair on the government’s part to protect sensible information from reaching wrong hands? On the other hand it also delves deep in explaining how censoring internet use is trampling free speech rights. Censoring internet may encourage some repressive governments to resist people’s democratic rights. The debate shall not see any ultimate conclusion, however, the article proposes to weigh both the aspects to enable better resilient response of citizens to necessary cyberspace regulations and censorship. How Internet Censorship Can Benefit a Society and Nation Censorship works in controlling unregulatable Cyberlibertarians One prominent reason why government must impose censorship on internet is that it is much debatable and critical whether online privacy can coexist with national security. Cyberlibertarians or the believers of complete internet freedom state that communication protocols and networked online social communities create challenging form of politics. It is also a major concern that since internet somehow smears the perception of place or ‘locus of action’, the state remains in no position to exercise control under legitimate terms. Thus it is argued on the basis of Cyberlibertarian ideologies that free flow of sensible information on internet leads to making traditional political institutions obsolete (Dyson, et al 1994). It can be understood from the ideals of Cyberlibertarians that they consider internet revolution beyond the control of traditional political and government institutions. The basis of this assumed dominance or threat, as we see from the perspective of national authorities, is the contention that traditional state sovereignty is based on physical boundaries or borders, which makes the seamless cyberspace out of its jurisdiction. The complete internet freedom means that users can move to any place seamlessly and choose the regulatory regime that best suits their motives or requirements (Froomkin, A. M. 1997). Therefore, it is important to modify traditional regulatory bodies to curb the freedom of internet users to ensure that it does not pose threats over national integrity and security. It is imperative to establish the role of the state as a fundamental player to exercise legislative regulations and control over cyber space. Conventions like those, which work on cybercrime give, state the necessary control through censorship like monitoring and tracing, in order to protect national sovereignty and maintain security.

Censorship of Internet Protects Minors and from Unreasonable Exposure In the present day scenario, there are millions of minors having access of internet. While the proposition of censoring internet for youth is criticized by moral proponents of free speech, others favour censorship considering that it is even more immoral to let youth be exposed to obscene content. Governments of Oklahoma, California, and Florida in the United States have censored pornography to minors (Miller, C.T., 2000). Easy access to pornographic content is a grave concern, in which censorship works in the best interest of minors. Pornographic content is available on internet not only through the World Wide Web pages but are distributed through older communication platforms like Usenet Newsgroups. Furthermore, other multimedia channels on internet enable live sex acts and unreasonable indulgence. With such wide disseminating networks, internet poses tough fundamental challenges for governance and regulation. Censorship through effective legislation deals with specific pornographic problems over internet and help addressing the challenges of global cyberspace that operates without borders. For instance, the Obscene Publications Act 1959 and 1964 works as a major legislation to suppress internet pornographic of any kind in the United Kingdom. In particular, the section 1 of the 1959 act provides that any content, which tends to deprave or corrupt persons, who are likely to use such content, would be deemed as obscene and will not be permitted to be published or disseminated (HMSO, 1994). Besides, the Australian government is implementing the internet censorship through a mandatory program, ‘clean feed’. The clean feed internet service has been made compulsory for all homes and schools and public centres. It essentially has the service providers to filter out the prohibited websites. The process is working effectively to protect kids from inappropriate internet content (Travaglione, K. 2009). Therefore, internet censorship works a great deal in protecting society from access and exposure to obscene and inappropriate internet content. Since the self-imposed restrictions often do not prove to be adequate, enforced restrictions become extreme necessary to work in the interests of society. Considering uncontrollable and counter-regulatory technology which escapes ordinary restrictions, call for even more strict censorship regulations. Easy access to any kind of unfiltered information and content and exchange channels make it vital to exercise monitoring and blocking tools of censorship over relevant and vulnerable internet users. Detrimental Effects of Censorship of Internet Censorship acts against Human Rights
It is largely seen in repressive countries like China and Iran, for instance, that various censorship measures are employed to limit internet usage. Such measures may include practices like sophisticated surveillance to serious harassment and arrests of people using internet. These countries seek involvement of foreign internet service providers to apply such censorship measures in their country, which if they do not do considering the liberal laws of their home country, might end up losing substantial business in customer country. Renowned internet companyYahoo! has been accused of assistine Chinese government access to identifying information about internet users, so that the government can make identification and arrests of individuals for inappropriate statements expressed on internet. Besides, Yahoo! and Google have also been charged by the Human Rights for censoring and removing important and sensitive information from the country-specific search engines. (Addis, C.L., and Lum, T. 2011). Repressive regimes, in the name of censorship, are practicing tampering of information and leading online propaganda. Authoritarian regimes like China, Iran and Saudi Arabia are known to be using unreasonable filtering in a quite strict manner during the time of unrest in particular. These countries practice strict censorship measures over micro-blogging platforms like Twitter and other popular social networks. All this is done to suppress the agitation and revolutions against repressive rulings being voiced through global internet channels. Such practices have particularly been seen happening in Syria and Vietnam, where citizen voices against the Arab world were echoing through internet. If we have to analyze via statistics then one out of every three internet users is prevented to use or access information on free internet. As many as 60 countries around the word have been practicing censorship on internet through tools like filtering and ‘netizen’ harassment (Reporters Without Borders, 2011). Censorship Used for Manipulation and Propaganda To the even worse of the detrimental face of censorship, several countries and political institutions use tools like distributed denial-of-service and phishing that enable stealing of user password to suppress any rebelling voices. Recalling prominent examples of such practices include pirating of Google and many other internet companies in China in 2009. Instance of cyberattacks was practiced by Vietnam to suppress the protesting statements. In Myanmar, the government prevented many independent websites from operating, slowed down the bandwidth speed to curtail internet usage and shifted the blame over hackers claiming that they were acting against the national interests (Reporters Without Borders, 2011).

