Should the government have as much control over the acts of people online as they do? Internet freedom is defined by the ability to safely use the internet with all privacy knowing that your actions online are completely confidential. Internet freedom is an unspoken of, but important right that everyone should have. It enables a person to truly embrace themselves online without having to worry about the fact that they are being observed. The following information is about how governments exert control over the internet in different places and how that affects the world. A few examples of places are given with the regulation and control described showing why I feel that the government should not have as much control over the acts of people online as it does now. A government should only have a certain amount of control over what people do online and not more than that otherwise it starts to become a violation rather than protection.
The government is in charge of the protection of its citizens and regulating the economy. If this is the case then why is the government taking control over such things like the internet and what people do on it? How come the government in some places has the rights to dictate what its citizens do on their private computers or phones. Unless it’s completely illegal, I don’t see why the government gets to dictate what the people do and do not do online. To think that the government gets to keep track of what people do is a huge violation of human rights. People have a right to freedom of thought and expression and these rights are violated when the government has as much control as it does now.
Everything someone does on the internet is meant to be between themselves and their devices rather than the people in the government too. These rights are even more further violated when places regulate what people are allowed to do on the internet, examples of these include Dubai’s ban on online video and audio calling and China’s regulatory ban on social media.
Firstly, starting off with Dubai, Dubai, an extremely developed city, full of many intellectuals and architecture beyond one’s imagination, is behind in so many ways. It has a ban on so many activities such as; “a ban on internet content that allows access to blocked content, internet content that allows access to criminal learning information such as online platforms that allow learning bomb making etcetera, third is internet content that allows dating as that is against the ethics they have, fourth is a ban on platforms that allow purchase of drugs and other illegal substances, fifth is a ban on internet content that shows nudity, homosexuality or pornography. The rest include ban on content that promotes terrorism, acts that offend religion, downloading of spyware, falsifying yourself and even video calling online” (dubaicityguide, paragraph 1). As a city that is so advanced in so many different ways, these bans show so much unfairness and such a violation or rights that people have. Now, I do not agree that the government should have so much control over what people do on the internet, but that does not mean that I am completely supportive of people being at total liberty when it comes to using the internet freely. This means yes, I do support some of the bans that Dubai has placed on the usage of the internet such as the ban on usage of spyware and the ban on terrorist acts as well as the ban on learning pages that teach the process of criminal acts. At the same time, I am against the ban of the dating pages and the video calling, also the banning of pornography or homosexual acts as this is something personal and private and the government should not be able to dictate what people watch online when it comes to things like these. Pornography is not something that is bad or would harm the people around and nor are dating profiles. I feel that these are personal things that people need to help themselves. There is nothing wrong with finding a girl/boy for yourself online as this is something that people need in their lives and the government should have no authority over peoples dating lives. If someone goes to Dubai, for instance to study, and they need to contact their parents over the phone, they would not be able to for free. They would have to make international phone calls as you wouldn’t be allowed to call using the internet and that also is something that they would not want to do but are forces to do anyway. Other than the ban of criminal activity and spyware, no other regulation by the government is justifiable as it goes against some basic human rights including right to freedom of expression, right to privacy, right to play and right to protection by the law. All these rights have been violated for years and this shows that there is barely any freedom there when it comes to the internet, but it is still better than what China has to go through.
