Lecture 7 - Politics and Censorship: The Political Mine Field

Politics of the internet is something which, in the past, would not have even occurred to me to think about. Until the recent media frenzy concerning Julian Assange and the Wikileaks hype, the political aspects concerning the internet and its use were not something to which I had paid close attention. To digress from the topic for a moment, throughout my study of 'New Communications Technology' I have been amazed at the sheer number of times that I have thought to myself, 'I have never thought of it like that', and the content of today's lecture was no exception. The mention of the word 'politics' is usually enough to switch my brain off before the discussion has even begun. Today, however, the lecture prompted me to think about the politics involving the internet in relation to democracy and freedom of expression.

The particular issues that concern me are censorship of the internet and media blacklists. An article from The Age raises many valid points as to the effectiveness of internet censorship and the political mine field that is the combining of censorship and democracy. The article describes the chastising of Chinese authorities by the Australian government for enforcing internet censorship and blocking access to the internet for the assembled media prior to the Beijing Olympic Games (The Age, 2008). The Australian government appeared to have abandoned their stance with the proposed internet censorship campaign. Valid concerns about the proposed internet censorship involve the results of a closed trial in Tasmania which '... found that most filters could not identify illegal or inappropriate content' (The Age, 2008). A worrying factor is the high probability of filtering mistakes - either filtering out acceptable content or the lack of identification of harmful content linked to acceptable sites. Another stance that I am in agreement with is the censorship of sites that, under the guise of democracy, should be left up to the individual adult to decide whether to view certain content.

Media blacklists are another area for debate that I have previously not considered. Despite the fact that the media blacklist is supposed to be confidential government information, some of the information appears to have made its way into the publics' hands, through sites such as Wikileaks or similar. The concerning issue for me is the grey areas of the blacklist that include blacklisted internet sites, etc that have unexplained reasons for their blacklist. In my opinion, the withholding of information when there is no apparent need to withhold is not '... in the spirit of freedom and democracy' (Luft, 2007).

Loewenstein, A. (2008, November 10). Government uploads hypocrisy with internet censorship [Electronic version]. The Age. Retrieved January 25, 2011, from http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/government-uploads-hypocrisy-with-internet-censorship-20081109-5kuz.html

Luft, E. v.d. (2007). A socialist manifesto. Maryland, U.S.A.: United Book Press.