censorship and the Internet

Governments have always to varying degrees concerned themselves with the content of public media. The grow-ing use of the Internet for expressive activities (see blogs and blogging and journalism and computers) has prompted authoritarian governments such as that of China to attempt to block “objectionable” material both through filtering techniques (see Web filter) and through pressure on service providers. Further, users identified as creators of banned content may be subjected to prosecution. However because of the Internet’s decentralized structure and the ability of users to operate relatively anonymously, Internet censorship tends to be only partially effective (see ano-nymity and the Internet).

In the democratic West, Internet censorship generally applies to only a few forms of content. Attempts to crimi-nalize the online provision of pornography to minors in the 1996 Communications Decency Act have generally been overturned by the courts as excessively infringing on the right of adults to access such content. However, a succession of bills seeking to require schools and libraries to install Web-filtering software culminated in the Children’s Inter-net Protection Act, which was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2003.

Another area of potential censorship involves the rights of bloggers and other nontraditional journalists to post or link to documents that might be involved with a legal case.

Although the term “censorship” is sometimes lim-ited to government action under criminal law, there are other ways in which Internet content may be restricted. For example, content providers seek to protect their work from unauthorized copying or distribution (see intellec-tual property and computing). Civil sanctions can be brought to bear on violators of copyright or in cases of libel. However, as with other forms of censorlike activity on the Internet, the targeted behavior can be curtailed only to a limited extent.

Censorship in China

China has played a central role in the debate over cen-sorship. The rapidly growing Chinese economy offers seemingly unlimited market potential for Internet-based businesses and sellers of software and hardware. However the Chinese government’s desire to closely control the spread of “subversive” ideas has brought it into collision with the liberal ideas shared by many of the Internet’s most important developers.

Human rights organizations such as Amnesty Interna-tional have criticized online service providers such as Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft for providing the Internet addresses of users who have then been arrested. The companies have been accused of putting the potential profits of China’s huge market ahead of ensuring free access to information. Gener-ally, the companies say they have no choice but to comply with all local laws and legal demands for information about users. However, critics charge that the technology compa-nies have often gone well beyond mere compliance to the provision of sophisticated filtering software for Web sites, blogs, and online chat and discussion groups.

The actual extent of censorship in China seems to vary considerably, depending on shifting political consider-ations. The nation’s increasingly sophisticated users often find ways around the censorship, such as through using “proxy servers” that are inside the “Great Firewall” but can connect to the outside Internet. (Encrypted protocols such as VPN [virtual private networks] and SSH [secure shell] can also be used, because their content is not detected by monitoring and filtering software.)

Although generally not as highly organized, Internet censorship can also be found in countries such as Burma (Myanmar), North Korea, Iran, and Syria and to a lesser extent in South Korea and Saudi Arabia.

While Internet censorship can be viewed as being ulti-mately a political problem, technical realities limit its effec-tiveness, and curtailing the free exchange of information and open-ended communication that the Net affords is likely to have economic costs as well.