China, the hub of new technology and innovation is so behind when it comes to using that very same technology, reason being, China has placed a ban on more online usage than the UAE. China has banned over ten social medias such as; Facebook, skype, Pintrest, Instagram, snapchat and so on. China has been keeping its citizens away from social media like it is their responsibility to dictate what they do and do not do. Can you imagine living in a country with no social media whatsoever? A place where you cannot express yourself online like the rest of the world, people in China cannot be like the rest of the world. They live in a place where social media is a crime and is banned like it some sort of sinful activity that needs to be punished. Why are governments like this able to take charge and have so much control of peoples’ lives? People in China are in a way completely disconnected from the world due to these bans on the media they can use and this in turn is not good as not only are they stopped from being themselves online but they are in a way like prisoners kept away from the real world. This breakage of some human rights in a way affect the way these people grow and learn. They are probably not to date with the world. This is especially bad for children growing up as when they go to any other place outside of China they would not be able to relate to the other people their age as they are not aware of everything that goes on informally on the internet. This does not mean things like general knowledge and the news, surely that they may be up to date with, but when it comes to relating to their own generation they may not be able to keep track of. This is because everything the youth learning these days is through social media and in way social media is a safe platform for everyone to express themselves. Kids in China would be unable to communicate with people their own age and all of this is because the government has taken so much charge over what people get to do online. A report by CNBC done on this very same issue states many reasons why this regulation is not fair. “Regulators have moved aggressively to curtail what the country's more than 750 million internet users can or cannot do online. While Beijing has shut out access to Google and Facebook in the past, new restrictions introduced this year have been some of the strictest ever, according to experts” (Ming & Choudhury, paragraph 3). Not only has social media been on regulations but “New rules also require online news websites to be overseen by government-approved editorial staff and for workers to have reporting credentials from the central government. Those limitations are likely here to stay, and may even grow, tech experts and china watchers told CNBC” (Choudhury, paragraph 5&6). This would be affecting companies now too, not only is the youth affected but so are the industries. China has the world’s second largest economy (Choudhury, paragraph 2) and this economy is under such strict government regulations to the point that it may become difficult to handle that economy. Businesses may be affected negatively due to this new rule. Negative impact on the businesses in a way will eventually reflect poorly on the country as well and over time lead to a decline in the conditions of the country’s economy. This is bad for the government itself so the control exerted on the people in turn will eventually come back and affect the government in a bad way.
I do not say that the government should not have any control over the internet, surely there has to be some sort of authority or else people may end up doing illegal things using the internet such as learning and teaching criminal activity or creating all sorts of platforms for terrorist activities. This needs to be kept in check by the government. For me, the main concern is that- why should governments be able to have so much access to so much and be such a big part of peoples’ personal lives when all their intervention is needed in is the safety and security aspect of the internet? Governments being able to parent what their citizens do online violates basic rights that people have and I feel that is out of line.
Another country that bans has internet censorship is Turkey. According to sources, “Turkey has taken a bold step in 2007 in order to regulate, and to ‘clean’ the internet from undesirable content, which resulted in the censorship of websites. The censored sites ranged from child and adult pornography websites to commonly used platforms such as YouTube, Blogger or Alibaba.com” (Akgul, pg 3). Turkey is quite conservative by itself and having bans on what people can do on the internet is a line being crossed. “As of May 2015, 80,000 websites were banned based on civil code related complaints and intellectual property rights violations, reports the independent website Engelliweb. Blocking decisions rendered by penal courts are enforced even when they are based on grounds other that the nine catalogue crimes – such as terrorism, organised crime and crime against the state. Passed in parliament while ignoring the pleas of NGOs and of the internet sector, the Internet Law No. 5651 has since been used to temporarily ban popular platforms such as Blogger, Last.fm, Vimeo, WordPress and YouTube. At the same time, some blocking decisions by the courts (e.g., Google and Facebook) were not enforced by the authorities. Since its introduction, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled that Law No. 5651 (Council of Europe, 2011) is against the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR, 2013). This article provides an overview of internet censorship and its social background in Turkey” (Akgul, pg 1). This like the other two places violates basic rights.
In conclusion, according to me, I feel that governments should not have as much control over the internet as they do now. This is because when they have that much control over the internet and what people are allowed to say and do on the net, I do believe however that some control should be exerted on the amount, of things that can be done on the internet. This is because many parts of the internet are not completely safe and good to explore and many illegal activities can be done online. Only those websites should be monitored or banned in my opinion, anything else is a violation of human rights such as right to freedom and expression and right to play. People get negatively impacted when things such as the social media blockages in the examples given above and this can lead to people not feeling able to express themselves.