Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
ternet content by blocking messages coming from blacklisted sites. The government
employs human censors to identify sites that should be blacklisted [48]. Among the
Web sites blacklisted by the government include those containing pornography, those
associated with the Dalai Lama or the Falun Gong, those referring to the 1989 military
crackdown, and those run by certain news organizations, such as Voice of America and
BBC News. Before the 2008 Summer Olympics, the International Olympic Committee
assured journalists that they would have unfettered access to the Internet during their
stay in Beijing, but once the journalists arrived in Beijing, they discovered that many
sites were blocked. The International Olympic Committee admitted that it had agreed
to allow to be blocked sensitive sites “not considered Games related” [49]. Some con-
tend that blogs and nongovernmental Web sites are eroding the Chinese government's
ability to restrict the communications of its citizens [48], but the government has not
given up. The government continues to shut down Web sites and censor blogs that it
finds contrary to the interests of the state.
Meanwhile, Western nations have different standards about what is acceptable and
what is not. For example, Germany forbids access to any neo-Nazi Web site, but Web
surfers in the United States can access many such sites.
Political satire and pornography are easily available through American ISPs. Ameri-
cans are used to political satire, but many citizens are concerned about the corrupting in-
fluence of pornography, particularly with respect to minors. Since 1996 the US Congress
has passed three laws aimed at restricting access of children to sexually explicit materials
on the Web: the Communications Decency Act, the Child Online Protection Act, and
the Children's Internet Protection Act. The first two laws were ruled unconstitutional by
the US Supreme Court; the third was upheld by the Supreme Court in June 2003.
It is interesting that Immanuel Kant and John Stuart Mill, who had quite different ethical
theories, had similar views regarding censorship.
KANT'S VIEWS ON CENSORSHIP
As a thinker in the tradition of the Enlightenment, Kant's motto was, “Have courage
to use your own reason” [50]. Kant asks the rhetorical question, “Why don't people
think for themselves?” and answers it: “Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why so
great a portion of mankind, after nature has long since discharged them from external
direction, nevertheless remain under lifelong tutelage, and why it is so easy for others to
set themselves up as their guardians. It is so easy not to be of age. If I have a book which
understands for me, a pastor who has a conscience for me, a physician who decides my
diet, and so forth, I need not trouble myself. I need not think, if I can only pay—others
will readily undertake the irksome work for me” [50, p. 85].
The Enlightenment was a reaction to the institutional control over thought held
by the aristocracy and the Church. Kant believed he was living in a time in which the
obstacles preventing people from exercising their own reason were being removed. He
opposed censorship as a backward step.
