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Censorship and freedom
Censorship freedom
The bad side of censorship
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Everyone knows that Google is one of the top search engines on the internet and they are a highly respected and established business. Their respect may have gone out the door in China because of what they had done back in 2004. The major search engine decided to give into the Chinese government and Google.cn was censored. Nobody knew that it happened until they decided to use the search engine and tried to search for their daily news. This marks the first time in the history of the internet that a search engine had censored any content. A search engine is supposed to provide its users with the content that they input into the search feature and as of September 2004 this is not what was happening.
One of the main reasons for the cause of the censorship has to do with former leader Zhao Ziyang. Zhao, who passed away on January 15, 2005 was the leader of China from 1980-1987. As a leading reformer who implemented reforms and greatly increased the production of the country, Zhao also fought against corruption. His biggest battle was at Tiananmen Square on May 19, 1989 when he made his most famous speech. He is quoted as saying, “Students, we came too late. We are sorry. You talk about us, criticize us, it is all necessary. The reason that I came here is not to ask you to forgive us. All I want to say is that students are getting very weak, it is the 7th day since you went on hunger strike, you can't continue like this.” The students were protesting against the economic policies that the government currently upheld. Zhao went on to say in his speech “We are old; it doesn’t matter to us anymore.” He was referring the government, Zhao was still a government official at the time of his speech. This ended up being his last public appearance and one day later he was put under house arrest until his death in 2005. The people in China don’t know this story because of the censorship that China is enforcing. They censored everything because they didn’t want a rebellion against the government. They also didn’t want protesters at Zhao’s funeral on January 17, 2005.
There have been a lot of reactions due the fact that the people of China can no longer freely access the internet.
Everyday people in China are suffering from their government. From being wrongly accused to being executed for petty crimes. In a country where you cannot speak your opinions, talk poorly about government officials, speak about Chinese communist failures, or even browse the internet freely. China has kept its citizens in the void. One example is the great firewall of china, which sensors most social media and other sites. This essay will go into some individual stories of the Chinese government's unfair social injustices towards its people.
To begin with, Harry Lewis, Randal Picker, and Siva Vaidhyanathan argue that the violation of the Google motto is demonstrated in their agreement to cooperate with the Chinese government in exchange of a larger monetary market (Intelligence2, 2008). They discuss that the Chinese government has allowed Google to enter their country with the condition that they censor much of the material on the Internet. Google, being an American company should have said no and upheld the first amendment of the United States Constitution. This is a reason that has led many people to classify Google as...
Even if every household had a telephone and everyone had a computer, free speech could still be blocked. Because the Internet backbones in these countries are controlled by the Communist Parties, it is quite easy for them to block sites. As the Net's secret police put on more and more filters, Net-literate dissidents find more and more ways to work around them. But as all this goes on, it gets harder and harder for less Net-literate people to play the game.
"Internet Censorship." What does this mean to us? What is restricted? Censorship is summarily defined as the suppression of objectionable material. That means that material such as pornography, militant information, offensive language, anti-religion, and racism would be restricted in use. Freedom would not only be restricted to material placed on the web, but also what you could access, and where you could explore. Should the right of Freedom of Speech be taken away from us on the Internet? Having stated this, should there be any restrictions and if so, what's the limit of censorship?
Furthermore, the Cultural Revolution remains one of the most censored and unclear topics in China, indicating that the movement was much more impactful on the CCP’s political strategy than perhaps they would hope to admit. Simultaneously, the Cultural Revolution may also be diminishing in resonance over time, as many young people are simply unaware of the movement occurring at all, or not fully aware of its implications in Chinese
There was a time when all connection to the west was forbidden. The barriers are now being removed as accessible internet is activated and the many Chinese exchange students studying abroad send foreign news homeward.
