Censorship technology has often been perceived as an unfair means of limiting a citizen's free speech by filtering out content that authorities deem offensive to the public. In some countries, the extent of prevalent censorship can be considered oppressive and threatening. However, according to dozens of academics, censorship helps reduce the crime rate and promotes the existence of a peaceful and disciplined society to a certain extent. This essay aims to investigate how censorship technology has been misused by many countries and then discusses how it could play a role in protecting people from unwanted content while reducing crime rates in society. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Nowadays, censorship is becoming prevalent in digital as well as traditional media. Recent technological advancement has led to the expansion of Internet censorship to cover data available in various online media such as websites and other social networking platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. In countries where traditional media are tightly controlled, the free flow of information online can be seen as a threat to authorities. Restricting or completely blocking access is a tool they can use to control both citizens and the narrative around an event. Various nations such as Australia, Finland, Türkiye and Singapore use ethical values as a primary factor to justify the act of censorship. They focus on the need to limit content related to pornography and child pornography. Further research showed that access to information in other categories such as gaming and homosexuality was also restricted by the government. In Finland, the main list of restricted websites is not available to the public, despite in many cases where websites that had no reason to be blocked have been banned from public viewing. Pakistan is well known for regulating access to numerous online media for religious, political and security reasons. Many censorship technologies are unable to correctly classify all content available on the Internet. Censorship technology is prey to two major shortcomings: underblocking and overblocking of various websites. This type of technology is extremely useful for regulating access to important websites, but it is unable to recognize and filter specific sets of information available on numerous websites, blogs, chat rooms, etc. Underblocking occurs when censorship technology fails to limit access to online media that falls within censorship categories. In many cases, we can also see the prevalence of overblocking. In this case, filtering technologies are unable to precisely identify content that should be censored and regulate the availability of content that cannot be considered offensive or harmful. As a result, the government ends up blocking sites that do not fall under the censorship blacklist. Saudi Arabia unintentionally blocks some websites because SmartFilter incorrectly classifies them. Researchers still disagree about the accuracy of software classification of Web content, and many disagree. Smart Filter's marketing data shows a study indicating "94% of sites blocked accurately"; which implies that the software makes errors at least 6% of the time. The Google search engine now searches over 4 billion web pages. This means that if SmartFilter classified all these pages, it would make errors on over 240 million pages, which is notnot an encouraging fact in this context. Misclassification by filtering software is inevitable with current technology. However, SmartFilter's misclassification in Saudi Arabia results in more content being blocked than the state intends, thus limiting access to information by Saudi citizens and residents who would otherwise have been allowed to view and use it. Many governments restrict access to the Internet and reduce connection speeds in the name of censorship. More and more national governments are explicitly sanctioning their country's ISPs to monitor and filter their citizens' Internet access. The problem arises when governments themselves facilitate these systems. Such acts must not be kept away from scrutiny under the protections and rights of free speech applicable to the nation. They should be accountable to the State, with the required level of analysis, oversight and systematic proceedings that pertain to that governmental enterprise. Iranian citizens were seen desperately trying to reach out to the world for help on various social media platforms and news channels post the June 2009 presidential election. Iranians attempting to reach news channels and social media platforms were subjected to levels of unprecedented degradation and torture. Since much attention has been drawn to the web riot, instead of shutting down networks, which would have sparked further controversy, the government is said to have reduced connection speeds to levels that would have made the global web nearly obsolete. , specifically for the use and transfer of multimedia content. This sometimes took the form of slowing the speed of specific sites or protocols, and stopping all traffic in other cases. After the events of the 2009 election, it was reported that the connection and download speeds of webmail services such as Gmail were significantly disrupted. The use of censorship technologies results in the restriction of freedom of speech. Punishments for those who violate laws and legislation related to freedom of expression vary widely from country to country. In some cases they can amount to a fine, in others they range from imprisonment, intimidation and even alleged murder. Sanctions in some nations such as China and Myanmar are so brutal that they are seen as human rights violations. The Chinese government has implemented strict bans on Internet rumors and posts. In September 2013, the Supreme People's Court ruled that authors of online content who spread "rumors or lies" seen by more than 5,000 people or shared more than 500 times risk defamation charges and up to three years in prison. In July 2016, for example, following huge floods in Hebei province, the government arrested three people accused of spreading “fake news” via social media about the number of victims and the causes of the flood. Social media posts and images of the flood, particularly of drowning victims, were all censored. Censorship technology helps censor harmful and offensive content. Internet censorship is targeted and due to a wide range of topics, including hate speech, pornography, and even bomb-making instructions that anyone could otherwise easily access on the Internet. The justification for censoring such information and content is that it would result in greater social good, the cost of which is limiting the amount of information the public can access on the global web. To date, Internet censorship movements have adopted two main positions: limiting what can be accessed or what can be published on.
tags