Many of us think of the internet as a never ending portal, a
whole other galaxy, with endless places to go and explore. Unfortunately for
some places this isn’t the case, internet censorship is a real thing. Now most
of us have most likely never heard of internet censorship because we have never
been exposed to this issue. Internet censorship is controlled or suppression of
what can be viewed on the internet, it is usually carried out by governments
and can go from one extreme to another.
Burma (Myanmar) a sovereign state in Southeast Asia has an
internet censorship currently in place. This censorship stops people staying
there from going on certain sites, these sites are ones that provide
information on; religion, ethics, politics and morals. Up until August 2012 all
publication like; newspaper articles, cartoons, advertisements and drawings
required approval from the Press Scrutiny and Registration Division of the
Ministry of Information.
Now this may seem like a dark and gloomy prospect, but like
the majority of things it does have its advantages. These advantages would be;
the preservation of national security, inappropriate content, reduction of
scams, hate crimes, and of course one of the biggest issues in today’s world
cyberbullying. When you hear internet censorship your mind immediately jumps to
the idea of suppression, true this might be the case but sometimes it’s not.
Internet censorship can be a good thing as long as it’s not taken to the
extreme.
Internet censorship like many things can go to an extreme,
to a point where it’s not about safety but about control. Disadvantages are;
the limitation of ‘freedom of speech’, violation of basic human rights, limitation
of society’s advancement and of course, the big cheese. Internet censorship can
give governments too much power, too much control of what their people know and
don’t know.
At the end of the day when all is said and done, anything
can be a good thing if it’s in moderation and everything can be a bad thing if
you have too much. Just like internet censorship its can be good or bad it all
depends on the country, the type of government and the reasoning behind it.
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