The film Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry is in part about how the government responds to Ai Weiwei’s controversial artwork. Over the course of the film, he is beaten, watched, and arrested because his art goes against the Chinese government. The government tries to censor any content that may show them in a bad light, which prevents revolts from taking place in China since they never hear about the injustices that have occurred. Ai Weiwei, however, utilizes technology to spread information about what is going on: he uses blogging and recording as ways to make sure the government can’t hide what has happened. This Communist government, however, wants sole control over the economy and the politics of the country, but much of Ai Weiwei’s artwork fights against what the government is trying to force onto its’ people through the spread of information. With the technology Ai Weiwei uses, he is able to display the evidence of the injustices that are occurring in China, including posting the names of Sichuan earthquake victims on his blog and recording the police assaulting him. This way he can spread the information
The government in china is very concerned with limiting the freedom of expression for it's citizens in all possible ways. Let's examine first the reason why censorship is such an important aspect for the Chinese government. According to the book “A Short History of China” by Gordon Kerr when the renaissance took place in Europe from the 14th through the 17th century it changed people's view in many different ways because it was “a period of exploration, discovery and advancement in almost every field”(Gordon Kerr 87); it was a rebirth of the ancient traditions. Mean...
Sirico, Robert A. "Don’t Censor the Internet." Forbes 29 July 1996: 48. [Editorial outlining concerns about governmental control of the Internet and alternatives.]
...wever, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao prompted a calling for press freedom in 2010. After that, there was a “Decision on Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening Reforms” made public as a document on November 15th 2013 by the government. It is likely to prompt fairly free market media system. This is a big step towards to free speech in China.
This report will describe the history of government regulations and FTC. How that applied to Google search and personal privacy. The changes made from the settlement between Google and the FTC, the difference Google's practices and policies from before the settlement and after the settlement, and the current demands and expectations from current and vocal Google users. The report will also draw a conclusion from the findings and will determine if additional regulations are needed or if the regulations currently in place are sufficient.
Xu, Beina. "Media Censorship in China." Council on Foreign Relations. Council on Foreign Relations, 12 Feb. 2014. Web. 26 Mar. 2014. .
Censorship allows governments more control of society than they already have, slowly progressing governments utilizing censorship to a dictatorship. Often times, this censorship can lead to immense rebellions. A good example of this is in China, where Google has been censored by a provider called The Great Firewall of China, which censors information that could be viewed as defamatory or insulting to Chinese government and culture. According to the article “Google turns off China censorship warning” as published by BBC News Technology, “Google has had a rocky relationship with the Chinese authorities since January 2010, when the company said it may shut down Chinese operations due to a ‘sophisticated and targeted’ cyber attack. Google said at the time that it was no longer willing to censor the Google search engine”. Many journalists have also taken a look at Egypt, which also utilizes censorship. According to “Egyptian authorities step up censorship” as published by the Committee to Protect Journalists website, the new military-run Egyptian government is censoring news outlets and keep journalists, as well as the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates. “Egyptia...
Google is the largest search engine across the globe, which has significantly transformed the use of the Internet as an information source. The influence of Google in Internet use as information source is evident in the fact that by June 2010, it accounted for more than 70 percent of total Internet searches in America. In addition to its success and profitability in the global market, Google is renowned as a highly ethical company as demonstrated in its corporate philosophy features. However, the firm’s behavior during the launch of its China-based search engine in 2006 generated huge skepticism from the United States government and several human rights organizations (Baker & Tang, p.2). Since the launch of Google’s Chinese search engine, the company complied with China’s censorship regulations by deciding to filter out terms that are considered politically sensitive. This decision attracted criticism from political leaders and human rights activists who accused Google of betraying its adopted ethical standards by ignoring the essence of freedom of expression and information access. As a result, Google faced a dilemma involving the clash between law and ethics. In the subsequent years, Google reacted to the dilemma by changing its rhetoric strategies in efforts to respond to the changing needs.
Interests: A population of 1.3 billion along with a growing economy makes Chinese market extremely important for Google to enter Interests: It wants Google to provide its citizens and companies with the access to the very best technology, eventually, an achievement of technological parity with the US. Also, China knows the nation’s economy will be improved by internet access and use. Level of censorship Priority: 2 Position: doesn’t want to comply with the level of censorship required by China Priority: 1 Position: Requires Google to comply with China’s level of censorship. Interests: The image of Google in the media and among investors will be seriously damaged if it acts antithetically to its philosophy of “Don’t’ be evil”. It might affect negatively to the future prosperity of the company.