As one of the hottest topics in technology today, there are obviously many issues regarding online censorship. Morally and ethically, we certainly have problems with banning information to citizens just because a government is against it. We have even more problems with the draconian way that censorship is enforced. You can expect to be receiving anything from threats, to years in jail, to actual physical harm for simply visiting a website or sending an email. However, the even more drastic issues fall into the social realm. Taking information away from citizens will always have a negative effect on society as a whole. People will be less informed, technological innovation will suffer, and there will a lack in idea sharing across the country. The question of why governments would want to censor the internet, or really censor anything, is pretty simple. There’s information out there that the government wish you wouldn’t notice. Maybe the government has done something wrong, maybe there are other governments doing better than them, or maybe there are websites that are speaking against the government. These types of information are a threat to riots and an end to a governments existence, so it’s obvious why a government would attempt to remove this information if possible.
In today’s day and age, it’s going to take some seriously advanced techniques to cut an entire population off from information. The period we’re living in is called the information age for a reason. Information is everywhere, easily accessible by a normal person, and very hard to cut off. Looking at China, probably the most successful internet censor, gives us a good idea how this is possible. The first technique used is advanced technology to block users from certain sites. First of all, internet traffic is channeled through three checkpoints. This makes it much easier to monitor all traffic in and out of the country. Packets can be monitored to see if there is any subversive material, or if they are coming from/to a banned website. There is also the idea of self-censorship. China will demand that companies remove all information they deem undesirable, or the company and their website face being banned from Chinese users. Chinese also has strict punishments for attempting to go around censorship, from lengthy jail time to physical threats.
The ethical and moral debate gets a little murkier when the side gets switched to the companies providing the information. Are they ethically and morally responsible to fight against censorship and not give in to government demands? They face many issues if they do. Business will be lost in the most populated country in the world, they will lose favor with one of the largest governments in the world, and depending on the violation they could face jail time. I think it is ethical for these types of companies to go against censorship requests and to develop ways to get around censorship. This is because large technology companies are really the only group we have that can fight internet censorship. Individuals fighting against the Chinese government will not really have an effect on them. However, Google threatening to pull their services from the country certainly would. Thus I would say not only are these companies ethically and morally justified in fighting censorship, these companies are required to. They are our only hope.
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