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    Is Internet Censorship Essential

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    M T
    While internet censorship could potentially censor illegal or offensive content like child pornography or prevent criminal activity, overall internet censorship is not essential and would likely be abused by governments. If given censorship powers, governments may use it to limit citizens' knowledge of human rights violations, suppress political dissent, and keep other countries unaware of domestic events. Examples show that governments have shut down the internet during times of political unrest or revolution to control the flow of information. On balance, the risks of allowing widespread government censorship of the internet outweigh the potential benefits.

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    Is Internet Censorship Essential

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    M T
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    While internet censorship could potentially censor illegal or offensive content like child pornography or prevent criminal activity, overall internet censorship is not essential and would likely be abused by governments. If given censorship powers, governments may use it to limit citizens' knowledge of human rights violations, suppress political dissent, and keep other countries unaware of domestic events. Examples show that governments have shut down the internet during times of political unrest or revolution to control the flow of information. On balance, the risks of allowing widespread government censorship of the internet outweigh the potential benefits.

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    Law essay based on the question, Is Internet Censorship Essential?

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    While internet censorship could potentially censor illegal or offensive content like child pornography or prevent criminal activity, overall internet censorship is not essential and would likely be abused by governments. If given censorship powers, governments may use it to limit citizens' knowledge of human rights violations, suppress political dissent, and keep other countries unaware of domestic events. Examples show that governments have shut down the internet during times of political unrest or revolution to control the flow of information. On balance, the risks of allowing widespread government censorship of the internet outweigh the potential benefits.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    21 views1 page

    Is Internet Censorship Essential

    Uploaded by

    M T
    While internet censorship could potentially censor illegal or offensive content like child pornography or prevent criminal activity, overall internet censorship is not essential and would likely be abused by governments. If given censorship powers, governments may use it to limit citizens' knowledge of human rights violations, suppress political dissent, and keep other countries unaware of domestic events. Examples show that governments have shut down the internet during times of political unrest or revolution to control the flow of information. On balance, the risks of allowing widespread government censorship of the internet outweigh the potential benefits.

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    Is Internet Censorship essential?

    The internet is a global computer network that provides a variety of information and communication services, such as data exchange. It consists of interconnected networks that use standardised communication protocols. It is used all over the world by everyone, including government agencies and educational institutions, amongst others. Censorship is the practice of officially examining something and suppressing the unacceptable parts of it. In the case of the internet, censorship would mean controlling or suppressing what can be accessed, viewed or published. I do not believe in censorship of the internet, and I do not agree with the viewpoint that is has become essential. If there was censorship of the internet, I think the government would take it too far, and use it to invade peoples privacy. It could also be used by the government to keep the citizens of their country ignorant, or to keep other countries in the dark as to what is happening in the country in which the censorship is being used. I say this because it has and is being done in other countries. For example, in Vietnam, the government has asked Yahoo, Google and Microsoft for the information of the bloggers that use these social media platforms. They have also specifically created an agency that exclusively monitors content exposed on the internet, which block websites that are critical of the Vietnamese government and international human rights organisations amongst others. Another example is when Muammar Gaddafi shut down the internet in Libya in February in 2011 due to the Libyan Revolution. The internet was shut down to limit the exposure of the goings on within the country to the external media. A similar situation also occurred in Egypt, although it was at an earlier time of January 2011. These examples show that the governments may use the censorship of the internet for personal gain. It could be used to limit the countries citizens knowledge of human rights and thus if the citizens rights were being violated, it is not likely that they would know. It is also likely to be used to suppress expression. This way, countries citizens cannot speak out against their government and cannot express their views. This is something which actually directly interferes with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 19 in the declaration states that people have the right to hold opinions without interference, to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. However, I can see that internet censorship may be beneficial. If it were done to censor incredibly offensive and, or illegal things, such as child pornography or intense racism. Another way that internet censorship could be beneficial is through monitoring of criminal syndicate. Monitoring of these syndicates would be beneficial as it could lead to a more crimes being stopped and thus a reduction in the national crime rate, and it could possibly even prevent terrorist attacks that may be organised through social media platforms. In conclusion, I believe that internet censorship is not essential, and that if it is undertaken by governments, it would lead to the infringement of innocent peoples privacy and freedom of speech.

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