Wednesday, October 18, 2006
China
Centuries after the construction of the Great Wall of China for the purpose of preventing foreign intrustion, similar contruction still exists. In a Thursday, May 05, 2005 article by Michael Geist, internet restrictions in China are evidence that the governments of the world have the ability to prevent the influx of ideas that pose a threat to political stability and authority. Geist discusses his experiences in China when using the internet:
"While these events seemingly affirm the notion that the Internet is beyond the reach of governments and courts, my recent trip to China provided a powerful reminder that unfettered Internet access is far more fragile than is commonly perceived. China, which boasts the world's second-largest Internet user base, is currently home to more than 94 million Internet users, yet their Internet is far different from ours."
With restrictions ranging from email access to accounts outside China's borders to searching for news articles sensitive to government interests, China's internet is seemingly more controlled by the government than one might have thought was possible. Our own government has proposed wiretapping laws that would enable the surveilance of phone calls made by citizens of the U.S.; suggestive of a world in which Big Brother is constantly watching. Are we destined to fall under similar restrictions by our own government?
The article continues in describing how most Chinese are unphased by these regulations imposed by the Chinese government. The intentions of the government are to allow businesses to use the internet to China's advantage in fostering commercial globalization efforts as the country's economy continues to grow, while preventing the Chinese public from outside influence that is detrimental to their society as a whole. In certain regards, this might not be so bad across the globe. Without any regulation, Islamic extremists are able to promote their cynical ideologies over the web--a media that is easily accessed and extremely advantageous to the intentions of terrorist organizations in the unification of networks globally.
"Having experienced limits in accessing both news and email, it came as little surprise to find that the search engines were subject to similar restrictions. Searches for articles on circumventing the Chinese filters yielded a long list of results, none of which could be opened. Moreover, inputting politically sensitive words such as the "Falun Gong'' cut me off from the search engines completely."
As the WWW continues to grow, creating apotential threat to the governmental powers already well established, should we believe that the future of the internet is one without regualtion? Should the internet even be an anarchy? How can the people of the world unite to find a happy medium of privacy and security that can promote globalization that is necessary for the progession of the world into the 21st century? It would seem as thought there is an online battle forming between those who are watching and those who are watched.
"There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to."--George Orwell's '1984'
http://www.liferesearchuniversal.com/1984-1.html#one
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/resc/html_bkup/may22005.html
"While these events seemingly affirm the notion that the Internet is beyond the reach of governments and courts, my recent trip to China provided a powerful reminder that unfettered Internet access is far more fragile than is commonly perceived. China, which boasts the world's second-largest Internet user base, is currently home to more than 94 million Internet users, yet their Internet is far different from ours."
With restrictions ranging from email access to accounts outside China's borders to searching for news articles sensitive to government interests, China's internet is seemingly more controlled by the government than one might have thought was possible. Our own government has proposed wiretapping laws that would enable the surveilance of phone calls made by citizens of the U.S.; suggestive of a world in which Big Brother is constantly watching. Are we destined to fall under similar restrictions by our own government?
The article continues in describing how most Chinese are unphased by these regulations imposed by the Chinese government. The intentions of the government are to allow businesses to use the internet to China's advantage in fostering commercial globalization efforts as the country's economy continues to grow, while preventing the Chinese public from outside influence that is detrimental to their society as a whole. In certain regards, this might not be so bad across the globe. Without any regulation, Islamic extremists are able to promote their cynical ideologies over the web--a media that is easily accessed and extremely advantageous to the intentions of terrorist organizations in the unification of networks globally.
"Having experienced limits in accessing both news and email, it came as little surprise to find that the search engines were subject to similar restrictions. Searches for articles on circumventing the Chinese filters yielded a long list of results, none of which could be opened. Moreover, inputting politically sensitive words such as the "Falun Gong'' cut me off from the search engines completely."
As the WWW continues to grow, creating apotential threat to the governmental powers already well established, should we believe that the future of the internet is one without regualtion? Should the internet even be an anarchy? How can the people of the world unite to find a happy medium of privacy and security that can promote globalization that is necessary for the progession of the world into the 21st century? It would seem as thought there is an online battle forming between those who are watching and those who are watched.
"There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to."--George Orwell's '1984'
http://www.liferesearchuniversal.com/1984-1.html#one
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/resc/html_bkup/may22005.html
