Censorship has become a very popular idea all over the world because it is a quick solution for governments. By censoring Internet content, they stop people from complaining about it because it can no longer be seen. But this does not mean that the problem is gone as well. In fact, the problem can often become much worse because it continues unnoticed. People will always find ways of doing what they want to do. Censorship is only a cover up, and it causes unwarranted damage to other people who haven’t done a thing wrong.
Why Censorship is Popular but Pointless
Internet regulators have touted the idea of Internet censorship for a long time because they see it as a cheap, quick fix. Issues that have a social aspect are not easy to solve, and they often take a lot of money to deal with. This is simply the nature of social problems, but governments do not want to take the time or spend the money to handle them properly. So censorship has become like the magic word to many officials who just want the whole thing swept under the rug so they can move on to simpler matters.
What censorship really does is cover up a problem that will never go away by simply removing one of its outlets. Terrorists are not going to stop their campaigns if their favorite social media site is no longer available. Illegal file sharing ill not cease if people cannot access one of the popular download sites. Child pornography doesn’t stop when a middle man is taken out of the picture. It is really sad to see more countries trying to convince their people that censorship is going to help prevent the atrocities associated with these illegal acts. The governments of Australia, France, Spain and the United Kingdom, among many others, should realize that censorship does nothing to deter criminals. And they should know that citizens will not be safe even though they can be persuaded to feel safe.
In Australia we see the latest of many moves to use censorship to solve widespread problems. The Australian government is going to censor websites that have been accused of providing illegal copies of protected content. Even sites that contain links to these infringing websites can be blocked. This is the plan, anyway, and it can end up causing tons of legitimate and innocent websites to be unavailable to the public.
In France, the government has passed the anti-terrorism law that gives Internet service providers and other authorities handling web content the power to shut down access to websites that, according to them and in very vague terms, disregard terrorist related activities. Since when are websites supposed to police the Internet? What authority or capacity to websites have to identify, track down and pursue terrorists? The wording of course does not clearly define what websites are supposed to look for so that they do not get slapped by this new law.
In the United Kingdom, where we find the busiest lawmakers of them all to date, we see the bigger Internet service providers signing up to monitor users just in case they might be downloading illegal content. There are five Internet providers that have been ordered by the High Court to censor websites that they have found to be dealing in ersatz products. An estimated 290,000 additional websites may also be blocked in the near future. These providers have also been tasked by the government to find what they deem to be extremist content and to censor that as well. They are also very keen on the project that is ongoing to inject a “jihad button” on web pages so that Internet users can report this type of content on their own. The Internet giants have also been approached and asked to do the same.
The main problem with these laws is that they do not define for people or Internet service companies what the limits and guidelines are for reporting and blocking content. So many things can go wrong with these vague rules that put blocking power in the hands of those who do not and cannot be expected to really understand what it’s all about. We have already experienced that the censoring of websites can cause thousands of other websites who are non-offenders to become inaccessible as well. This has already happened with attempts to censor pornographic content and sites that host illegally obtained copyrighted material. And this does not even consider the implications for our freedoms of expression and the right to access information. Nor does it consider what will happen in authoritarian countries where people are already fighting to the death to prevent web censorship from gaining more ground.
Besides, these websites, the real culprits, will just pop right back up again as if nothing ever happened. And the unjustly accused will have to go through weeks or even months of costly and damaging and stressful procedures to get back online again. The governments of these countries should be the ones taking the front seat on these issues. They are expected to take real steps to solve the problems that plague the Internet and its users. Why are they insisting on using methods that we know will just cause more problems without even putting a dent in the existing ones that they are supposed to be tackling?
