Monday, February 1, 2010

Censorship around The World Blog Assignment # 2, Google and Netizens

What is Democracy on the World Wide Web?  From the research I conducted on this very subject; I found that even the United States has a double-standard when it comes to censorship. For instance, Sec. of  State Hillary Rodham Clinton stated publicly that she was proud of Google's decision to stand up against the Chinese goverment against censorship; but, she didn't mention how the United States conducts censorship, too.  Her comments according to other politicians and security software scientists, was no more than a "cheerleading for Google" and in order for the internet to allow free speech there must be a worldwide discussion among members of countries to put laws in place to allow freedom of speech(www.technewsworld.com/story/69171.html).  The problem started with Google and the Chinese government when the Chinese try to hack twenty companies affiliated with Google, because they were trying to access email accounts of political dissenters in December, 2009 (www.cnn/2010/TECH/01/12google.china/index.html).  The Senior Vice president of Google's operations in China, David Drummond stated that the Chinese government for the past year has been conducting surveilance of the coming and goings of Google's employees; and this most recent cyber attack in December has made the company considered leaving China all together(www.cnn/TECH/01/12google.china/index.html). 
Google originally agreed in 2006 to censor the company according to Chinese law and to set-up a server according to local laws, in order to operate their business in China (www.cnn.com/2006/BUSINESS/0125/google/china/html).  So, it took only three years for Google to get sick and tired of the censorship from China? No, this past week after a heated debate between Google and the Chinese government, the two entities came up with an amicable agreement, and for now it looks like Google will still operate in China.

 Background of Netizens in China and elsewhere:

Netizens are people who join internet forum sites, that the people all share a common philosophy and discuss their thoughts with one another.  The netizens have helped politicians' raise money for their campaigns and also have made remarks about a candidate they do not endorse.  In the 1990's, the American Heart Ass. reached out to people that had either suffered from a congenital heart problem or someone they loved and; as a result the netizens petitoned their state governors to make Feb. 14th Congenital Heart Disease Day (NIH).  It took the netizens about one to two years to have this day recognized officially into law (NIH).

China Netizens:
Even though China bans Twitter, and other social-media sites, the Chinese people have still found ways around the censorship by using micro-blog sites to communicate with each other, and to show the autrocities committed by their government with the use of cellphones and video camcorders, to get the footage out to the rest of the world to see.  In China 92% of the people are netizens and by 2015 the numbers will rise from 300 million to 500 million netizens, and currently there are only 76% of the U.S. population that are netizens (www.readwriteweb.com/archives/despite_banning_twitter_92_china_uses_social_m...). The Chinese government uses a software component to stop people from discussing openly the political rhetoric, and it is called "GreenDam Software Censoring, and all computers sold in China must have this censoring software built inside each and every computer" (www.readwriteweb.com/archives/despite_banning_twitter_92_uses_social_m...).  The GreenDam Software is able to pick out a list of words or phrases and ban them immediately from netizens in China to ever being able to reach their intended audience.  Even when China has military conflicts with a soverign country, Taiwan; the Chinese government bans any internet information from getting out, so they think!  When there was a social uprising between the "Flaun Dafu Muslim group that wanted religous freedom, subject of democracy, China tried to block the the comments on the web" (www.readwriteweb.com/archives/despite_banning_twitter_92_uses_social_m...).  The Chinese government blocked or banned Twitter and Facebook when the Uighur Muslims were protesting in the thousands; and a bloody violent confrontation erupted that left 140 of the muslim protestors' dead; but the netizens of China were still able to capture the bloody images with their cellphones and used micor-blogging sites that allow the world to see the horrible events that the Chinese government committed.  "China's constitution supposeably guarantees freedom of speech, and the government employs a "subversion of state power clause" which is employed to punish those who are critical of the government (www.readwriteweb.com/archives/despite_banning_twitter_92_uses_social_m...).  The clause was most recently used against the Uigher Muslims and banned social-networking sites: Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, and Bing. Images below Picture 1 shows Google taking their sign down, Picture 2 shows where the internet is blocked.

The United States has been committing censorship to countries that have U.N. sanctions put in place: Syria, Sudan, Iran, and North Korea from purchasing goods that have more than ten percent of components made in the U.S.A., other than food or medical supplies (http://globalvoicesonline.org/2010/01/26/syria-netizens-discuss-sourceforge-ban/print/).  In Syria for the past year has been having a hard time logging into a server from the United States called SourceForge; and this is used for internet users to conduct educational research and to download other materials.  In January of this year the United States has completely stopped all access to the online server to these banned countries from using SorceForge.net- These are the errors they see when trying to access SourceForge:

 link (http://globalvoicesonline.org/2010/01/26/syria-netizens-discuss-sourceforge-ban/print/).  So, this is hyprocritical to what Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's stance on Google's decision to stand their ground against the Chinese government of censorship, when the United States is doing the same thing!  Some people would argue, that the United States has different reasons for censorship to these countries like Syria, because they are enemies' to our national security; so isn't China?
The web traffic on the World Wide Web has been growing at a phenominal rate, that even the filters that governments put in place will not stop the people of the world from beating the censorship; because some people out there are extremely ingenious and can always hack around these filters to let the news out one way or another (http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/15/can-google-beat-china/?pagemode=pr...).  For instance, when I watched the video on Myanmar, the journalists' video camcorders were confiscated by the military, but they were still able to capture images of the brutality being committed against the citizens of Myanmar with the journalist's cellphones (http:abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=3666307) Even Iran, the freedom protestors have been able to show the death of many protestors with the use of cellphones, even though Iran tries to block the internet.  This will never stop netizens from distributing the images with the "Long Tail' of the internet because it is to vast and infinite for governments to stop.

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