Article 8

Keating, J.  (2009) The List: Look Who’s Censoring the Internet Now.  Foreign Policy, March 2009

The List: Look Who’s Censoring the Internet Now

Summary

Joshua Keating writes of five countries who are actively censoring their citizen’s use of the internet.  This article informs readers of what other countries are doing and poses the question of how much is too much.  Keating writes of Australia, France, India, Argentina and South Korea.  Each country is using interned censoring to focus on different issues in their countries.  Keating (2009) writes of Australia, “Officially, child pornography and terrorism, but recent reports suggest the scope might be expanded” (pg. 156).  The Australian Communications and Media Authority have created a blacklist of sites they have deemed unacceptable and are in the process of requiring internet service providers to block access to these sites.  France, according to Keating (2009), “is debating and seems likely to pass the world’s toughest antipiracy law to date” (pg. 156).  Keating writes that France is targeting file-sharing.  A proposed law would require internet service providers to block users from surfing the web who have been caught illegally downloading.  In India political radicalism is being censored.  Keating (2009) writes, “In 2003, the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) was created to enforce the country’s filtering regime.  CERT-In is the sole authority empowered to block websites, and there is no review or appeals process once it blacklists a site” (pg. 156).  Argentina has been censoring celebrity gossip.  Keating writes of Diego Maradona, a well-known soccer player, who with several other celebrities filed suit against Google and Yahoo.  Lastly, Keating writes of South Korea.  According to Keating (2009), “South Korea is one of the world’s most wired countries, with about 90 percent of household hooked up to the web, but the Korean Internet it also one of the world’s most heavily policed” (pg. 157).  In South Korea, North Korean propaganda is the subject of censorship.

Response:

I found this article very interesting.  The subject of internet censorship in each country was so different.  It makes me think about our own country and what is censored here.  Is there censorship on the web in the United States?  I don’t know.  Should there be?  This is an age old question of the right of free speech.  Does that apply to the internet?  I think it does.  There is so much information out there it seems like it would be impossible to censor the internet.  You would have to have an entire government agency devoted to doing this.  In our current economic environment I think there are so many other things out there that need funding.  I hope this isn’t happening here.