Essay

4. What are the uses/limits of the Internet in terms of politics and/or democracy? Should we rethink the nature of the political? What happens to the nation/state in the age of networks that have the potential to span the whole planet? What has happened to the idea of "community" in the age of networked digital media? Discuss with an example.

In this essay I will focus on what the Internet have done to the worlds community. Why countries censor the Internet. I will also discuss if the government should censor it, and how it goes against the human rights

The Internet was created by the US military in the 1970s, and since then the Internet has developed tremendously. Today you can access almost everything you want. Everyone who has something to say can share it with the rest of the world.
The Internet has made it easier for us to communicate with other countries, and it’s easy to get information about what happens around the world.
The world is getting smaller. The development of Internet has made the world a global community.
Because the Internet is so big, you limit your chooses of websites and searches. That way you just get information on you’re beliefs and interests. You don’t get to know so much about anything else. Its not like it was when it was only one TV-channel or one radio-channel everyone watched or listened to the same shows. You didn’t have any other choices.

The Internet has also changed the way we communicate. Facebook, blogs, MySpace are websites a lot of people use daily. People communicate with their friends, joins big Internet societies, cheer pictures, videos, and its reachable to everyone with Internet.
Internet has also done it easier to do business. Because it’s so cheap to get an Internet site, and makes it easier for them to reach its market.
“Internet is actually the most democratic of all the mass media. With a very low investment, anyone can have a web page in Internet.”
- www.internetworldstats.com
The numbers of users on the Internet grows every day. In December 1995 it was 16million users on the Internet, in June this year it was 1,669 million users. From Mars to June 2009 it was a growth of almost 73 million Internet users in the world.
The Internet and media have made the world until one big global community.

Many countries censor the Internet because they are afraid of all the information. For example China censor the Internet for political sensitive information. They have also blocked Internet cafés, e-mails, search engines and so on, all because they are afraid of the share of information and the wide communication. If you break some of their Internet laws you can be sent to jail, and in the worst cases sentenced to death. I don’t think many people disagree with me when I say that this is totally wrong. Free speech is a human right, and this kind of censor breaks this right in all kinds of ways.
But censor of Internet isn’t always that bad. Most of the debates about the censorship are for people’s safety.

The Internet gives out all kinds of information.
“The internet is a cross between the world’s largest public library and the most sophisticated telephone party line” Free speech false profit.
Everyone who wants can put information on the World Wide Web. Everyone with a computer has access to it, regardless of age. Its no limits, unstable people can encourage other like-minded people to be violent. It’s also a lot of stories about people that has been encouraged to commit suicide when they’re in life crises.
Racists and bullies can write what ever they want. Should people that hate black, white or gay people be able to express their feelings on the Internet?
Children on the net are also a big concern. They are really easy to effect, and what if they enter a porn site? What if they meet a paedophile?

Should we censor Internet to provide all this?
Censorship of Internet has started a big debate around the world. In Australia the clean feed started a big dissection. A lot of non-clean feed groups have popped up all over the Internet.
The EFA (Electronic Frontiers Australia) attacked the government for its clean feed plan.
“Furthermore, Australia is supposed to be a liberal democracy where adults have the freedom to say and read what they want, not just what the Government decides is ‘appropriate’ for them.” Chair Dale Clapperton, EFA.

Everyone has the right of free speech. We have the freedom express our feelings and ideas. This is a human right whiteout limits. So why should we put limits on the Internet? You’re supposed to have this kind of freedom in a democracy. And if you let the government censor the Internet you also give them the right to search trough your e-mails, and look through your computer to see what your looking at. You loose your right for freedom.
And is it any point? It’s already laws against many of these cases. And one of the biggest states for government censorships is to provide the children. But there are already programs like parent control that provide all these. If the government filters the Internet it will be the same for everyone, even though you have no children.
I think people can choose for them self. It’s no need for the government to take care of everything. The filter can’t help with the biggest concerns for the children. It can’t stop paedophiles contact them trough chat rooms. It can’t provide bullying on the net.
Internet is the only media with no censorship, so why not let it stay that way? And let the people decide for them self. It’s heaps of filtering programs out there.

The Internet has changed the way we think of the community. It has made the world to one big global village. Censorship of the Internet reduces the right of free speech, and it can’t stop the biggest dangers for children on the Internet.

Sources:

Books:

1.
Title: Free speech and false profits
Author: Ted Schwarz
Year of publication: 1996

2.
Title: Future net
Author: Sally Richards
Year of publication: 2002

3.
Title: The practise and policy of global Internet filtering
Author: Ronald Deibert, John Palfrey, Ratal Rohozinski and Jonathan Zittrain
Year of publication: 2008

4.
Title: Foundation of information ethics. – The handbook of Information and computer ethics.
Author: Kenneth Einar Himma and Herman T. Tavani
Year of publication: 2008

5.
Title: History of the Internet.
Author: Christos J.P. Moschovitis, Hilary Poole, Tami Schuyler, and Theresa M. Senft.
Year of publication: 1999

Internet:

1.
http://www.internetworldstats.com/emarketing.htm
2.
http://nocleanfeed.com/learn.html#f2
3.
http://www.customessaymeister.com/customessays/Ethics%20and%20Law/3644.htm
4.
http://www.amnestyusa.org/document.php?lang=e&id=50A38A55EB758C0C80256C72004773CD
5.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/03/wireds-top-inte/
6.
http://www.efa.org.au/2008/01/02/media-release-efa-attacks-clean-feed-proposal/