A few days ago, an article appeared in the New York Times regarding national firewalls, so I thought it fit in well with our recent class discussions. There is currently a controversy in Australia about the possibility of establishing a national firewall. Other countries have had similar discussions come up as a result including the possibility of a firewall that not only includes Russia, but a number of the smaller countries surrounding it. The Thai government is in support of a national firewall as well. Because it is illegal to speak ill of the Royal Family in Thailand, the firewall would target about 1,000 sites that do so. It can also be set to block porn-sites, terrorism sites, gambling sites, or other offensive content. Many people are opposed to the government’s proposal because they feel that a national firewall would be providing censorship. The Australian Parliament is also looking to increase the number of ISPs that are blocked to include a broader range of potentially offensive content.
It’s been several years since China put their national firewall in place and it has ended up causing a number of problems. Among these are trade scandals because companies weren’t able to access information that could have prevented them. China has actually unblocked a number of sites over the years, but the firewall still prevents a huge amount of content from being seen in China. So, what do you think about the idea of national firewalls? Where do you draw the line when censoring content? Who has the right to make the decision and is this kind of censorship a violation of rights?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/05/technology/start-ups/05blog.html?_r=1&ref=technology&oref=slogin
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I believe it becomes very hard to draw a line when dealing with freedom of speech. In the US I believe most anything goes (except for child pornography) on the internet. I think that the freedom of accessing unlimited amounts of information is essential to our country's identity.
ReplyDeleteI can understand censoring potentially harmful materials, but it is essentially a slippery slope. Government may too easily get out of hand and begin censoring more and more material. It is then that this becomes a risk. Specifically, with multiple search words being filtered, there is a strong potential for legitimate sites being blocked due to an unlucky string of words. It almost seems better to flag certain IP addresses which are visiting these 'hazardous' sites and investigate further if necessary.
For me, in the context of the United States, I believe it is a states' rights issue. This sounds like something that would be involved with the "public welfare," and as such, should only be regulated by state governments--not the federal government. So, if large firewalls were to be designed and implemented, then I feel each state should have the authority to decide for itself whether it wants a statewide firewall. However, I do not believe our Constitution permits a federal, national firewall. (I'm sure though that the federal government could claim the right to implement a national firewall under the auspices that it involved interstate commerce.)
ReplyDeleteOn a personal level, I too have concerns that this would violate our first ammendment right to free speech. Obviously there is a ton of offensive content on the internet, but I don't believe everything that could possibly be considered offensive should be censored--or, at least, I don't believe it should be forcibly blocked. Like Dorian said, Americans' ability to access information when we want and how we want is an important aspect of American culture. In many ways, it what has made the U.S. such a great country.
So, in conclusion, I feel that the thought behind a firewall is good, but that its effects would ultimately limit free speech and the American way of life.
Personally, I don't believe it would ever be possible for any level of government in the United States to implement this type of firewall. As the previous commenter pointed out, the constitutional provisions present a high burden here. I can't see any way that content filtering could take place at a national level that wouldn't constitute "abridging the freedom of speech".
ReplyDeleteAs far as offensive content, the courts have repeatedly upheld the right of Americans to create and share offensive content as long as it isn't obscene. For more on this, read How is Obscenity Regulated on the Internet.
I believe that states would face the same legal hurdles, in addition to some technical ones. Most apparent is the difficulty of drawing borders on the Internet. If Notre Dame leases a server located in an out-of-state data center and operated by a third-party company located in yet another state, what firewall would regulate traffic to and from it? What if the server is located offshore?
I think we'll see an increase in the current trend of regulations requiring other organizations to use firewalls. For example, the Children's Internet Protection Act requires that schools and libraries receiving federal funding implement content filtering on their networks as a condition of receiving that funding.
I don't think a firewall would work very well at all, because I think that while blocking sites could be a good thing, I think the people putting up sites that would be on the block list are smart enough to find a way around the firewall. I also think that they would just start up new sites or figure out the firewall filter/rule set before the people imposing the firewall would be able to keep up with them.
ReplyDeleteAlso if we are going to start blocking internet sites, we might as well block other forms of media as well, so that one day we will never really know what is truly going on in the world.
I say nice try, but not a good idea. Instead of spending time and money fixing technology or trying to have technology conform to our views of what is "moral" or socially acceptable. Maybe we should just forget about technology and go back to the old days of actually spending time with real humans and talking to them. Books I think are also good, because it is less like that a crazy book would be published compared to a crazy website. To some extent techonology has/had a part to play in the increasing immorality of society, perhaps? I don't know for sure, but sometimes I think it would be better to live in the "olden" days. Less stress.