What Is Internet Censorship?

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Censorship refers to suppression of information which is considered to be politically unacceptable, private, and obscene. Censorship can is also considered to be a threat to national security. The information could be contained in books, news or even films. Internet censorship therefore refers to control of materials that can be viewed, published or accessed via the internet. Organizations and individuals engage in censorship of information for many reasons including national security, child pornography, to suppress posting of obscene materials, prevention of slander and restriction of religious and political views as well as controlling hate speech(Hubbard, 2011). It could also be used to prevent conformation to societal norms as a result of fear or intimidation.

The level of internet censorship differs from one country to the other. Most countries which have adopted the policy of democracy only consider moderate censorship. However, other countries adopt extreme censorship where they go to the extent of prohibiting online discussions among their citizens while at the same time limiting access to critical information like news (Warf, 2011). Extreme censorship may be applied in efforts to eliminate threats of disruption in anticipation of big events like elections. Other cases when it can be applied is in incidents of police harassment to prevent demonstrations, defamation of political aspirants or in cases when people start posting obscene materials.

Internet censorship has brought mixed reactions in the society. Some positive effects prompt the society to view it as a good development while the negative influences have caused the society to act in rejection.For instance, according to an Internet Society Survey conducted in 2012, 71% of the total respondents were in favor of internet censorship regarding some issues. Support for censorship was expressed in issues like posting of obscene materials and pornography which erodes the morals of the society. They also supported the idea in cases where some individuals use the internet to defame others. Another 83% of the respondents from the same survey also indicated that access to materials on the internet should be considered a basic human right for all while another 86% stated that the freedom of expression should be assured on the internet.

The logic of internet censorship varies depending on the different types of information censored. For instance, moral censorship involves the elimination of materials which are considered to be morally questionable. Often, content like pornography is censored in this approach. It has produced a positive outcome on the society especially in countering issues like early pregnancies, preservation of culture and the control of the spread of sexually transmitted infections. Most communities all over the world prohibit public engagement of any sexual activities and therefore posting of unrestricted pornography materials of the internet serves a great deal to destroy morals of the society.

Military censorship serves to store and protect military tactics and intelligence from the enemy. It has also helped to counter espionage, a spying act sponsored by governments to obtain military and political information about other countries. Societal implications of this censorship result in having a clueless population about the affairs and operations of the military. This is a very important achievement towards the winning of any war by any specific government since crucial information cannot leak to the public from the civilian population. In cases where the information is leaked, it is very easy to trace steps back to the perpetrator of the crime since the information can only be accessed by a few authorized personnel.

Religious censorship involves the removal of material which is considered to be objectionable by another religion. It has produced a negative impact on the religious society since it often involves dictatorship by the dominant religion. This means that a dominant religion has the ability to shun the works of a less prevalent one when they believe that the content is not acceptable for their religion and thus promoting the existence of more dominant religions with a greater impact on the population than others. Political censorship is somewhat similar to religious censorship. It occurs in situations when the government restricts information to their citizens in order to gain control over the citizens and to moderate the freedom of expression which could trigger a rebellion. In most cases, political censorship has had a negative impact on the society often triggering mass demonstrations while people seek to regain their freedom of expression. On another perspective, it has achieved positive results especially in cases where some individuals especially rivals may intend to use the media and internet to incite violence or defame their opponents. In such situations censorship works to prevent both violence and defamation of a genuine candidate and thus maintaining a peaceful co-existence among people in the society.

Corporate censorship is the work of editors in media outlets to prevent the publishing of information that depicts their businesses in a negative manner. It also intercedes to prevent the exposure of alternative offers. It has had various impacts on the society especially in cases where a media house is biased to a certain political side during times of election. The particular biased media house would be subjective to their viewers and listeners, and thus broadcasting the positive perspectives about the side they are secretly affiliated to while indirectly leaning on the weaknesses of the other. Individuals who prefer the particular media house would be prone to think negatively of one side while regarding the other side unnecessarily. This implies that corporate censorship has the ability to control people's loyalties indirectly.

