This is a very difficult question to answer. When looking at the articles referencing censorship in China and Iran, it seems that free speech is indeed oppressed. Many blogs and forums themselves have certain rules and regulations of what is and isn't appropriate. However, people can create sites on the internet where they are free to say and do what they want (sometimes of questionable taste and character), but even this only goes so far. When government intervention becomes involved and starts to destroy or limit what individuals are allowed to say and search in cyberspace, it becomes hard to see if there is really "free speech". Here's a real life example where cyberspace was used to oppress an act of freedom in actuality.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6665145.stm
Who knew that moving a statue would result in your country being shutdown through a massive onslaught of cyber warfare?
It seems reasonable to suggest that Cyber-Censorship shouldn't be something that is implemented. It is completely doable to prevent access to items government related that need protection, but people shouldn't be prevented from trying to learn and search for matters related to history or because the content isn't mainstream from what the government tolerates. If this were the case, we might all be jail because many many people have used websites like Wikipedia and Google.
What do you think?
-Ian
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Ian,
ReplyDeleteJust like free speech is limited in reality, free speech in cyberspace is as well. But it is indeed unsettling to see that there are an extensive number of restrictions for what one may post to a website in China or Iran. The government censors out information that they feel misrepresents them. But I feel that doing this harms them even more. It makes the government seem even more controlling and gives the citizens less freedoms/rights.
I do feel that the international community should intervene because no matter what country you are from, you are still a human being who is entitled to the basic rights. No one should feel as if he/she is limited to saying certain things in certain situations (but yes, restrictions do apply in specific cases).