Censorship on Internet Is Tampering Free Speech Right

Internet was originally evolving like a place which gave people platforms to freely express their statements and idea across global networks. It is still one of the most effective and valuable technology that has been instrumental in bringing together scholars, scientists and people from various spheres of professions and walks of life to communicate, educate and promote innovative ideas.

However, eventually these widely accessible channels over internet led to increased dissemination of indecent material that forced governments to enforce strict regulations on internet information and access through censorship. In this process, came up other issues that hampered the right and interests of other people for who material deemed inappropriate otherwise may not be so. Thus, in this way the broad censorship lead to damaging the rights and freedom of expression in order to establish safety of minors against inappropriate material. Limiting free internet use to curb pornography access to minors, snatched the right of information on internet from a significant majority people who do not even use pornography websites (Barlow, J.P. 1996). One of the prominent examples of such censorship attack became evident when the Communications Decency Act was taken to the Supreme Court in the United States. The American Civil Liberties Union argued against the act stating that what may deem offensive to one person may be acceptable to another, while under the bill government was authorize what is “patently offensive.” The act essentially would have limited private internet organizations, however, the Supreme Court ruled against it stating that censoring cyberspace reduces the freedom of expression and speech, which is a protected fundamental right by the First Amendment in the constitution of United States (Leatherman, B. 1999).

Censorship As A Tool of Repression

In many countries, dissent, freedom revolution and struggle is suppressed with repressive measures. In doing this curbing freedom of expression plays the major role. Since, in the internet age, freedom of expression has largely spread through online global communication, many governments have diverted their attention towards controlling internet access in order to keep check on exchange of statements and establish surveillance of internet users. The main purpose of censorship practice in this context is to prevent critical information from being disseminated. In the process, many internet users are arrested an imprisoned for exercising their right to free expression (Amnesty International reports on cyber-dissidents, 2004). The internet, in the name of censorship is increasingly becoming a tool of repression. Governments are practicing censorship through monitoring on online exchange of information, filtering to restrict access to information which leads to limiting basic human rights of the citizens. It does not only repress against the citizen to dissent but also restrict other countries to seek and impart information in that country. Conclusion The human rights worldwide propose the establishment of fundamental right to impart and receive information. Besides, this right is applicable not only information or ideas which received favourably, but also to offensive expression to oppose, shake or argue against a state, sect or population. In the present day world, internet is one of biggest sources to access and impart information worldwide by defying physical boundaries. Therefore, imposing censorship on internet would lead to suppressing this basic human right and promote repression by authoritarian nations. However, considering the positive implications of censorship in protecting minors from being exposed to indecent content, curbing cybercrime and maintaining national integrity and security, it is important to be transparent in filtering process. The phrases and words being filtered or monitored should be made public, so that a fair argument is made on its implication and it does not lead to repressive acts of harassing internet users in general.
References:

Amnesty International reports on cyber-dissidents, 2004. China: People’s Republic of China, Controls tighten as Internet activism grows, January2004, http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGASA170052004;
Vietnam: http://www.web.amnesty.org/appeals/index/vnm-010805-wwa-eng;

Addis, C.L., and Lum, T. 2011. U.S. Initiatives to Promote Global Internet Freedom: Issues, Policy, and Technology. Congressional Research Service Report for Congress. United States. Barlow, J.P. 1996. One Man’s Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace.” February 8, 1996. http://www.cyber24.com/essay/barlow.html Dyson, et al 1994. Cyberspace and the American Dream: A Magna Carta for the Knowledge Age . Froomkin, A. M. 1997. The Internet as a Source of Regulatory Arbitrage, in Kahin B. & Nesson, C. (eds) Borders in Cyberspace: Information Policy and the Global Information Infrastructure, (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1997). Global Internet Freedom Consortium, 2007. Defeat Internet Censorship: Overview of Advanced
Technologies and Products. White Paper. HMSO, 1994.House of Commons, Home Affairs Committee: First report on ComputerPornography. Leatherman, B. 1999. Internet Censorship and the Freedom of Speech. American University. Washington, DC Miller, C.T., 2000. Censoring the Internet. Individual Research Project. Reporters Without Borders, 2011. Internet Enemies. For Press Freedom. Tariq, O. 2006. Internet Censorship: The End of Digital Libertarianism? Department of Information Systems London School of Economics Travaglione, K. 2009. Internet Censorship in Australia – A clean feed? Zuchora-Walske, C. 2009. Internet Censorship: Protecting Citizens or Trampling Freedom? USA Today. Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.
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