There are many methods of internet censorship ranging from technical censorship, non-technical censorship and circumvention. Technical censorship incorporates different methods of blocking certain pages and websites. The methods include analyzing and filtering of URLs. DNS poisoning, Inspecting of the filtering packages and resettling of connections and blocking the access to IPs. Contents on the internet are subject to censorship via many technical methods including Internet Protocol address blocking, Domain name system (DNS) filtering and redirection, Packet filtering, Uniform Resource Locator, Network disconnection, Connection reset, Computer Network attacks, Portal censorship and search result removal.

Internet Protocol address blocking works by denying access to certain IP addresses. All other websites are blocked when the targeted website is stored in a shared hosting server. However, this only affects protocols like FTP, HTTP and POP which are all IP-based. A ducking technique is used to locate the specific proxies that are linked to the target website. Despite this, proxies and some websites could be easily jammed. As a result of this challenge, a prevention mechanism has since been invented where geoblocking is executed through the blocking of IP addresses. In URL filtering, connected strings are scanned in a bid to locate the targeted keywords regardless of the specified domain name and thus affecting the HTTP protocol.

DNS filtering and redirection returns an incorrect IP address in cases where the domain name has been blocked without being resolved. This causes the destruction of all IP-based protocols including FTP, HTTP and POP. An alternative execution to this form of censorship is done by bypassing the DNS in cases where the IP address can be obtained from other locations without the risk of getting blocked. While using Packet Filtering, whenever a series of disputable keywords are identified, then the TCP packet transmissions are terminated. Connection reset works through a manner of blocking all connection attempts in cases where the previous TCP connection had been blocked.

Network disconnection technique is the easiest method of censorship. It involves complete destruction of all routers, whether hardware or software through uprooting of cables and switching off all machines respectively. A good example of this took place in Egypt on January 27 and 28 2011 as part of the Arab spring. The situation was termed as an unprecedented internet attack(Feng, Guo, 2013). It involved the shutting down of approximately 3500 Border Gateway Protocol entry routes to the Egyptian networks. Other case examples also took place in Libya, 2011 and in the civil war of Syria. Protocol Censorship and search result removal works by a technique of excluding websites which would be included by search engines and other major portals under normal circumstances. This exclusion of the website makes it invisible to people with limited knowledge about the internet.

All methods applied in technical censorship are vulnerable to both the techniques of over-and under-blocking. For instance, blocking only the targeted contents without blocking other authorized content is a close to impossible task. This case is similar to other vulnerabilities where the operator ends up granting access to other targeted content. This implies that all the technical technique provide less or more protection than the desired. A case example is evident when a user decides to block an IP address that is tasked to host many websites. The blockage of the particular IP address results in the closure of all the other websites contained in it rather than the intended one which was considered to be offensive.

Non-technical censorship applies methods which were used traditionally. It is mostly composed of rules and regulations and the consequences which arise due to failed compliance. Some of the laws revoke the removal or blockage of certain contents regardless of whether in response to specific requests or proactively, authors are allowed to take bribes to alter specific content. Legal licenses may be revoked and ISPs could also be closed, publishers may receive official requests to block or alter some content in various websites and the freedom to hire individuals to comment in support or opposition of various articles. Another non-technical method employed is the Major Web Portal Official Statements on Site and Content Removal. This method works by allowing unconsented removal of pre-screen writing content. This technique is as a result of the rights that major service operators in the web award themselves.

A good example in relation to the Major Web Portal and content remover occurred in August 2018. All major media platforms lie Facebook and YouTube collaborated in an exercise to delete and permanently prohibit all the media accounts associated with a host of conservative talk by Alex Jones. His site Info Wars acted to glorify violence and hate speech and thus leading to their closure (Troyansky, 2013). The effect of such careless behavior on the society provides a risk of spurring conflict among the people. Among the rights and responsibilities posted by Facebook is a right that prohibits anyone from posting any material that incites violence, is hateful or disrespectful, threatening, contains nudity or is pornographic. The consequences of posting such materials include deleting and permanently blocking the account from operating. According to other terms by google which were reviewed in 2012, it allows the management to remove or refuse to display any content that they believe violates their law and policies.

These non-technical methods of censorship have had great impacts on the society. First, it has denied a platform to individuals and groups who wish to destroy the morals of the society. It has also prevented posting of con...