SOCIAL SCIENCES

Internet, Society and Freedom of Speech

Internet, Society and Freedom of Speech

Introduction

The freedom of speech whether offline or online refers to the right to express the feelings, words and the expressions freely to anyone a person wants to. This right has been awarded to the each individual of the world according to the Universal Declaration of the Human Rights in the article 19 of this act. This right of freedom of speech is also recognized by the international human rights law. This right and law state that each individual in the world has a right to express his or her opinion regarding anything and without interference of others. The only thing that counts is the opinion and its freedom, no matter it happens online or offline. On the other hand, the internet is a vast social network of the interconnected computers and other devices that use worldwide standards for operations. This is the global network of several different networks such as the academic network, organizational, business, governments and private networks. The internet is a useful tool for almost every field in the world but is also a cause of many social crimes with its wrong use. Somehow both the internet and the freedom of speech online connected to each other.

Discussion

Internet and Censorship

There are many crimes that take birth in the society due to the wrong use of the internet. Like all the previously invented devices and technology, this technology also has some advantages and disadvantages. The social crimes and the issues that can take place due to the wrong use of the internet includes the pornographic material and films, the use of the internet to spread the terror and for other bigger terrorists activities and the most common crime being the theft of the copy right material and the intellectual properties. This is the most common crime because today everywhere in the world the theft of the intellectual property is very general and easy. The matter of the social problems is not only restricted to the single time occurrence of the problem, in fact, the upcoming generations are also getting involved in these problems, and they are becoming part of these problems. This has also been observed that the new generations are getting involved in many more early ages than the past generations (Nie, 2000, pp. 1-5).

Many governments in countries like Iran, Burma, China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, UAE and some other countries have restricted the access of the internet for their people according to the law and regulations which also include some religious point of views. The content that has been restricted is mostly the pornographic material, the religious content and the irrelevant political content. They have controlled the access of the internet to their users and nations in order to maintain the dignity of the norms and to avoid the occurrence of the social crimes and evils as many as it is possible. This security to access has been achieved with the help of the software that ...