Filtering/Censorship - Essay Example

Filtering/Censorship Information is power and one of the few commodities which are freely available yet there are those who seek to restrict the flow of information as well as control what type of information is available. While sources such as radio and television used to be important avenues of gaining information, the advent of the internet means that anyone with a computer or even a cell phone can access information on various subjects from sources around the world. This flood of information often leads governments to be suspicious of its use and some may seek to control it just as China has done.

The restrictions placed by the Chinese government on information flow are connected with the use of the internet in China. As reported by Zittrain and Edelman (2003), China uses four distinct methods of filtering information and research has shown that thousands of websites with ‘objectionable’ content have been restricted by the government. It is difficult to be specific about what is being restricted in China but news about health, politics and entertainment seem to be the primary blocked material.

The material that is blocked includes some sexually explicit material but it also includes sites that promote democracy, sites that give statistics about the spread of AIDS in China, the sites of groups such as Amnesty international, Human Rights Watch and other groups which are supporting the cause in Tibet. Sites connected with religion such as the Catholic Civil Rights League and the Islamic Center at Canberra are also blocked along with western media news sources such as the BBC, CNN, PBS and Time magazine.

Some sources, such as Reuters were blocked up to April 29, 2002 but then became accessible while others were blocked during the course of the testing conducted by Zittrain and Edelman (2003).The reasons for blocking such information are clearly political since the Chinese government seems to want complete control of what their citizens get to hear and read from external sources. The information that is provided by the government or that which is provided by the sources that have been approved by the government are the only ones which are readily accessible in China.

This situation points towards the Chinese government seeking total information control for its citizens.I feel that China is perfectly justified in doing what they are doing due to the simple fact of their accepted sovereignty. While such blocking may be debated I ethical terms, there is little legal foundation over which a case can be made against China blocking access to some websites. Censorship and filtering is a fact of life and I feel that various governments will continue to censor what their citizens can see, hear or read for various reasons.

They may block explicit content, hate material or even news but that blocking remains an internal matter between the government and the society. Of course there is also the question of people seeking out and finding information which they have been prevented from viewing but that situation presents itself around the world. Even in the free countries of the western world, information is not totally free. Word Count: 549Works CitedZittrain, J and Edelman, B. 2003,’Empirical Analysis of Internet Filtering in China’, Harvard Law School, [Online] Available at: http://cyber.law.harvard.

edu/filtering/china/