Internet Censorship in China



Internet Censorship in China

Introduction

In this modern world, the technology plays a big role in our daily lives. Like the Internet, it is a fascinating technology that offers people to discover many new resources instantly on their computers and electronic gadgets (Tracey, 2011). The Internet improves the human communication via the social networking sites and forums. People can share their thoughts and opinions at anywhere and anytime. However, in Mainland China, the central government conducted the Internet censorship regulations and heavily controls the multimedia content. The people of China are banned from visiting many foreign social media sites and search engines. Moreover, China controls heavily on the media such as newspaper, televisions, and radio stations. The Chinese people are limited to know on about what the Chinese want to tell them, and not being able to learn about the truth. The thesis of this essay is whether the Chinese government should stop interfering the Internet and multimedia, and whether China is violating human rights.

Discussion

Government of China strongly believes that it has the right to govern the use of internet within the country's boundaries. A wide variety of administrative regulations and laws govern the use of internet and its censorship in China. The internet censorship policies are considered to be stricter in China as compared to any other country. The Government runs a firewall to block unwanted sites. In addition to the Great Firewall (GFW), extensive self-censors and internet regulatory rules have been implemented at all the ISP's of the country (Custer, 2012). First of all, the original purpose of the Internet censorship program (Golden Shield Project & Great Firewall) is designed to sift out pornography and commercial fraud. The political and ideological backgrounds of these projects are considered to be one of Deng Xiaoping's (former Chinese communist party leader) quote “If you open the window for fresh air, you have to expect some flies to blow in.” It means that the Communist Party of China has had to be protected by “swatting flies” of other unwanted ideologies. Individuals in China are prohibited from using the Internet to: harm national security; disclose state secrets; or injure the interests of the state or society. Some of the censored content are: websites related to Falun Gong, news sources that often cover topics such as police brutality, Tiananmen Square protest of 1989, freedom of speech, democracy, Taiwanese government, Dalai Lama and ...